Update Typhoon Ondoy/Ketsana report from Craig, October 3rd 2009.
Sheltering from Typhoon Pepeng.
Dear Friends, Well, your prayers, thoughts, meditations, warm wishes, whatever worked! The typhoon changed course and we were spared. That does not mean we - Captain Roger and I - did not work all night monitoring the rivers height and flow, picking up flood victims and looking after people in the evacuation centres. As of now I have not counted the number of people we looked after last night… there were well over 300 at Mango, the children’s home of the Asian Students Christian Trust, and Papaya, the school of the Kalinga at Pag-ibig Foundation. The reason I do not know the exact numbers is because I had to eventually order my staff to either go to sleep or go home since they have worked so, so hard over the past week. They fully deserve massive praise. Today we were blessed with so many volunteers… a group from the British Embassy, People Support, Caroline Cliff, Clare Leonard and friends, Medic Randy and family, Julie, Kurt, Paulette, Coy and Hazel and, of course, ‘Saint’ Sarah McLeod (who will get into heaven whether she likes it or not!) and her boys, and others whose names I unfortunately didn’t get … who all came along to help.

Though Roger and I have not slept yet we are still going strong (Red Bull should sponsor us!)  We first distributed relief goods in Barangay (Political District) De la Costa  - Roger insisted we help another political district before his because he recognised that their plight was even worse (although how does one quantify ‘even worse’). Up to a thousand people queued in clinging mud, in an orderly fashion, to receive welcome food parcels. You will see photos here tomorrow http://www.bwamanila.com/photos.html ,  that will be shocking! In convoy, we moved to San Jose Sub-Urban were we had planned a medical mission , where probably over a thousand men, women and children waited patiently for diagnosis and treatment.  Many of our volunteers toured the streets dispensing water and helping shovel mud, Eventually we had to call the Red Cross for support as we were exhausted, as I write this we are still waiting for them and hundreds are still being helped. Randy’s wife and  Belinda Baguio whose birthday it is today meanwhile stayed at the largest evacuation centre cooking for over 1000 individuals.

Annette and Gina (you both deserve medals) of Springboard Foundation have been the roots of the donors, Mike Oomens and friends of the International School of Manila have also been an incredible help and many others have kept us humble by working so hard to support and get all that is needed. Our list of donors is so long but some day I will thank you all. Jane and PCF have also turned over donations made to them knowing we needed them more!

The good news is the predicted disaster was averted, people were saved and many, many were helped and continue to be helped!  How on earth do we thank you all?  For those of you who are Christians, God bless you, for those of you who are not, blessings upon  you also.

The Red Cross have just called to say that they will not be able to come tonight … but are willing to offer full support in the future and have whatever medicines we need. This means in a few minutes we will have to disappoint those still waiting to be treated but it is past  eight in the evening and we are all exhausted. NB The few medical personnel actually did stay and saw everyone, they must have been exhausted.

Please do not grow tired of donating as so much more remains to be done. Those who were able to give of their time today found that no words would explain how much the people here are suffering…  mud up to three feet deep clogging their roads and homes, rain, the remains of their lives stacked up in muddy piles outside their homes…   Some pictures you will see on the BWA Blog tomorrow will barely give you the true picture. Whilst news reports find some other calamity to attract our interest, thousands of families will go to bed hungry in damp, muddy conditions tonight and for many nights to come. Yet you have helped so many.

The few pictures are from last night. We will have more later. However it is past 11pm and I think I may need some sleep…

Thank you and blessings,