Kriston Couchey
Senior Member
Joined: 09/29/2007
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1507
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Posted: 11/02/2013 at 8:22am
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Hi Kriston,
This is Edward Johnson, in Asia. How are you? I hope you are well!
Been following your posts now and then, but too busy myself to write or print much for the last two years. God has given me several projects in the Philippines and its a lot of prayer and planing that few people can stand with me on.
I am writing to you today because we were sent to Bohol, Philippines, which we have been praying for for four years, and first we have been praying against the principality over the island which is religious spirit, or WAS religious spirit. I say WAS because two weeks ago we had a major earthquake that destroyed a dozen of the traditional catholic churches the Spanish built which were polluted with a tangible sense of idolatry. I think this was the demonic principality failing and God says we have open doors from now on!!
And I just I hope its ok that I am sharing this update with you. I just wanted to know if you can share it with a few people in the US and ask if maybe they would like to help us. Here is the main info:
Background
The Lord has been telling us about his calling for us in the Philippines for a few years. The last two or three years have been very intense with the Lord training us through a lot of severe hardships but also openly telling us of his projects and plans for us in Bohol, Philippines.
I moved to Bohol about five months ago with my daughter, who is enjoying her enrollment in local high school, and in this short time we have hosted two spiritual training seminars, and launched a new tourism magazine, which was abruptly interrupted buy the 7.2 magnitude earthquake on Oct 15m, felt as far away as Mindanao. We were able to use the hundreds of contacts we made during the magazine promotion process and our ministry activities to assist in the immediate delivery of food and water to more than 50 families in a remote area, and delivery of medical supplies to the destroyed hospital in badly hit Loon within three days of the disaster. We used much of our own personal funds and what we could not afford the Lord provided, including government relief food, vehicles from a local pastor-doctor, and volunteers. We ended up not having money for food for ourselves for nearly a week due to this expense, but God cared for us and provided for us before we had to eat the last can of food in our home!
The earthquake totally destroyed about 13,000 homes and damaged another 50,000, with about 340,000 people being displaced. Numbers are being checked by international aid groups now but as there are still three main bridges which were destroyed and are impassible, transportation and logistics around the island are still slow. Phone service was affected, in my case for two weeks, and internet use is recovering but still too slow to be able to communicate freely. International reporting has not been able to communicate the real scope of damage and has not adequately reported on the scope of personal suffering or number of homes destroyed. Most reporting has focused on the collapsed historic churches for example, and also on damage to Cebu, a city several hours away from the epicenter, which struck in a mountainous area in the middle of Bohol island. There were 200 deaths, 650 injured, but of the 340,000 largely poor families who are now displaced, about 70,000 are staying in evacuation centers.
Bohol's population of 1.2 million is not used to responding to such disasters as it is a tranquil island where earthquakes and typhoons are almost unheard of. The unexpected destruction on Oct 15 took everyone by surprise but nevertheless, the local government is going a fantastic job coordinating and delivering emergency relief goods. The main bridges are expected to be fixed by Nov 20, and abundant relief food has reached every municipality and is being distributed to every barangay (an administrative division of a town, like a neighborhood) as much as possible.
International response has been very good from some aid groups, but UN funding for example has not yet arrived and other aid groups funding and stock of supplies have been used up by the recent terrorist attack in Zamboanga.
But now, two weeks after the event, the need is shifting away from emergency food relief, to creating medium-term shelter, as we enter the next phase of disaster response because while on-going food relief distribution has been effective, there are still thousands of displaced people, some in tent communities and others living under mere tarpaulins for the last few weeks. Many of these may be living under such plastic sheets for the next month to come if emergency shelter aid is delayed. After emergency shelter has been secured, there will then be a move to build temporary housing, called transitional housing, which are structures that are expected to last about 2 years maximum. Then there will be a move to effectuate the real rebuilding of long-term homes, which will be an ongoing process for some time, and this is where we hope to have the greatest impact, in long-term care.
Another problem is that the hardest hit areas are also some of the most remote and mountainous, and ongoing landslides are occurring in San Isidro and Sagbayan to this very day. Two aftershocks were felt even last night (Oct 31), and another just as I was emailing this, two weeks after the earthquake, and we are now approaching the rainy – monsoon – typhoon season which can greatly aggravate the instability of landslide prone areas, many of which are still inhabited by people in substandard emergency shelters.
