Typhoon Haiyan: How You Can Send Help to the Philippines

It breaks my heart that my first blog post after six months is a plea for help. Many of you know that the country I call home has recently experienced the most catastrophic typhoon called Haiyan (locally called Yolanda).

Numbers seem to add up by the hour. My last known stats are 750,000+ placed in evacuation centers and more than 10,000 in deaths.

These photos can give you a glimpse of the devastation that slammed the nation I love so much.

 

Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

First, I want to thank everyone who called, e-mailed, and texted to ask if our families are safe from the storm. I am blessed to call you my friends.

My family's home was untouched and they are all okay. My husband's mother has family in a neighboring town of Tacloban (where the typhoon hit the hardest). We have yet to get confirmation that they are 100% okay.

Second, I am overwhelmed by the amount of people who care and want to help. I hope that through this blog post, I am able to respond and direct you to organizations that I know can use your donations to provide immediate relief to people who need it the most. I trust them 100% and will continue on connecting with them in helping as many people as possible.


Here are places you can send help to:

EVERY NATION MINISTRIES
We have been missionaries of Every Nation since 2008. Manila was our very first mission field. Every Nation Philippines is mobilizing relief efforts for the city of Tacloban where one of our churches, Victory Tacloban, is located.

VICTORY CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
Victory is an Every Nation church in the Philippines. We served there when we were missionaries in Manila and we consider them family. They have just been amazing at mobilizing relief efforts. If you would like to see photos of the work they have been doing, please save the Twitter hashtag #YolandaRelief. You will discover where your help directly goes to.


Here are other organizations that you can send donations to. I am not personally working with them but I wholeheartedly believe in what they do. I know that your help will also go a long way through their efforts.

Convoy of Hope

Soles4Souls

Compassion International

Samaritan's Purse

For an extensive list of more places to send help to, please click here.

Or here.


I will update this page as soon as I find more organizations sending out help to the Philippines. Please continue to pray for the people most affected by this. Thank you so much for caring.

Golf Tournament Coming Up!

Do you live in Omaha or in a nearby city? Do you love golf? I would like to take this opportunity again to personally invite you to a golf tournament that my husband Robert is organizing.

For more details, please a look at the official poster below.

If you are trying to play golf before it gets too cold, this is a great opportunity to do so. But more importantly, it is going to benefit something that we clearly know God has called us to do in the next couple of years.

My husband is in ministry full-time and is currently a missionary to the Philippines. I have a full-time job in web marketing but I also have the heart in helping him reach out in the city of Metro Manila.

This golf tournament will help us raise funds for the next chapter of our assignment in the Philippines. We are set to do missions work in Manila for the period of January 2011 until July 2013.

If you would like to know what we exactly do there, please click on this link.

The money that we get to raise during our trip here in the United States will help towards expenses such as housing, transportation, health care, Bibles, books, local missions trips, sports programs, outreach activities, mentoring/counseling sessions and other open doors that will allow us to reach out to lost souls, empower the next generation of leaders, and help the poor.

Here are ways you can help in our golf tournament:

1) Play a round. I am not sure how many gorgeous days we have left in Omaha that is perfect for a golf outing. If you want to go out and have fun -- this is an awesome opportunity. And you are helping lives in the process!

2) Form a team. The more the merrier! You save on the registration fee if you decide to create a 4-man team.

3) Volunteer. We need people to help us spread the word and make the event run as smoothly as possible. We could use the extra hands and smiling faces!

4) Donate. If you are physically unable to play or volunteer but have the heart for the nation, donations are welcome! You can either donate prizes (which will be given away in a raffle) or sponsor a hole (any amount will do!). A PayPal donate button is available at the end of this blog post.

5) Pray. We need people who can pray with us that the weather will be great, that people will enjoy their time at the event and be blessed to see what God is doing in the Philippines.


Thank you for taking the time to read this specific blog post. It means a lot to me that you care enough to hear about our journey here. Be blessed today!

Contagious Confession

There were two specific incidents in the recent past that brought me to a place of personal discomfort -- one as a Filipino and one as a follower of Jesus Christ.

First is a policeman's decision to take hostage a number of people (mostly Hong Kong nationals) on a tour bus in Manila, Philippines. It ended in violence, lost lives, and an ugly picture of media mishandling what took place.

Second is the controversial desire of a pastor from a weird little church in Gainesville, Florida to burn the Koran to mark the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Whether he pushes through with it or not is not the point. The condition of his heart already spoke volumes.

