Baptist Global Response

MANILA, Philippines – Thirty Southern Baptist disaster relief specialists have completed a week’s labor in the Philippines capital, helping local partners and community residents dig out from a flood that inundated vast sections of the city.

Faced with monumental disaster, residents of Manila hardly knew where to begin trying to put their lives back together. (Photo/Gloria Fern)

“The past few weeks have been filled with disaster, starting with 16 inches of rain in one day that left metro Manila 80 percent flooded,” said Gloria Fern, a Southern Baptist field partner in the Philippines. “Then a typhoon made landfall three times up north, flooding out the top part of Luzon and destroying the entire rice crop. Landslides cut off the major roads, the major dams are all full and gates had to be opened, causing more flooding. The Luguna de Bay lake left surrounded towns in knee-deep flooding that will take five months to subside. And there are two more storms on the horizon.”

The Philippines government has estimated about 6 million people were affected by typhoons Ketsana and Parma. More than 287,000 people remain in evacuation centers.

The Southern Baptist volunteers – 29 men and one woman from Texas, Oklahoma and Kentucky – have been helping local residents shovel out their homes, enduring difficult work conditions and the stench of rotting debris, Fern said. Some of the work has been done in pastors’ homes and church buildings, while the rest has focused on the community in general. A public school was on the agenda for Oct. 12.

“We took them to Malanday, Marikina, which was flooded up to the second story in many areas,” Fern said. “I was so impressed with their expertise, commitment and just good old ‘git busy and git ‘er done’ attitude! And yet taking time to talk to people and even pass out lollipops to the kids.

“The smell was putrid, rotting two-weeks-old sewer and garbage – yet everyone there smiled and chatted with us like it was just another normal day,” Fern added. “We are so proud to see these brave, rugged Baptist men who are trained to go to some of the worst diasters ever and clean up!”

Southern Baptist disaster relief specialists get to work in Manila, helping residents dig out after flooding that inundated 80 percent of the city. (Photo/Gloria Fern)

One volunteer, Ray Fultz of Crestwood Baptist Church in Frankfort, Ky., was injured when a nail pierced the middle finger of his right hand while he was helping clean out a church building, according to Kathy North, another Southern Baptist field partner in the Philippines. While Fultz was up to date on his tetanus shots, the finger became infected over the weekend and a doctor was tending to the wound.

Flooding often is followed by severe medical concerns and that is the case in Manila, noted Jim Brown, U.S. director for Baptist Global Response.

“News reports indicate the water is still waist-deep, even chest-deep in places,” Brown said. “It has been standing for three weeks now. The longer water stagnates, the greater the risk of diseases like malaria, dengue fever, diarrhea – even typhoid.”

Fern echoed that concern: “The cities of Marikina, Cainta, Pasig are in dire need of medical teams, but even before that they need front loaders and more dump trucks to even make a dent in the mounds and mounds of garbage heaped less than a foot from their doors.”

Residents of the community where the volunteers are working have been deeply moved by the fact that Southern Baptists care enough to come help people in need, even in the most difficult of circumstances, Fern said.

“Thank you for caring about our fellow Christians in this community and the lost people around them,” she said.

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To help with the cost of the Philippines relief effort, contributions may be made to the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund or BGR’s Disaster Response Fund by clicking here.

More photos from Manila may be found on Gloria Fern’s Facebook site.

BGR Executive Director Jeff Palmer explains disaster relief efforts underway in the aftermath of a typhoon and two earthquakes in Asia Rim.

Traumatized residents of the Philippines and Indonesia face more difficulty as another strong earthquake rocked Sumatra and a new – even stronger – typhoon is bearing down on the Philippines.

Read more at http://www.baptistglobalresponse.com/new/details.php?id=87

Southern Baptists are gearing up a major disaster response in the wake of a typhoon that flooded the homes of 2.3 million people in the Philippines.

Read about it here.

MANILA, Philippines – Southern Baptists are gearing up a major disaster response in the wake of a typhoon that flooded nearly 2 million homes in the Philippines.

Typhoon Ketsana slammed into Manila and surrounding provinces Sept. 26, dumping a month’s worth of rain in just 12 hours. Relief organizations say it is the country’s worst flooding in 40 years. At least 284 people have been reported dead or missing and nearly 380,000 people have sought shelter in evacuation centers, according to news reports.

Southern Baptists are assessing ways to address relief needs in the wake of the storm, said Jim Brown, U.S. director for Baptist Global Response. The organization is communicating with ministry partners in the Philippines and interacting with Southern Baptist disaster relief teams on standby for emergency response.

“Local ministry partners went to work immediately after the storm, providing emergency food and water provided by the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund,” Brown said. “After receiving preliminary assessment information from local field partners, we are gearing up for a major response in the wake of this typhoon.”

Contributions toward the relief effort can be made here. Updates on relief efforts can be monitored by signing up for BGR’s AlertNet newsletter at http://gobgr.org.

Community development is helping 42 villages on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines where impure drinking water was causing diarrhea – a life-threatening situation for weaker members of the community.

Extension workers had been working among the Higaonon tribe for a couple of years, because they were found to be the most economically depressed people in the area. Many have been helped, but at the conclusion of this project, it has become evident that there is still much work to be done to uplift the physical condition of the Higaonon tribe and the rural Cebuanos.

Five months ago, in a remote village where BGR and partners are working with a Filipino doctor who is sponsored by an American NGO, five children died in a two- or three-day period because of diarrhea brought on by contaminated drinking water.

This past July, Filipino development workers were introduced to a simple bio-sand filter technology that can be produced for around $10. They were able, in cooperation with local officials, to immediately deliver and install four of these filters. Since that time, there have been no cases of diarrhea in the community.

A new project is now ongoing in 13 villages that do not have adequate drinking water. Villagers will be formed into co-ops for training, production, training, and distribution of these filters. Pray that fresh drinking water will be available to all!

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The item above was adapted from “BGR to GO,” a prayer bulletin issued by BGR prayer coordinator Lori Funderburk. A children’s prayer letter also is available. To subscribe the these e-newsletters, visit gobgr.org.