Several remote mountainous barangays are very hard to even visit due to collapsed bridges, landslides and poor roads, only accessible by 4x4 vehicles, but people are slowly being relocated from these areas that are are most risk to landslides, but manpower, relief shelters and vehicles are in short supply.
BEDRN – Bohol Evangelical Disaster Relief Network
Many of us living here have been active in relief goods distribution on a personal basis, and also through individual churches. Based on lessons learned during the Sendong flash floods in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City in 2011, which gave rise to the Kagayan Evangelical Disaster Relief Network, or KEDRN, we have organized a local group with their advice, called BEDRN, made up of evangelical groups in Bohol helping with the relief and recovery. Prayer Mountain Asia is a founding member and I, Edward Johnson, am a founding member on the board of trustees. Einstein Acuna of Hope Avenue is spearheading this effort under the tutelage of his senior pastor, a medical team member of KEDRN. We are also being assisted by TBF, the Tagbilaran Bible Fellowship, and ICM, which in Hong Kong is known as International Care Ministries, but here is called iCare. Recently we have been joined by some other pastors, including pastor Franko Trigo, of Victory Temple, the NACPhil head and have been assisted in our distribution efforts by Pastor-Doctor Gideon Robellios and his enthusiastic youth group.
BEDRN will be an active participant in the long-term rebuilding efforts in Bohol for many months after most of the international aid groups leave, which is typically after about 6 months. The rebuilding of personal homes after Sendong is still ongoing after 2 years, which is our expected target of completion of our relief and rebuilding efforts under BEDRN. And we aim to offer a range of services to the affected population including ongoing relief good distribution as needed, but also medical missions to affected areas, temporary shelter / transitional home building, spiritual communion / inner healing seminars to affected people as well as emergency responders, evangelism (but mostly later after the emergency has been contained), ongoing livelihood training and whichever long-term service is of most value to these communities.
We are now attending numerous meetings with the governor, the mayor of Tagbilaran which is the principal city here, local NGO's and international relief organizations under the Shelter Cluster primarily, which consists of the International Federation of the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, IOM-OIC, World Vision, Shelter Box, Reach and other aid groups. We are personally helping in several ways, such as by coordinating the international efforts with local contacts and expertise, advising on local cultural and housing issues to the international groups, and offering ideas on strategy and technical solutions to the governor based on discussions with these international aid groups. Our role in providing small scale relief and facilitating communication and cooperation will soon transition into leveraging BEDRN group member assets, to provide more effective and coordinate medical missions, specific relief for at risk families, and on to providing transitional shelter options, as funding permits, which is one reason why we are writing this appeal letter now.
Both BEDRN as an umbrella, and Prayer Mountain Asia, as a member, are appealing for funding and other resources. Our personal family budget has been very affected by this event and we are in need of more personal funds as well as ministry funds to continue and expand our effectiveness. Ministry funds can be earmarked for Prayer Mountain Asia, to help us with our personal ability to assist BEDRN, or to BEDRN directly which may go to purchasing relief food, transportation costs, admin staff and so on, for the building of transitional shelters, but which will not be used for our personal needs. We receive no funding from BEDRN, and instead gladly serve as very active volunteers, but we can better assist this community response if we ourselves are more stable.
Need for a Vehicle
Another very pressing need is for vehicles, especially for us at Prayer Mountain. We are currently completely without personal transportation which is a great hindrance to our ability to serve, coordinate and visit any area outside the immediate reach of Tagbilaran City taxis. Our desire is to secure a kind of light van, called a multi-cab, which is a re-purposed Japanese Suzuki vehicle that has been refurbished for use in the Philippines. A 'new' vehicle costs about 180,000 pesos here in Bohol, but may be secured for 150,000, which is HK$34,000 to $28,000 or about US$4,200 to $3,600; possibly less if a suitable 'used' vehicle can be found.
Visiting Hong Kong / Personal and Ministry Funding
We also are desirous to visit Hong Kong soon to raise awareness and funds. We ran out of money for food just last week, the second time since coming here that we were without money for food for several days at a time, if you can understand our situation. We also have some personal matters to attend to, including my daughter's expiring passport, etc. Our ministry seminars are not fund raising opportunities, as we spend about five times what we collect in offerings at a typical seminar as we are serving the needs of people and not trying to earn money from them. We also have distributed many books on learning to hear God's 'still small voice,' which we call Spiritual Communion, and need to print more books to continue distributing this training material. The book text is on line at www.communion-with-God.com. As is the other book we have been distributing, 40 Days in Heaven, viewable at www.40daysinheaven.com.
