The mayor assigned the village of Palo to World Renew. It is a bit south of Tacloban. When we arrived to visit the community and meet the local captain, however, another organization came up to us and told us that his organization was already working in that community.

With our goods in a truck two days away, we had to scramble to find a new location where our goods were needed and could do the most good. While still in meetings in Manilla, I had heard that there were a lot of villages below Palo that were not being served. We decided to head further south of Palo to see if this was true.

Since we have not yet acquired a vehicle for World Renew, we travelled south on a public bus. The devastation we witnessed as we looked out the window along the way was disheartening. As we arrived and visited with communities, the hardship became even clearer.

In every community, people have left because their homes are now inhabitable. It is estimated that 5,000 to 6,000 people arrive in Cebu and 800 people at the Manila airport every 48 hours. These are people who have fled their homes and villages elsewhere in the country because it was impossible for them to stay.

We eventually decided to focus our distribution on the Barangay of Bay-Bay, or barangay 89. As I walked through it, I wondered how anyone could continue to live here without help. And yet many people are still here.

Most of the community’s records were lost during the storm. The Barangay captain has made new hand-written lists of the community members.  We spent time carefully copying these lists for our own records to prepare for the upcoming distribution.

It is a long but necessary process as we will be walking with these affected communities through various stages of recovery. We need to make sure that we adequately track who lives there and what their needs are, so that no one is overlooked.

One of the people we met was Rico De Villalino. Before Typhoon Haiyan, he lived with his wife, daughter, son-in-law, and 7 grandchildren. Tragically, his 3 year-old and 4 year-old grandsons both died during the storm. My heart tugs as I think of my own granddaughters who are around the same ages.

Yet his story is not unusual. So many people have lost loved ones in this disaster. It is going to be a mountain of work to help these families get back on their feet, but I know that the task is not impossible.

God enabled us to do something similar following the South Asia tsunami in 2004. Just like the response to that disaster, it is going to take a lot of time, and money for World Renew to adequately meet these needs. I am grateful that so many people have already committed their prayers and financial gifts to the cause. I am also thankful for the wonderful team from the Christian Reformed Church in the Philippines who are here, on the ground, helping with the response.

Blessings,

Grace Wiebe

Senior Disaster Response Manager
World Renew Disaster Response & Rebabilitation