What we saw.....

Thank you for your prayers in answer to the urgent prayer request we sent out two days ago.

We saw so many horrors and tragedies in Cagayan that difficult even to think about

let alone describe but we believe that you would want to know and be a part of this.

So here is a partial account of what we saw, but the whole of it and the smell of it and the awfulness of it we cannot explain to you in full.

There are some pictures we want to share with you that we took 
ourselves – many more you can see on the internet.

But there were also things we saw that we could not photograph as it 
would be too horrific to show.

Our whole missionary experience did not prepare us for what we 
encountered on Monday and Tuesday.

Our inadequacy in the face of what we saw was huge as we are 
not aid workers and have not been exposed

before to tragedies of these huge dimensions.

 But knowing that this tragedy had taken place virtually at our back door

and that there were thousands of people needing help, 
we felt compelled to go and

help in any small way that we could. 

 This woman had lost 8 members of her family.

We sat outside the place where hundreds of bodies had been taken,

and we talked to her and to other people and listened to their stories, cried with them,

hugged them and gave money as we could to help with their needs. Some of the people

could not claim their dead as the flood waters had swept away everything they owned and

they had no money to pay for fees (about $70 per body or 3000 pesos) to redeem

them from the funeral parlors where they had been taken for preserving.

The stench of death was almost unbearable - there were so many bodies

that the funeral parlors were no longer able to preserve them. 

We sat on benches outside surrounding by weeping people,

people covering their noses because of the stench,

some were numb and bewildered,

some were collapsing in shock,

others were in agonizingly weeping and wailing.

Some had been staggering for hours from place to place going everywhere

that the dead bodies had been taken, searching through all the dead looking

for the bodies of their babies, their children, wives, husbands,

parents, grandparents......who had been torn away from their hands by the flood waters.    

This was the coffin of a 3 year old little girl, Chastie.

Her parents were still searching for their baby boy who had also been torn

from their arms by the raging flood waters. 

What you see in the picture is all they have left of their lives:

the sidewalk, their little girl’s dead body along with a few plastic

bags of clothes and food items and water handed to them by relief workers.

A bit further down the sidewalk from this spot was a young mother

sobbing in uncontrollable grief. I went to her and hugged her, and she motioned

to a nearby little coffin and showed me a picture of her

beautiful little six year old with bright eyes and a lovely smile.

“I tried to save her, “ the young mother wept, “but I was carrying my 5 month old

baby and the water was chest deep, the current was so strong and it ripped her out

of my hands. I saw the look on her face as she was pulled under-water

and I can’t stop thinking about how terrified she would have been 
and what she must have went

through as she was drowning. I can’t get it out of my mind, I can’t live with this pain.”

Nearby to that place where Jubab and I stood with this young mother in such pain

we could see bloated dead bodies, one of the bodies was unclaimed

and had been partially covered over with rubbish.

Another was the naked body of a young woman, with her hair matted

with mud, and her arms grotesquely twisted showing the agony of her death.

Others were being discovered by searching relatives who were weeping as they

gathered their dead in their arms.  

The next morning we went back only to find the crowds dispersed

and all the dead bodies we were told had been taken away to the garbage dump.

To us it was inconceivable but this is what happened.

Later we saw pictures of the dumped bodies in the local newspaper, the reporters said they

wept as they witnessed this event first hand.

We went to one of the schools that had been turned into an evacuation center

and saw multitudes of people huddled in family groups, without even a plate or a

spoon to their names as they had just escaped with their lives. We were able to help

some of them with needs they had – but started to get mobbed there so we left but our

hearts just ached for them: the man with a pregnant wife soon to give birth and their house

smashed by the flood and everything swept away, the mother with the asthmatic child

who needs medicine, the young wife who lost her husband and is left with a young child..........

The needs are overwhelming. We gave what we had could,

giving people 5000 pesos each (about $110)

which to put it into perspective over here, is enough

for a family to live on food-wise for about a month.

One of our friends in Cagayan even gave us money to give out which

went to helping 10 families.  

In the end we met three of the bible teachers from Lapoc, and they helped us

in giving out the last of the money we had left to give.

They went down to the river-side and walked up and down.

They saw scenes that moved them incredibly and countless people

in great need.

.

One lady they saw was washing a few little items of clothing in the river.

They asked her where her home was and she motioned

with her hand to the pile of rubbish nearby.

They asked her where she was going to sleep and she

showed them one piece of rusted metal roofing left that she slept under.

They gave her 5000 pesos and she started to cry and she said,

“Oh thank you, thank you!” They said, don’t thank us, it is not from us.

She said, “Who can I thank?”

They said, “It is from God.”