Many times in life we can physically move out of a place but it takes a while for our heart to catch up with us. The typhoon that hit Manila was one of the worst in many years and hit international news. I often skip over these type of stories at home because they are happening in a country so far away and don’t impact me.
This time I was at the center of it. The Hostel we were staying at was in the area that was impacted the worst. Tondo and Navotas were terribly impacted and pictures of the flooding in these locations hit the Internet. Our team was able to move out of our hostel only a day before the power went out and people were evacuated.
Safely sheltered in a ministry site about two hours from our hostel, the rain still continued to pour down. Listening to the rain beat the roof above my head, I could only imagine all those families in their houses made from garbage and built on 2-by-4s over the ocean. I couldn’t imagine how they were surviving.
Houses built over the ocean (many of these were lost in the typhoon)
The rain eventually ceased but implications from the storm remained.
59 people have been reported dead and many from Tondo and Navotas. Our ministry contact told us that over 50 homes fell off into the ocean and were completely destroyed and families were living in the church where we worked.
While I am thankful that they have a place to go, it is not the type of place you would want to seek shelter. When we would go there after a couple hours of rain, the church would be flooded and we would find ourselves trudging through ankle deep water in our rubber boots. It is hard for me to even picture the state of the church after days of rain.
All of our rubber boots
Muddy road prior to rain
We also found out that because of all the rain, many waterborne diseases have become present and our team will be unable to go back. Being the person that I am, I would have done anything to go back and help the families rebuild. Not being able to go back and simply say goodbye is difficult.
Our wonderful ministry hosts who I will miss, Brenda and Maureen
As this month begins to come to a close, I realize the intensity of what 11 countries in 11 months really means. It means connecting and loving the people we get the honor to minister to.
It means saying goodbye and forever leaving a piece of my heart with those places—How crazy it is to think that by the end of this 11 months, I will have pieces of my heart left in places all around the world.
On a side note: We got to visit Daranak waterfall on Sunday which was AMAZING! We were planning on jumping but they were not allowing people to jump–we still climbed up a part of it and jumped.
