Restoring hope
Major Donna Bryan shares the pain, faith and hopes she met in The Philippines.
On 2 November 2013 an ‘area of low pressure’ started to generate a stormfront and
meteorologists’ concerns, east-southeast of the Federated States of Micronesia.
On 8 November, those concerns were realised with the official death toll of more than 6,260
people as typhoon Haiyan. Haiyan, known as ‘Yolanda’ by Filipinos, hit The Philippines;
hard and repeatedly. The unofficial death toll is closer to more than 10,000 lives lost.
The biggest storm in three decades and the 30th ‘named storm’ in the 2013 Pacific typhoon
season, Yolanda has been adjudged the deadliest typhoon to devastate an often devastated
region, as well as being the strongest storm recorded on land and the unofficially strongest
typhoon, according to windspeed.
The typhoon’s wake holds some 15 million people in its mire, including five million children.
Disease and an eradication of infrastructure seemingly contend with the lack of clean water,
food, shelter and sanitation to see what aspect can wreak the most damage to a damaged
nation.
The Salvation Army Australia Southern Territory’s Major Donna Bryan toured damaged
areas of The Philippines in March with colleagues. It was part of her role as president of the
Asian Church Women’s Conference* and an opportunity to express solidarity on the part of
Christian women of the region.
‘People were starving and looting their neighbours’ houses and businesses,’ she explains.
‘One woman came home to find she didn’t even have a teaspoon left.’
The aftermath of the typhoon presents logistical, ethical and justice challenges of a scale that
is difficult for Western nations to comprehend. ‘There are concerns about corruption and
distribution of aid, and as I met with local women, with local bishops and clergy, and workers
from local NGOs and aid organisations on the ground, the scale of the disaster became
evident.
‘It was clear that the storm hit virtually all the central area of the nation and went “across” the
islands.’
For Donna, the trip was an opportunity to reassure people facing painful futures that they
were not alone. ‘I was the guest preacher at a national ecumenical women’s summit in
Tagaytay City, and I took the opportunity to say that we need unity in the Body of Christ, and
that through being united in Christ we can build a life-giving world.
‘The disaster has brought the ACWC women from 19 member countries closer together to
support those impacted.’
Donna flew from Manila to Tacloban, visiting other locations such as Basey, Salvacion and
Marabut. Tacloban was the epicentre of damage from the typhoon, as well as the centre of
relief efforts and media attention.
Donna says that television news coverage ‘gives you an impression of the devastation, but
you are overwhelmed when you are standing on the ground, and there is kilometre after
kilometre after kilometre of destruction on this little finger of land. It is narrow and long, at
sea level elevation. And when the tidal wave hit, it did so from both sides.’
Donna adds that another level of tragedy came in a tragic miscommunication. The typhoon
was announced as very strong winds and a ‘storm surge’ would follow the typhoon. In
reality, a tsunami or tidal wave was brought on by the typhoon. ‘The people thought it was
just an extra strong storm,’ says Donna, ‘and so many people didn’t get out of town to the
high ground. By the time they realised their predicament it was too late.’
Donna spoke with a traumatised aid worker from a faith-based NGO, who was one of the first
responders after the typhoon. ‘There were instances, the man said, when the bodies of
animals and human beings were heaped together, still awaiting removal from where they had
died.’
For Donna and her colleagues ‘the visit was to show Christian sisterhood. We sat and
listened…to hear what people had survived and endured, what they were still going through,
and to realise how very little local aid was forthcoming…
‘I urge people who want to help to donate to reputable organisation such as The Salvation
Army. I also acknowledge the work of other partner organisations such as Act Alliance (the
organisation that facilitated my visit), World Vision, Save the Children, the UN and the Red
Cross.’
Donna points out that this is a global problem, requiring a global solution. Complicating this
is the fact that donors need to be aware of some siphoning off of aid by less trustworthy
organisations, and the discrimination in distributing aid to people that can occur in some
settings. This is an unsettled, unsettling crisis.
Visiting one island, Donna noted the ‘massive security and tense political atmosphere, with
concerns that rebels may steal aid packages…most people live in squalor, four months after
the typhoon. They may in some instances have clean drinking water, but no electricity. It can
be a sea of tent and tarpaulins, as they start to rebuild their homes.’
Travelling to Salvacion in an outrigger canoe, Donna’s party saw that ‘what was once a
beautiful tropical island is now just mounds of debris. People are making little huts and
slowly rebuilding fishing vessels. The coconut plantations that sustained the communities
were wiped out – they were large employers of women, sustaining many families.’
Many practical problems, Donna explained, had ‘simple solutions, like providing chainsaws
and coconut tree seedlings. We need to pray, but we also need to recognise our duty to share
the resources that God has given us. And as we learn more, as we open our eyes, to the lives
of others, we gain a greater understanding and empathy of what they have endured.
‘Yes, the situation at large is bleak and overwhelming. But, case by case, individual women I
sat and walked with have needs that can be simply met; if we have the will to help them.’
Donna is in good company. General Andre Cox, in The Officer magazine (March-April
2014), writes that the ‘typhoon that hit The Philippines last November has reminded me
rather starkly that, very often, the communities that suffer most are the poorest of the poor
because they’re in the least secure locations. That’s why it’s important that we strive to
reflect the mind of Christ and think of things that the world considers to be unimportant…
‘Emergency situations such as The Philippines typhoon … make me uneasy because I know
just how thinly it stretches our personnel and financial resources to respond to crises of that
magnitude.’ – Barry Gittins
* Donna, as president of the Asian Church Women’s Conference (ACWC), was accompanied by: Rudylyn Zamora, secretary of the Church
Women United Philippines (CWUP); Rev. Lee Moon Sook, executive secretary, ACWC; and Corazon Tabing-Reyes, executive secretary,
Fellowship of the Least Coin. The ACWC is due to hold its 15th quadrennial general assembly in The Philippines in October this year.