Greetings in the Precious Name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!
Since Friday night and until early the morning of Sunday, a very strong typhoon battered the Philippines, particularly the entire island of Luzon, dumping, a reported 455 millimeters of rain in 24 hours that even surpassed the amount of rain unleashed by the catastrophic Hurricane “Katrina” in the southern parts of the United States in August, 2005.
News accounts disclosed that the heavy downpour left some areas in the Metropolitan Manila under up to 20 feet of water, shocking the country that is already used to being battered by typhoons. In the evening of Saturday, it submerged houses as a number of people were even drowned in their own homes, washed away many shanties and turned roads into raging rivers, forcing most residents to seek refuge on top of homes or cars, where they waited for more than 24 hours. It was reported, “rescuers struggled through heavy traffic and darkness of the night to bring residents of flood stricken areas, who were perched on their roofs carrying their children and cherished possessions, to safer grounds.”
The extent of devastation in many of areas in Metro Manila showed many houses destroyed, overturned vans and cars, and every street and highways covered in much debris and mud. The tropical storm “Ondoy” left the country yesterday leaving a trail of 95 people dead, 29 missing, over 47,000 displaced and about 300,000 families affected (that number has risen since Brother Jeremiah’s initial report).
We thank the Lord that His Hand of mercy and protection was upon the believers all during this time. Although there were Message churches – especially in the worst-hit areas of Marikina, Pasig and Rizal – that were fully submerged in the floodwaters, no believers had reportedly been seriously hurt during this time. We still do not have contact with many of the worst-hit churches at this time.
Many Message books in these flooded churches and in the believers houses were washed out and need to be replaced. There also were a number of believers who were stranded while on their way home last Saturday morning, but were only able to come home in the evening of Sunday already when most floodwaters started to subside. They had to struggle their way up much higher grounds and structures that they could find and needed to ride garbage and rescue trucks to find their way home. As most churches were still able to hold services last Sunday morning, there were those who could not on account of floodwaters reaching to their rooftops. We are revisiting these churches to bring in some more help that we could bring for them especially used clothing that they were asking for, as most of their possessions have been washed out during the flood.