Grouper Farm
We have also been planning a very strong earning development project, a grouper fish farm, and have found suitable land and are looking for investors. We have been working on this for nearly three years and are ready to break ground. This investment will return a 300% ROI its first year and several times that the next, as it will farm-raise a large volume of red grouper / red coral trout, for the Hong Kong live fish market, which are very expensive.
Fortress Prefab
Also, as part of our development strategy, which we have openly shared for more than a year, we will set up a prefabrication housing company called Fortress Prefab, to mass produce quality homes at a low cost. This company is now a priority, but can start by producing transitional wood/bamboo prefabricated housing and later can move into the concrete SIP prefab homes we originally intended. We are coordinating with local groups now including government engineers, charities and NGO's to develop engineering plans, and will then look for partners to help us get operational.
Tourism Development and Tourism Magazine
Also, during our work promoting our new tourism magazine we were invited to visit Anda, a remote part of the province, and came up with dozens of tourism development ideas that we will propose to the mayor and tourism officer there. Tourism is one of the main industries in Bohol, and we can help both promote and develop this industry because of our unique position. We will continue with the magazine as soon as the Lord opens the doors to resume, and will also proceed with the development proposals to Anda at that time.
So what we are appealing to our family and friends for, is such things as:
* Volunteers within the Philippines who can come to Bohol to help us. We need help with admin, web site maintenance, training, coordination, etc. Our tasks are diverse and we can use any help we can get.
* We are also looking for evangelical groups who can become members of BEDRN, locally or internationally, who can share information, resources and expertise in the local operations. We especially are looking for local churches who are active in relief operations here so we can coordinate and share information, train carpenters, administer relief efforts and oversee ministry needs of relief communities, etc.
* As mentioned we are looking for a vehicle. A 4x4 is more useful but too expensive, and we are satisfied with a multi-cab for now, especially since budgets are an issue. The cost is about 180,000 to 150,000 pesos, which is HK$34,000 to $28,000 or about US$4,200 to $3,600;
* We have a clear need to go to Hong Kong, both me and my daughter, for several reasons: to raise funds and awareness, but also to deal with some personal family issues, to renew my daughter's passport, etc.
* Funds for our family which are short by about US$500 a month or so.
* Ministry funds, for Prayer Mountain Asia, for such things as admin staff, seminars, transportation, etc., which will help us serve the community and especially BEDRN.
* Ministry funds to print more copies of 40 Days in Heaven and Communion training book.
* Ministry funds for BEDRN, for admin staff, relief goods, transportation, etc.
* Funds and partners with expertise to develop the prefabrication business, which will be a separate entity but operate closely with BEDRN during the recovery period.
* Long-term development investors who want to work with us on the fish farm project, which will produce a robust income after only a year in operation.
My US account is at Bank of America, and I also have a local peso account here at Eastwest bank, but it is faster and easier to receive funds by Western Union or Zoom (although zoom is a new service I have not tried but may be cheaper than W.U.). BEDRN's bank account has not yet been set up but will be soon.
I really don't know if you are led to help, but you can verify this information on line through various websites, including:
International Federation of the Red Cross, under Sheltercluster.org (https://www.sheltercluster.org/Asia/Philippines/Bohol%20Ear thquake%202013/Pages/default.aspx )
but the best overview is from OCHA at (http://www.unocha.org/cap/appeals/philippines-bohol-earthqu ake-action-plan-october-2013)
Bohol Earthquake Quick Facts:
It was a 7.2 magnitude quake on Oct 15 at around 8 am, with more than 2,300 aftershocks after the first week alone. The earthquake totally destroyed about 13,000 homes and damaged another 50,000 in Bohol. There were 200 deaths, about 650 injured, but 340,000 largely poor families have been displaced, 70,000 of whom are in evacuation centers.
Please help if you can
If you can help, please do. Even small amounts are useful and welcome. Please designate what funds are to be used for, but if unallocated, we will use them at our best discretion for whatever need is most pressing, which may very well be personal needs for visas, transportation, food or BEDRN needs as we continue to get organized, visit affected areas and supply emergency relief as the need arises.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Blessings
Edward Johnson
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Raise a Mountain of Prayer
__________________
One of the chosen foolish and weak
http://my.opera.com/Boanerges/blog/
kcouchey@gmail.com
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Topic: Earthquake update and appeal- Edward johnson -Phillipines
