Staff Blog

Carmelita Baya, our Senior Social Worker, led a team from CSC that went to Leyte to distribute relief goods. She was accompanied by Edwin Martinez, our veteran driver, his brother Jessie Boy, one of our maintenance men, and Dondon Enriquez, our Eicher Home house father, who accompanied the team as far as his mom's place in Ormoc, one of the places on our list for relief goods. Dondon's mom's house was destroyed in the recent typhoon Yolanda.

We had a list of 10 families to help, and the team was able to find all of them. The all live in Western Leyte, from Biliran island in the very north, to Hilongos in the south. Praise God that none of the families experienced loss of life, though most of their houses were destroyed. Finding food and water are still big problems in Leyte, the hardest hit of all the islands. Our team brought boxes of food and sacks of rice, as well as clothing and some tarp to help with temporary walls and ceilings. They were all thrilled with what we were able to bring and were thankful that CSC has not forgotten them. Most of the families are birth parents and siblings of former CSC residents who have been adopted in the United States.

We were able to send one our CSC vehicles on a ferry between Cebu City and Ormoc, Leyte, so we had reliabe transportation for the trip. Since there is no gasoline for sale on the island of Leyte, we brought our own in plastic containers.

Thanks be to God for a safe trip, and that we were able to brighten the lives of these three families. Next we will be considering how we might help, even in a modest way, with the reconstruction of the destroyed houses of these families.

God bless all who gave for these relief efforts, and for our brave team for going over to Leyte to distribute goods and hope to these families.

Click here for more pictures of the Leyte relief trip.

In response to the devastation on our island and on the neighboring island of Leyte, CSC has mounted some relief efforts to relieve suffering and give hope. Although we have not actively solicited donations for a major relief initiative, loyal and generous CSC donors have given. The outpouring of love has been amazing. Some of it comes from former residents and their families who want to help birth families. The rest comes from people who have heard about and seen the tragic results of the typhoon that hit our part of the country.

On Tuesday, November 19, Carmelita Baya, CSC's Senior Social Worker, went to northern Cebu to deliver food and water to families known to the CSC family. She and our driver, Edwin Martinez, brought mineral water, canned goods, rice, noodles and dried fish to three families of former residents. Although Cebu City was spared significant storm damage, northern Cebu got hit very hard. The families were thrilled to receive the boxes for good. Their only other option was to fall in line for hours at a government distribution center where they would only be given a small bag of food. One of the women that they visited was standing in the long line when someone came and told her that Carmelta was at her home. When she ran there Carmelita said, "You don't have to wait in line. We came to see you!" All three families have major damage to their houses which was assessed by Carmelita. We will try to help them with building supplies soon. We cannot help all the people who need assistance. We can't even offer aid to all the people we know personally. But we can help some and we are trying our best to do that. We are not a rescue or relief agency, just a group of people who want to help, even in relatively small ways.  

The next trip will be tomorrow. Carmelita and three others will be going to Leyte, the hardest hit of all the islands. Again, we will be distributing food and doing assessments of houses of people we know. This morning we went to the supermarked in Cebu City and purchased food for ten families. This will be a three day trip and the team will be going to several towns with these goods.

Here are some pictures of the damaged homes of the families that we are helping:

A good friend of mine, Howard Plucar, missionary, pastor, blogger and devotional writer, who has lived much of the past decade in Japan and the Philippines, remembered something from his high school football days when thinking about the difficulties faced by hundreds of thousands of Filipinos these days:

"Back about 45 years ago when I was playing high school football, there was a rule against “piling-on” a player who had already been tackled and was down on the ground." 

