LOVE ALERT: Hurricane Mercy Mission Continues in Bicol

COLUMBUS, GA (February 4, 2007) –  In the first two weeks of the Philippine Mercy Mission, the team distributed emergency aid to 67 village pastors and funding grants to make temporary repairs to 16 churches.  Dr. Bill Bray revealed the progress during a one night stopover here on his way to Chicago.

      Dr. Bill and Ivy Bray launched the “first-response” five-week long Mercy Mission in the Philippines last month and it will continue through February 21, 2007.

      Photojournalist Jon Bray remains in the Philippines with the survey and relief team led by indigenous missionary leader Juanito Sanchez. They will continue to distribute aid to rebuild churches in the Bicol region, Southeastern Luzon until they run out of funds.

     “We are going to wire more funds this week to the Filipino missionary leaders, and start fundraising meetings to raise a total of $30,000 in this first phase,” says Dr. Bray. “I hope that we will be able to keep the aid coming until the crisis is past.

     “Much more is needed in terms of long-term help, but just imagine what could happen if 20 or 30 churches or individuals would send $5000 each—by God’s grace we could construct 200 village churches!” 

     The Mercy Mission was organized to carry response to the massive destruction which resulted from Hurricane Durian (Reming) in the provinces of Albay, Camarines Sur and  Del Norte, Catanduanes, and Sorsogon last month. The Brays feel called to help.

     More sponsors are urgently needed for the mission, said Dr. Bray.

     “These are the poorest of the poor—folks who live off the land and often make only $300 a year.  We must help them,” he says.

     “This is a venture of faith for us.  We have no big mission agency or church supporting us—just a few friends and a handful of local churches who have shown an interest. The St. Francis Fund from Trinity Church, Columbus and the Touch the Ground Foundation have already made grants, as well as many missions-minded individuals.

     “We want to send as much financial aid as possible in the next year. We are asking churches and mission agencies to give at least $30,000 to help us carry on this rebuilding program in Bicol,” said Dr. Bray.

     As of February 4, $15,100 has been collected and those funds are being matched by desperately poor survivors in the Philippines.

     “At least 100 village churches in the area were flattened in Katrina-like hurricanes in November and December. The typhoons left 500,000 people homeless and displaced over one million people according to the Philippine government.

     Damage to infrastructure in the region will take years to rebuild at a cost of 40 billion pesos or US$2 billion. The poor village-people suffer the most.

     To make a tax-deductible gift on line, please click on the “Click&Pledge” link below. Checks can also be mailed to CIS, Inc., PO Box 6511, Charlottesville, VA 22906-6511.

     “Churches were totally blown away,” says missionary J.T. Sanchez in his appeals to the Bray Family for help.  He is a veteran native missionary in the area, and the voluntary emergency response coordinator in central Luzon who will lead the relief team to the Bicol area at the end of the month.

     Rev. Sanchez has directed missionary work and church planting in the Bicol region since the early 1970’s. He says the worst hit areas are in Southeastern Luzon, and he estimates that at least 300 churches and Christian communities have been seriously damaged.

     Ivy Bray, who was born in the Philippines, says that native leaders are making enormous sacrifices.  “One elderly couple, who have served local churches for years, gave up their life-savings to help the devastated victims.  We hope that American friends and prayer partners will help us match this kind of sacrifice out of our abundance here in the USA.

     “Another couple, just newly married, gave everything they had saved to start their family and home, about 50,000 pesos. Although it would only exchange as $1000, it was all they had.  In a poor Asian country, where a new house or village church building costs $5000, it amounts to years of savings.”

     “When matched by an American challenge gift of $2,500—poor village folk can easily rebuild a church or home for $5,000 today.

     The Brays returned from their survey mission on February 2 and after a day “to rest and do laundry” they went onto meetings in Chicago starting February 4.

     Dr. Bill Bray has been a bi-vocational missionary news correspondent for over 40 years working on assignments in 65 countries for many mission agencies and mainstream publications including ABC News, Christian Life, Christianity Today, NEWSWEEK and Reuters.  He is a frequent contributor to Assist News and has authored or co-authored 11 books on religious subjects, two of which have over one million copies in print.

     He can be reached at bray.william@gmail.com