ERCIS, Turkey – Operation Blessing disaster relief teams are on the ground in Turkey working in partnership with Humedica, a German medical team, to bring relief to earthquake survivors.

ISRAEL – Today I met a woman that I will call Elena to protect her identity. She came to Israel from Eastern Europe more than 10 years ago and was forced into sex slavery. At first she refused and was beaten and stripped of all her earthly possessions. Eventually she made the difficult decision to stop fighting because she feared she would be killed.

As she spoke, I couldn’t help but think about her horrifying scenario—leaving her homeland to enter a foreign country with no friends, unable to speak the language, having everything taken away, and without anyone to turn to. Her identity was stripped from her and Elena became a commodity for people to buy and trade.

After entering the sex slavery industry against her will, Elena was bought and sold by many different men and moved from one place to another. She told us that she was very close to committing suicide until a man claimed to have fallen in love with her. He asked to buy her from her owner but was unable to come up with all the money he needed.

Elena was sickened by her circumstances and eventually escaped from her owner to live with this man who said he loved her. After having a child with this man, he became ill and could no longer care for her or their child. Still with no one to turn to, Elena went to the police.

But Elena and her children did not have the documents that allowed them to be in Israel legally. They were sent to a shelter for women who have escaped the trafficking industry, and she had a DNA test for the child to prove that his father is an Israeli citizen. Her son was given citizenship, but Elena still wasn’t able to get any documentation for herself. The shelter became her home for four years until she was told that they could no longer house her and her children.

Without citizenship, Elena cannot legally work in Israel, so Operation Blessing partnered with Isha L’Isha, a women’s center, to help pay her utilities. We are also helping provide for her family’s needs as she struggles to get her visa and gain citizenship that will allow her take care of her children in their homeland. While we can’t erase her terrifying past, it is powerful to hear how her life has changed as we have helped Elena find her value, identity and inner strength again.

This was the first time that I have personally heard a testimony from a woman that was forced into sex trafficking. I’ve read about human and sex trafficking, even researched it, but the conversation I had with Elena put a face on this horrific treatment of humans that I will never forget.

While it was hard for me to see how cruel humans can be, when Elena offered her thanks for the support that she has received through those who choose to love from afar, I was reminded how loving and giving many are. My hat goes off to all of the people who support Operation Blessing to fight these injustices and change lives.

ITALY – As I approached the rubble of a 700-year-old church in Villa Sant’Angelo, Italy, a small, historic village that was devastated by the April 5 quake, I noticed that time had stopped. According to the local mayor, the quake struck at 3:32 a.m., however the clock continued ticking for nearly 15 minutes after the quake. Minutes later, the church bells began to ring as if nothing had happened.

For the people of Sant’Angelo, the sound was inspirational – a statement of strength and perserverance encouraging them to keep on going in the midst of the tragedy.  Church and village leaders were worried, however, that the torque of the swinging bells might topple the belfry, so they manually stopped the bells to protect the church from further damage.

The village of Sant’Angelo houses one of the survivor tent camps we have been working with. There are about 50 families who used to live in Sant’Angelo, but have now been displaced by the quake.

We have been talking with senators of Italy’s central government, in-country Operation Blessing staff and local leaders, such as the mayor of Sant’Angelo, to discuss how we can provide this community with interim housing to help them through the recovery process.
 

In nearby Onna village, we donated a generator-powered telescoping light tower to aid with lighting in the tent camp in addition to the other food and emergency aid we’ve provided. Fully extended, the tower goes up around 45 feet high and illuminates a huge area. The villagers, especially the children, have been terrified by the darkness since the quake happened at night, and wanted the camp lit up all night long.

Often at Operation Blessing, we speak metaphorically of bringing light to dark places – but in Onna, we did it literally – and in some small way, are helping to restore hope and peace to those who have been shaken by this crisis.

ITALY – We were headed to the village of Onna, which had sustained massive destruction during the 6.3-magnitude earthquake. Out of a population of around 310 residents, as many as 38 were killed.

Along the road linking the coastal city of Pescara to L’Aquila, we passed by beautiful towns nestled against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains.  The road twisted and turned past old ruins and idyllic farms. It was truly stunning. But as we moved deeper into the Abruzzo quake zone we began to pass ruined churches and buildings that looked as though they could have fallen centuries ago but only 36 hours earlier they had been standing tall.