While it is true that these acts are choices of two people and do not reflect the character of an entire nation or  a religious denomination, there is an ache in my heart that longs to apologize to the hurting world as if they were my own sins. I couldn't put my finger as to why I feel this way.

And then I read Chapter 25 of a book I recently read. Anne Jackson, in her book "Permission to Speak Freely," discusses it in a chapter called "Ezra's Confession." Let me share with you some of Anne's insights on Ezra and why it is relevant to what I am feeling.

When you look at your Bible and check the Old Testament, you will find the story of Ezra. He is a scribe whose life reflected a true love for the Lord. One day, Ezra was asked to go back to Jerusalem and lead the Jews to back to their own land.

He was the perfect candidate for the job because he loved the Word and has the ability and the heart to teach them more about it. However, as time progressed in his stay in Jerusalem, he started dealing with the problem of mixed marriages. Marrying into other tribes, at that time, was unlawful.

Anne explains Ezra's reaction in her book:

"Ezra was heartbroken that the people he was caring for has messed up. Even though he wasn't one of the people marrying outside of his tribe, the weight of the actions of his nation grieved him. He ripped his clothes and tore out some of his hair, which meant he saw himself just as guilty as everyone else."

When I read this paragraph, I thought it perfectly described the heartache I was feeling when I watched the hostage in horror and heard about the plans to burn the Koran. I do not have the heart to be critical nor angry. I started grieving and confessing the many times in the past that I have enabled (directly or indirectly) a corrupt government, irresponsible media, spiritual self-righteousness, hatred, and the worst of all: those moments where I saw the problem and didn't do anything at all. In my heart, I felt that Rolando Mendoza and Pastor Terry Jones were by-products of a society that I somehow made it comfortable for them to do what they did.

In a time like this, the immediate reaction is point the finger on who to blame. While I refuse to judge those who are angry and critical of Mendoza and Jones, I wonder if something can be truly transformed in our universe if we all made a decision to respond the way Ezra did. It is in this kind of reaction, after all, God does get glorified and the Gospel is activated. When an entire community humbly confesses and declares love instead of criticism, we start allowing our Healer to mend what was broken.

Anne highlighted Ezra's prayer of confession in Ezra 9:6-7, and has now become a part of my daily prayer.

"My God, I am too ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to you, my God, because our sins are so many. They are higher than our heads. Our guilt even reaches up to the sky. From the days of our ancestors until now, our guilt has been great. Because of our sins, we, our kings, and our priests have been punished by the sword and captivity. Foreign kings have taken away our things and shamed us, even as it is today."

I am desperate for healing and freedom for all of us. I long for the day we all make that decision to collectively confess the sins of our generation and finally give God's grace a fighting chance to transform the world we live in.

Elections and Civil Government

This coming Monday, May 10th is a big day for me. The country that I love and that call home will be having its national elections.

Here are some thoughts that have been in my heart lately.

• I am sad that I will not be home to vote. If I knew I would be in the United States at this time, I would have registered so I am eligible to vote from overseas.
• I find it even sadder that I am not voting for a candidate that I know will bring change to a slowly dying nation.
• I have never felt this way about a presidential candidate since I gained the right to suffrage.
• I want him to win not because he is a good family friend.
• I want him to win not because he took the time to fly out and witness our wedding.
• I want him to win not because he went to my school.
• I want him to win because his track record on public service is one of the best I've ever seen.
• I want him to win because he is very intentional in putting things in its proper order -- and order is something our country desperately needs.
• I want him to win because he gives his citizens the dignity and the opportunity to be a part of lasting change in their community.
• I want him to win because through his governance, he opened hundreds of thousands of jobs in Subic Bay Freeport. I can only imagine what he can do for the entire nation.
• I want him to win because he cleverly created "WOW Philippines" -- and people actually wanted to visit our country.
• If you want more reasons why he is the best candidate for the job, read my friend Ganns Deen's thoughts on who he is voting for.
• Reports say that he is unlikely to win.
• Good thing I believe in a God who loves doing miracles.
• My candidate possibly winning is nothing short of a miracle. But it can happen! I am praying for one every day.
• I am so glad this administration is almost over.
• I hope that everyone prays hard on who to vote for. Please choose your leaders wisely.
• Let's put a stop on tactical voting. The spirit of election is who you are voting for and not against.
• I hope that everyone is respectful of each other as they go out and vote.
• No matter who wins, I hope that we aim to respect and submit to government authorities. Doing so is ultimately a respect to our God.
• We can always pray for whoever will lead us.
• At the end of the day, He will always be in charge. The core of our faith must be in Him and not in people.

"But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens." 
(Exodus 18:21)