It all started when Cory Villafania, our dear Religion teacher in Assumption and spiritual mentor, sent me this message: “Yes I am available on Friday for Bible study but the more urgent thing is to mobilize all Divine Tarts and friends to make donations in cash or in kind to Assumption San Lorenzo for the victims of Typhoon Ondoy. Please help in any way you can. This is PRAYER IN ACTION. Please pass to as many as you can. Thank you.”
I then started to see meaningful prayers one after the other beginning to unfold as all those affected by Ondoy reacted to their personal plight. In them I saw beautiful hearts full of compassion. Indeed, amid surviving the aftermath of the calamity, we see so many prayers in action happening all around us.
Take for example the case of a friend whose four cars were totally submerged in the flood. But when he heard about the plight of homeless Marikina residents, he said: “My problem is nothing compared to them.” Then he volunteered to be of help to those who were also affected by Ondoy.
Arlene, my co-servant in the Healing Servants Foundation, was out of the country when the deluge happened. She shared how her only son got trapped on the second floor of their home in Marikina. Arlene and her husband had to call so many people for help. Thank God, she said, her son was rescued in time and was able to get out by using an inflatable mattress. Even if their things were all destroyed, they are grateful that their son and household staff are all safe.
Another dear friend was traumatized when her Magallanes bungalow was submerged in floodwaters. “Despite this traumatizing experience,” she said, “I bear in mind joyful detachment which makes our burden light. We’re alive and well. And for that, we praise God in spite of losing all our possessions.” And when I asked what she needed she only asked for food to feed her cleaning crew.
An employee who was screaming for help at the rooftop of her isolated home while holding an infant shared how a kind neighbor took in her baby as she shouted for help in the pouring rain. She was eventually rescued.
An Assumption Family Council member, my sister Yvonne was busy collecting stuff for the grade school teachers who lost their homes. One teacher had twins and lost everything. Yvonne gathered up clothes for the teachers but since she didn’t have baby stuff for a one-year-old, her yayas generously donated their own baby things.
We were out of the country when the typhoon hit and our basement got flooded. Selfless friends Büm and Mama Noah got pails and drained the water away to keep the water level from climbing. They even took garden hoses and siphoned water through their mouths to save our overflowing pool from flooding the rest of our home.
On our flight back to Manila, passengers wept openly upon reading the newspapers that carried headlines about the casualties brought about by the typhoon, especially the part wherein two military men died while saving lives.
Even from Brunei, prayer in action is happening as our family friend Anyati set up a relief campaign to coordinate all the help she could gather to send to the Philippines.
The Healing Servants Foundation went to Tatalon in Quezon City. It crushed my son’s heart as he also extended a loving hand to families who evacuated in Tatalon Elementary School.
Last Thursday, our group headed by Father Gerard Devesa, and organized by Lucy, got to visit and distribute goods in Mariveles and Marilao, Bulacan to devastated residents who lived by a creek that overflowed. More prayers in action are taking place.
Our household staff had just gone garage shopping the week before the onslaught of Ondoy. They readily gave away their newly acquired wardrobe to fellow workers who lost their homes.
My classmate Marissa was busy delivering to friends packs of 500 hotdogs to be cooked and packed with rice for ready distribution to feed the hungry. Our kitchen staff, enthusiastically wanting to help, cheerfully cooked and packed all day.
Even those who were stranded in the airports, unmindful of their present inconvenience, formed a house of prayer for those victims of the calamity.
If our driver Revo wasn’t with his family in Baras, his family would have all perished. While the current was rising, he had to decide who of the seven to save first. The current was aggressively rising that members of his family were being swept away. He did everything to save them all. “Mabuti na lang hinayaan ako ng Diyos na kasama ko ang pamilya ko nang nangyari ang baha. Day-off ko yung araw na ‘yon. (It’s a good thing God allowed me to be with my family when the flooding occurred. It was my day-off from work that time),” he told me. Other families in Revo’s neighborhood were not so lucky because they perished in the flood.
Still in Baras, Loreto, Revo’s brother, was humbled when he saw a truck carrying dead bodies. For their souls, in the middle of the deadly flood, he murmured a prayer. The area where their home once stood turned into a raging river.
My sister-in-law’s parents’ home got flooded in Marikina. When the water receded, my eight-year-old nephew accompanied his mother to deliver food. My nieces went to Marikina to help clean up their cousins’ houses that got flooded.
At the height of the typhoon and flooding, a fire broke out in Tatalon leaving several families homeless. A Chinese-Filipino family who lived nearby took pity on them and immediately opened the gates of their family home to them where they had good food, sleeping rooms and were able to take a warm bath.
My siblings and I shed tears of gratitude when concerned family friends from Hong Kong donated funds to help our homeless employees rebuild their houses.
Sister Regivic, a moving force in Assumption Convent, wrote, “This typhoon attacked all sectors of the city. From chaos to blessing is what I call this day. Shared experience of material loss, of mutual care and help, of lightheartedness run through everywhere. I felt that the people were celebrating the Eucharist in the streets and in their neighborhood all day. I am sure their Eucharistic celebrations will be more meaningful in the days to come.”
Everywhere my son and I went — be it in Assumption Sanlo, RFM, White Space and other schools — there were concerned people scrambling to be of help to others. Truly prayer in action has spread throughout our land. In the days to come there will be tremendous opportunities to reach out to others in dire need. Let us all continue to hold hands together in prayer.
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