Onna is a rural village situated about 8 miles outside of the city of L’Aquila. Its old stone homes were no match against the massive power of the quake which struck in the early hours while the villagers slept. Most of the homes were hundreds of years old and had survived quakes in the past, but this one was just too powerful.

We were permitted to walk through the ruined village. Cars lay crushed under collapsed walls in the narrow streets and the smell of death hung heavy in the air. The Italian government mobilized quickly and rescue workers and Italian medical teams poured into the region. Fortunately, the road infrastructure remained fairly intact and access from Rome and the East coast was good. Rescue teams continued to search for survivors in one area and would dig frantically, then shout for silence as they listened for any sign of life from the rubble.

The surviving families are now living in a camp that was erected on the outskirts of the village. An Italian team from Operation Blessing was on the ground quickly and worked with the government coordination team to identify essential needs as the camp in Onna was being erected. The first full night had been very difficult for survivors across the region. Due to the high elevation, the nights are very cold year round and many had been forced to sleep in cars, while others slept under plastic sheeting. With frequent aftershocks, no one was prepared to sleep indoors.

I joined our Italian team and arrived in Onna to a media frenzy and there were foreign news crews everywhere. A disaster of this scale on European soil is rare, and the world was following the story with keen interest.

While the military erected large tents and scrambled to source portable latrines, we were asked to provide bottled water, food, sleeping bags, cot beds, pillows, cutlery and other essential items to the camp in Onna. Fortunately, the town of Pescara only lies 1.5 hours away and was well stocked with supplies. We were able to source the materials with, in my experience, unprecedented ease in a disaster situation. On a delivery to Onna, we were ushered into the camp area, which the officials were trying to shield from the media as much as possible. Some villagers were sitting in groups at the opening of the tents, while others were laying on cots. Quite a few families were eating in a marquee erected as a dining area. We stopped to talk to a group of girls. One of them, only 8 years old, had lost her two younger sisters and was crying.

After offloading the truck, we walked through the camp with the coordinator assessing further needs. The camp coordinator asked us to supply a generator-powered flood light system to help illuminate the camp at night. He told us how many of the survivors, especially children, were petrified of the dark with the association of the nighttime quake.

In the dining hall, I took a few photographs of a woman eating some of the food we had supplied. I was tapped on the shoulder by one of the camp coordinators. “She lost three family members,” he whispered on my ear. I put down my camera and turned to offer my apologies but she was staring into her plate with glazed eyes.

The survivors are still in a state of utter shock. In an instant they lost family members, homes, all of their possessions, and were left hungry and in the cold. However, despite their shock and grief, the villagers of Onna do not want to leave.  Many residents of L’Aquila were ushered to Pescara to stay in hotels, but it seems that villagers in the surrounding communities would rather stay put. “Many of them kept their money in their homes, maybe under the mattress,” explained one aid worker who had been called in from Milan. “They don’t want anyone to steal it.” Another coordinator suggested that it was the village itself that kept them there: “They are proud of their heritage and are afraid that if they leave they will never come back.”

A major news network interviewed me about the situation in the camps. During the interview, I was asked to compare this disaster to other earthquakes I have responded to. Having spent the majority of the last 6 months living in China, I drew comparisons to the Sichuan earthquake. The May 12, 2008 earthquake struck in the afternoon, and that is thought to have spared many lives. But this quake struck while the residents slept, the worst possible time. Several of the villagers in Onna were still wearing their pajamas two days after they were forced to run into the night cold.

Also, the Sichuan quake was followed by a long series of aftershocks, some of which were very strong. The Chinese government put a hold on any reconstruction for three months while teams carried out geophysical surveys. In the midst of an “earthquake storm,” it will be a matter of months before reconstruction can begin here in Onna, that is if reconstruction is allowed at all. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Bersculoni has suggested that the government will build a new city for quake victims. This idea did not seem to go down well in the camp at Onna where the villagers want to rebuild their old homes. “Our economy is terrible, how will they help us?” shouted an old man lying on a cot bed.

Another comparison to Sichuan is how the quake has affected the elderly. If the stress of the disaster was not hard enough already, the elderly residents of Onna are now facing the anxiety of not knowing how they will ever rebuild their homes. Many had retired and were living out their lives in comfort and security, but now with no insurance and no possibility of work, they are hopeless for the future.

As the relief efforts continue, the road to recovery looks to be difficult for the quake victims of Italy.