After 30+ hours on a bus we finally made it to Tacloban! We are staying in a house near the beach that is being restored after Typhoon Yolanda. We were talking to the staff and they said the water reached up to chest level on the second floor during the storm. The ceiling had been broken out because people had to climb into the rafters to escape the flooding. They have done so much here to restore the home and make it into a ministry site. It is now called the The Lighthouse.
There’s a motto here at The Lighthouse that the staff wears on their shirts–“Tindog Tacloban.” It means, “to rise up” in Waray. The staff has spent the last few months repairing the house, expanding their farm, and developing their ministry in the local community. It’s been amazing hearing their stories. Some of the staff was here during the storm and are suffering from PTSD, but they still have so much joy and a heart for serving the community. Right now we are gearing up for the one year anniversary of Typhoon Yolanda. We are hosting a three day event here at The Lighthouse starting November 8th, and are inviting everyone in the area. There is a ton of work to be done, especially with construction, so please be praying for energy and provision of supplies as we go all out to get everything done before the event! We want this to be a time where people can come together to remember and heal. More than that, we want the community to feel the love of The Lord through the work being done here.
Our squad is working on digging out the front yard for a playground for the kids in the community, building a home behind the property for a family to move in, playing with the kids in the neighborhood, community bible studies, bringing food to people in poor neighborhoods and schools, and a variety of other construction and children’s projects. We are working hard, and love feeling like we are really accomplishing something here.
On our first day in Tacloban we took a tour of the area. The squad explored huge cargo ships that had wrecked on shore in the middle of towns during the storm, and as we drove further inland were surprised to see how far the waters had reached. The staff took us to a rundown church and beside it we saw a mass grave with dozens of pictures of young children, babies, and entire families buried in the field. There are dozens of these mass graves throughout the city. I came across a plot with several young children all under the age of 5. Next to it was a grave that was overgrown with dried shrubs and a simple cross marking the resting place of a girl born in 1992. We were the same age, and she died in the storm.
There are so many stories I could tell you after just one week of people I have met that have lost so much, but have more hope and joy in The Lord than I ever could have imagined. They are not discouraged by what they have had to endure, or what they have lost. Instead, they tell me that this experience has reminded them of the absolute necessity of The Lord in their lives. One woman I talked to named Evelyn lives in a concrete house the size of my bedroom back home with her 17 family members. She used to live in a huge house, but it was destroyed in the typhoon. She lost her brother, uncle, and two cousins. We went to her home for a Bible study and she cried as she told me of the family she missed, but she found comfort in James 1:
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Thank you for reading! I’m sorry if this blog is all over the place, but there’s so much to share. As always, please feel free to email me or comment below. I read the updates whenever I can get wifi and love hearing from everyone! As for future blogs, it might be a while before I can post again because we are not taking an off day until after the anniversary on November 8th so we have more time to get everything done 🙂 We have time to rest after church on Sundays, but Wifi is going to be limited. I will try to let you know what’s happening when I can!
God Bless,
Taryl