I can also remember a guy who used to play football at the college where I attended. He as known as "Spike," and I can remember some classic late hits that resulted in "Piling On" penalties for our team. Well after the whistle he would race to downed ball carrier and jump on him with his helmet leading the way. 15 yard penalty. But, as Howard Plucar notes, "it seems there is no such rule for life because life has a way of' 'piling-on' when we’re already down and discouraged.  The people in The Philippines whose lives have been devastated, first by an earthquake and now by the monster typhoon, surely must feel as though life is “piling-on” when they are already down.  Even in our personal lives, we go through periods when we wonder, “what’s next?”,  as we go from crisis-to-crisis ourselves, or walk and pray with family and friends who are getting piled-on by life. ...... We pray…”Your Kingdom come; your will be done on earth…”, clinging tenaciously to Jesus while working toward rightness in every way possible (especially toward those who are being “piled-on”) in anticipation of complete rightness being established at the return of the King."

We have been told to expect another storm in the coming days. It isn't supposed to pack the wind power of Yolanda, but will bring lots of rain. And it could develop into a stronger typhoon. Piling on! Lord, I pray that you would calm this storm, right out in the ocean, as it moves towards our part of the country. The people of Leyte and other battered islands just can't handle any more destruction.  

Thank you for your concern for CSC and the Philippines as we endured a super typhoon in Cebu today. We are feeling protected. Three trees went down, one on the roof of our small music building, but we are okay. This was a dangerous storm, so serious that several news outlets have reported it may be the most intense storm recorded in world history.

Blessedly, the 87 children in our care don't have a concept of that. They think the typhoon was fun because more staff were in the homes all day and they got to watch movies, do puzzles and play games. We are thankful they are naive to what could have happened.

Our founders, Paul and Marlys Healy, appear to have the worst damage at their home on our staff. They have a wall in the back of their house down and a tree leaning against their house. Please pray for them to be safe from break-ins, and also for their daughter Jenny. Power is out throughout Cebu City, and Jenny, who has special needs, finds that very difficult. I know they would be grateful.

Please pray for the part of the Philippines that was hit more directly. We are concerned for what must have happened in the places where they had wind gusts of 235mph. We can only imagine the destruction and loss of life that might have occurred.

Thank you for all those prayers and your concern for CSC. We couldn't do our work without people like you.

Yesterday three different groups or individuals visited us. It isn't common for that many to be here at the same time, but we do have a lot of visitors come to CSC. It is a bigpart of what we do, and we recognize that doing it right is important. Adoptive families come to get their new family members: we need to help ensure that they have a positive experience,  get information from us as to their children's backgrounds, medical and developmental progress, and counseling and school accomplishments. Donors come to see the ministry: we want them to feel good about their partnership by meeting the kids, staff and workers, and getting a sense for the type of care we offer within our great facilities. Former residents return to see where they used to live and reconnect with the staff and workers: we want this to be a welcoming experience where they feel loved, remembered and encouraged.

One of the things we try to do is to put the names of our visitors on our welcome board that is clearly visible when they enter CSC. Our house parents do the lettering, especially Uncle Patrick. Visitors are almost always taken aback with this recognition, and it helps emphasize for them that we are happy to have them and have been anticipating their arrival. Many guest want a picture at the welcome board before they do anything else at CSC.

Our Cebu staff is a very welcoming group! We recognize that visiting CSC can be a life-changing experience for many guests. For some, it gives them a better understanding of the ministry, the types of needs we meet and the issues and problems that face the poor in the Philippines. For others it reinforces their commitment to helping financially, or gives them a first hand look at needs within the ministry. For adoptive parents it provides and opportunity to show them the level of care that their child(ren) received at CSC. And for returning residents, visits are significant reunions, where we laugh and cry and remember.

Throughout our history,  many visitors to CSC have gone home as changed people. Some have resolved to adopt children. Some have returned to join our staff or serve as short term missionaries. Some have become donors. One couple decided to build the Cherne and Eicher houses. Some have taken the ministry home to their churches, families and friends. Some became lifetime friends of staff members. Others had their faith renewed or strengthened, seeing all that God has done and is doing at CSC.

Whatever the reason for the visit, our staff stands ready to greet our visitors with some of the same love and care  offered to the children who come to live with us. We want to be a caring, welcoming home that communicates the love of Jesus Christ to all who enter.