Hi everyone,

Sorry we haven’t sent out any updates in the last few days.  There has been serious flooding here in Manila and has caused widespread devastation.  We are grateful that in our area there hasn’t been the kind of damage as in other parts of the city.

We tried to include what pictures we have taken.  These aren’t world class photos and we really haven’t taken many photos in general.  I’ve found it is hard to stand in front of a woman covered in mud, carrying her baby in one arm and her only possessions in the other and snap a picture.  Hope the descriptions help to give a sense of what’s going on.

First off we wanted to tell you a little bit about Beth and how God preserved her and her children.

Saturday morning for us was a slow one.  We got up late and had pancakes. We were settled in for a relaxing day to maybe watch a movie with the kids and friends.  The rain really started coming down sometime after breakfast but we hadn’t heard anything about the storm prior to that.  Around noon Bana got a text from Beth, one of language teachers, that simply said, “Please pray, I am on the roof with the kids and the water is rising.”

Later Beth told us she arrived home earlier than normal to find her children alone in the house with water already inside.  Her kids who are 11, 10, and 3 years old were just playing in the water.  She quickly decided that they needed to go somewhere higher and headed for her uncle’s house nearby.  When they reached the street the water had already risen to chest height on her 10 and 11 year old.  Neither Beth nor her children can swim and with the strong current it was very difficult to hang onto them.  She said that later she had heard of a man sitting at the school crying because he had tried to wade through the current with his two children.  He had lost hold of them and they were swept away.

Once at her uncle’s Beth and the kids waited and watched as the water rose as rose.  In Marikina, one of the hardest hit areas, it rarely floods and when it does it usually only knee height at worst.  Some folks actually made fun of her for being so serious about the situation.  Many people just stayed in their homes which would later turn out to be fatal.  She said she had no doubt in her mind that they were going to die as well.

The water rose very quickly, partly because of the intensity of the rain (nearly 17 in. fell in less than 24 hours, this is more than the MONTHLY average here!) and partly because the decision was made to open the flood ways which inundated the area.

Here is a shot of the river at the flood way as we crossed the bridge.  It’s hard to get the scale but I’m not sure I have seen as much water flowing that hard and fast before.

When we got the text from Beth we prayed for her and the situation.  We also realized that there was a 4 wheel drive available and (amazingly) one of the NTMA pilots, Joel, had brought his large inflatable kayak from the states.  We decided we would go out as far as we safely could and see if there was any way to reach Beth to help.

I went with 3 NTMA pilots, Josh, Joel, Gary along with my language helper, Wendel, who helped us find our way and to translate.

We left before 3pm and drove for hours.  All along the way there were literally thousands of people wading through the water going every direction.  Most didn’t have anything but the clothes on their backs while a few carried some small bundles of things.  Every now and then we’d see a big truck loaded down with people making its way through the water.

When the water was too deep for the truck Josh, Joel and I put the kayak in and paddled on down the street.  We found the school Beth had described in her texts and started asking around to find if someone knew where she and kids might be.

It was really heart wrenching as people would wade by and say, “Are you here to rescue people?  My family is just there and I can’t reach them. Can you help me?” or “I am looking for food for my children can you take me someplace where I can buy food for them?”  At one point a group of men, carrying another man, passed by and asked if we could help them float him to a hospital.  He had had a heart attack.

There were so many people who needed help it was overwhelming.

Ultimately, after 18 hours and through God’s amazing providence and direction we were able to reach Beth and the kids and bring them back to the NTM guest house.

God had protected them.  He brought her home just in time on a day when she normally would have been out longer.  He brought them all safely across the street to higher ground.  He caused the building to hold up under the pressure of the water and kept it from rising over the roof.  We are all so grateful to God for protecting them!

This is a shot of the house where Beth and the kids were staying.  The upper line is where the water crested and the lower is where it had dropped to by the time we came.

(More to come, we had to split this into two parts so it wouldn’t be too big)

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