Every year, graduating Leadership Development Program (LDP) students in the Philippines go to work camp where they engage in community service. The yearly work camp usually engages students in missionary work to unreached tribal groups, but this year the students extended a helping hand to typhoon victims.

At the end of October, LDP students from all over the Philippines came together in Manila, Santa Mesa, Novaliches and Bulacan for the annual camp. They were tasked to perform community service for those who had been badly affected by Typhoon Ketsana, which dumped more than a month’s worth of rain in just 12 hours, fueling the worst flooding to hit the Philippines in more than 40 years. (more…)

Whew!

This has been a busy year. Our world is in turmoil and much of that turmoil is affecting Compassion’s work.

Here’s a snapshot of the things I’ve reported over the past 11 months:

military rebellion, slum fire, dengue fever outbreak, H1N1 virus outbreak, flooding, strike, civil conflict, volcanic eruption, earthquake, heavy rains, political unrest, hotel bombings, protests and violence, typhoons, meningitis outbreak, polio outbreak, cholera outbreak, famine, landslide, tribal war, ferry sinking, riots.

As an organization entirely dependent on your trust, we have made a commitment to be honest and transparent in everything we do. This means, among other things, that we do our best to let you know as soon as possible when your child is affected by a crisis or disaster.

In a perfect world, here’s how the process would work:

• Within 24 hours of a crisis, our Field Communications Specialist (FCS) submits a crisis report via e-mail. This e-mail comes to an inbox that I check regularly.
• As soon as I receive this e-mail, I determine whether funds will need to be raised to provide relief, and summarize the report and e-mail it to our partner countries (the countries where the sponsors live).
• Meanwhile, the FCS is in contact with the Partnership Facilitators (PF), field-based staff members who are contacting our affected church partners.
• The FCS then submits a follow-up report via e-mail, with further details from the PFs about which centers are affected, how they are affected, and any other relevant details, photos or video.
• As soon as the church partners are able to provide specific information on registered children, the FCS e-mails that information to me. I do a quality check and then forward that information to the partner countries.
• Each partner country then contacts all the sponsors with affected children to let them know the status of their child.

Seems pretty cut and dried, right? And often, the process works exactly as I just described it.

However, as we all know, we do not live in a perfect world. Sometimes a disaster will wreak havoc on the field’s end, thus affecting our communications process.

Let’s take the recent typhoons in the Philippines as an example. (more…)

Typhoon Ketsana, which struck the Philippines on September 26, damaged more than 1,500 homes of Compassion-assisted children and families, and nearly 20 student centers were affected by the storm.*

Ketsana hit the Philippines on a Saturday, the day when registered children gather at the student centers. But on September 26 not many arrived at Marikina Foursquare Student Center. Ketsana was already pounding hard.

However, some children did come.

Bernadette, the center director, fed them and instructed them to go home immediately. And as she planned to visit the homes of other children to give them some food because the floodwaters were rising fast, she was called by her own family. Her home was flooded too.

“What I have learned from this is not to look back on the possessions I lost, but rather focus on saving myself and my loved ones. On that day, I couldn’t attend to the needs of the children since my own home was in disarray.”

In the following days Bernadette reports that none of the children from her student center were hurt, although all of their homes were flooded, damaged in some way or destroyed completely.

The student center and its surrounding communities were completely submerged under water. And five days after the typhoon, homes and communities were still flooded, muddied, stinky and a mess.

Mirasol, a mother at the church, says,

“It is still a nightmare for me. I still vividly recall images of people being swept away by the water. I couldn’t sleep thinking that I was not able to help them as they were crying, as they were swept away towards the river. My child was crying the loudest, ‘Mother, Mother, the water is so high already!’”

Two of Mirasol’s children, Maribel and Dominic, are registered at the student center. They are safe but their home is still under water.

Miguel, another child from the student center, says he was so afraid because he got separated from his father when his father took his mother to safety first, but could not come back for Miguel and his younger brother because of the dangerously strong current.

Miguel and his brother were rescued by a neighbor, also a Compassion parent, as the boys jumped from roof to roof. They were reunited with their parents the next day at the church, but their tiny home was washed away completely.

Miguel’s father confesses,

“I pounded on my heart in anguish, crying. I was thinking of my boys all the time. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to look for them several times. I even waded back and forth in the water calling out for my sons.”

But despite the situation he and his family now find themselves in, Miguel’s father says,

“I won’t complain because I still have what truly matters.”

His family.

When natural disasters strike, Compassion’s Disaster Relief Fund provides sponsored children and their families with food, clothing and basic supplies to help rebuild their lives. Learn more about the Disaster Relief Fund.

*Editor’s note: In the wake of a disaster we contact each sponsor who has a child affected by that disaster. We do so once we receive details from the country office about the child. If your child was affected by either Typhoon Ketsana or Typhoon Parma, you will be contacted when we receive information about your child.

You know when you go on a mission trip that is a completely life-changing experience, and you come back all fired up? You just stared injustice in the face and realized you can actually do something about it. Your life takes on new purpose. It’s like the small seed of justice that had been lying dormant within you suddenly bloomed, and you feel an almost uncontrollable urge to share your experience with others in a way that will make them understand what has to be done.

You know that feeling?

That’s the type of passion-driven person the Compassion Philippines office hires. And they’ve come up with a pretty unique way to find those people. (more…)