Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) serving as the global humanitarian arm of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, delivering relief and development assistance to individuals and communities in need. Along with its local volunteers, they arrived in Manay, Davao Oriental on October 16 to assess the victims’ status and provided assistance to 930 recipients identified by their respective local government units (LGU) having partially or totally damaged properties after the series of earthquakes in the area.
The magnitude 7.4 earthquake on October 10 killed at least six people including three miners trapped in a collapsed shaft. Homes, roads, and buildings suffered severe structural damage, especially in Manay town and surrounding areas. It triggered temporary tsunami warnings, later lifted, but caused panic and coastal evacuations. A powerful 6.7-magnitude aftershock struck the same area 10 hours later, followed by dozens more.
ADRA which operates in over 130 countries partnering with local communities, governments, and organizations, offer humanitarian relief to respond emergencies such as natural disasters, conflicts, and health crises; and also, sustainable development programs which embodies the church’s commitment to compassion, justice, and service, helping people regardless of their religious, political, or ethnic background.
Upon arrival, Carl Mark Morta, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) Officer, Shantell Leigh Villapez-Villavicencio, Marketing Officer and Hazel Buscato, all of ADRA Philippines, had a courtesy call with Manay Mayor, Hon. Jon Marco M. Dayanghirang, Municipal Mayor, Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction Management Officer (MDRRMO) Cesar L. Camingue and other personnel of the Incident Command Center, which handed them a list of affected families related to the disaster.
The ADRA Philippines team subsequently gave orientation training to 30 volunteers from local Adventist Churches, 10 from Tarragona and 20 from Manay, who did the counterchecking of names and personal home visitations offering uplifting words and solemn prayers to provide hope for the victims.
After the validation, ADRA gifted each family PhP 1,500.00, almost 1.4 million pesos of financial aid; while brethren from Adventist Churches of Tagum Central, Tagum South Central, Royal Valley Church of Bangkal, Davao City and Tugbok District of 10 Adventist Churches also arrived providing relief goods to victims in various places within and beyond Manay.
Adventist-Laymen’s Services & Industries (ASI) of Davao Mission under the leadership of Sir Rommel Jon Nebres has allocated PhP150,000 of relief goods for the victims from Caraga, Davao Oriental, who were not included in the ADRA list of recipients.
In Galatians 6:2, Paul gave us a reminder about these people who are in need and a call to action: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
Mrs. Ellen G. White, as a mother, writer and the source of inspiration for God’s people, wrote: “The work of gathering in the needy, the oppressed, the suffering, the destitute, is the very work which every church that believes the truth for this time should long since have been doing. We are to show the tender sympathy of the Samaritan in supplying physical necessities, feeding the hungry, bringing the poor that are cast out to our homes, gathering from God every day grace and strength that will enable us to reach to the very depths of human misery and help those who cannot possibly help themselves. In doing this work we have a favorable opportunity to set forth Christ the crucified One.” Testimonies for the Church 6:274-276.
To ADRA Philippines, its volunteers and the Adventist men and women who’ve come to help, here is a beautiful poem from a unnamed writer: “Like a stream that flows from mercy’s hill, we long to be a channel still— A bridge of grace where broken hearts may cross, and find love in their deepest loss redeemed by hands that gently give, by words that heal, by lives that live to lift the fallen, calm the quake, and mend the souls that tremble, ache. O let us be, in trembling lands, a light, a balm, a helping hand— a vessel poured with hope divine, where heaven’s comfort dares to shine.” Thank you.
