Philippine relief

Photo by: Will Gentry

Typhoon Haiyan recently hit the Philippine Islands, causing immense death and destruction.

The typhoon hit the islands on Nov. 8, but the death toll continues to climb past the reported 3,982 deaths. The effects of the storm are felt by many, even at Oklahoma Christian University.

Salvador Cariaga, a graduate of Oklahoma Christian and a native-born Filipino and executive director of the Give a Goat and Give a Drink foundations is working with former Oklahoma Christian president Mike O’Neal to set up relief efforts through Shepherd’s Hill International.

“Shepherds Hill has been operating for several years now to help Filipino families that are in poverty to devote their livelihood to know about Jesus to help them have a better life,” O’Neal said. “We work to provide livelihood training to teach people how to raise goats, do organic farming, blacksmithing and work on computers. We also help kids get an education and teach them about Christ and have Vacation Bible School at the Arapal Livelihood Center.”

Although the focus was teaching livelihood, the ministry has been focusing more and more on humanitarian and disaster relief efforts due to the high number of disasters that plague the Philippine Islands.

“It seems as if the Philippine Islands are plagued with more disasters than any place I have ever seen, be it earthquakes, mudslides, torrential rainfall, typhoons or other natural disasters,” O’Neal said. “There are already people on the ground that are engaged in natural disaster relief, so what we are trying to do at Shepherds Hill is to raise money to help with the disaster relief.”

The islands have been hit by multiple disasters in the past weeks. Oklahoma Christian freshman Luke Cariaga, son of Salvador Cariaga, retells the recent disasters.

“Just three weeks before the major typhoon hit they were doing disaster relief for an earthquake that hit a nearby island, and that is where a lot of the resources and manpower was when the typhoon hit,” Luke Cariaga said. “When the typhoon hit, it was literally in our backyard, the central base of operations for the Philippines.”

Shepherds Hill International will have to rebuild all of the facilities at Arapal.

“We have a dual need right now because the main building Shepherd Hill uses, the roof is gone; the foundation remains but the upper floor is gone,” O’Neal said. “Every facility we had at Arapal Livelihood Center is flattened and our main building is seriously damaged, so we have a lot of rebuilding to do of our beach head.”

Shepherds Hill may have lost nearly everything, but their plan is to rebuild; this time it will be permanent buildings that can withstand a typhoon, but the first task is to establish more communication.

“All of [Shepherds Hill facilities] need to be rebuilt and we also need to give people food and water,” O’Neal said. “There is no electricity, no communication in or out of there. It took 10 hours from Sabu City – it normally takes three – they had to travel way circuitously around because the roads were blocked. There is also the criminal element that is out there trying to steal the supplies that are being brought.”

The residual effects of the typhoon may have a silver lining, according to Luke Cariaga.

“So many people have been coming to this location for the relief effort that we are actually able to share our message with more people than we had been able to do so before,” Luke Cariaga said. “People are so much more receptive to it now and really it is tragic that it had to take this much for that to be possible.”

The focus for the ministry is still the humanitarian efforts, but on a scale that will play a role in the islanders lives for much longer than the disaster relief alone.

“We give people food and water because these are the basic necessities that they would have been glad to accept before, because this was not a rich area by any means,” Luke Cariaga said. “Now that the typhoon has hit, they are in a state of total desperation, and so when people are desperate they want to fill their immediate needs, but we want to give them more than that and we want to go the extra mile and help people sustain themselves after the fact.”

For students at Oklahoma Christian there are many ways to become involved.

“There are a couple of ways [students] could help,” O’Neal said. “Obviously praying for the Filipino people. [Students] can give also and can send the money to Shepherds Hill by giving it to Elaine Kelly – who is the treasurer – or through the website, or they could just spread the word to other churches, families and friends and say, ‘If you want to help with this, here is a way.’”

For more information on becoming involved with the Philippine relief effort, contact Mike O’Neal, Luke Cariaga or go to www.Shepherdshill.org.