Operation Blessing Beijing staff were awesome yesterday – all focused on their role in helping… calling church partners in the area, uploading photos, dropping off donation boxes, answering phones…

Chengdu staff of course had a very long and hard day.  These guys are supposed to be sleeping outside of buildings to avoid any possible injury due to aftershocks.  Paul, our Chengdu director, was in Beijing and traveling back to Chengdu today… a staff person reminded me that his parents were in an affected area and he was worried about them.  I called a government friend to just ask about his elderly parents who slept outside last night because of aftershock fears.

Wenchuan County is said to be the epicenter, which is a rugged, mountainous area and very hard to get to.  The Chinese government is sending in the military first – the rain and conditions have made it nearly impossible to access.  While Wenchuan is the epicenter, our team is focusing more on other heavily-populated areas outside of Beijing. 

Operation Blessing Director, Dr. Anna, started to focus our efforts to these areas yesterday: the first, in Dujiangyan City (where a school collapsed burying 900 children) and Mianyang City (where 18,000 are now reported to be buried under rubble).  This may be the heaviest death toll area. 

It’s heartbreaking… I’ve probably been to Sichuan 10 times in the last 10 years… it feels familiar to me, personal to me… even though I am a foreigner living in China.  I can only imagine how Chinese from Sichuan are feeling…

Operation Blessing is focusing primarily on relief supplies and aid distribution.  We also hope to help one area with longer term relief and rebuilding.  Out of the rubble, there is hope…

BEIJING – My mobile phone started buzzing in my pocket around 2:30 p.m. yesterday as Operation Blessing staff called to make sure I was OK during the earthquake. I was outside our offices and sensed nothing – but in Beijing we watched from our first floor offices as Chinese employees from businesses literally ran out of the building.

My husband called to say he was safe with the boys at home on the 19th floor apartment where our home light fixtures and plants swayed along with the building for nearly two minutes.

We heard news reports that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was already on a flight on the way to Sichuan Province and the earthquake’s epicenter – so we feared that numbers would climb from the reported “4 dead” to the “8,500 dead” now being reported by the Chinese media.

900 children are trapped in a school in Sichuan that collapsed. I taught English one summer at an old school building with around the same number of children… and I remember their bright faces in school uniforms, their proud parents, and now imagine frantic parents digging through the rubble. One region has reported that 80 percent of its buildings are collapsed and destroyed. 

Operation Blessing has an office in Chengdu, China – and we quickly called to find out their status. No answer. We tried all staff mobiles – all powered off. We realized that communications were down.

My mobile is buzzing as messages come in from our Chinese staff, as they labor to put together a plan for sending in a medical team of doctors and medical personnel to start treating the estimated 10,000 injured. 

It’s been a tiring week of working to get donated goods into Myanmar – and now we’re responding to an earthquake in our own backyard.

They are expecting more aftershocks tonight which is concerning as the buildings that held up during the initial quake may have been weakened, and smaller aftershocks could be more damaging than the initial.  I’m trusting my own young children will sleep safely through the aftershocks and say a prayer for those Chinese parents with an empty child’s bed tonight.

MYANMAR – I’m back from the Delta region, it was an incredible day.  My translator and I travelled by boat some distance and then hired a driver to take us into the worst hit areas.  I purchased 2 tons of rice as a continuation of OBI’s rapid response project. 

We loaded our hired jeep with the rice and headed in.  We also purchased plastic buckets and will return with water purification tablets for an emergency fresh water solution.

The plan was just to drive until we found a group of victims to aid.  It didn’t take long before we came to a village where 90 percent of the homes were destroyed.  We stopped and talked to the people. Most of them had lost everything; their homes, possessions, rice store, crops and animals were all gone.

We assisted the 25 families with rice packages and they told us of a village that had even worse damage but could only be reached by boat.  We loaded several canoes with rice and non food items (NFIs) and set off for the hour-long paddle to reach the village.  The heat is almost unbearable here as the evaporating water is driving the humidity up. We arrived at the village and sure enough it was trashed – almost every home destroyed.

We delivered all the rice, and today reached more than 1,000 people. Despite all the difficulties, we are having amazing success at bringing relief to desperate victims of this disaster.

Myanmar – This morning I visited an orphanage with 60 children. The roof was badly damaged and they told me that food was a priority need. I purchased one month’s worth of food and charcoal.

I have found a good translator and guide who speaks good English. He has arranged for us to go to the badly-hit delta region tomorrow. We will travel by car and boat.

I hear that there are camps of people forming in some towns, desperate for relief. The U.N. estimates that 1.9 million people are in need!

Our Humedica medical team from Germany is waiting for visa approval in Bangkok and should be here by Wednesday. I also plan to talk to UNICEF about logistics support since they are bringing in high energy biscuits and other goods.

I will give you a further updates later today…

They were from Yangon and were there when the cyclone hit. One of the older gentlemen said,” I have lived in Yangon all my life and never once have seen such a cyclone. We’ve had many cyclones which normally lasted for an hour, but this one lasted more than 10 hours. I could hear the trees falling around my house.”

These gentlemen belong to a network that reaches out to about 20,000 people in just one village. He claims that about 5,000 of them have lost their lives and the numbers continues to increase for lack of food, medicine and water.

“We know of villages that are completely submerged underwater. All the fishermen and their boats are underwater. There are no signs of any life in some of the locations. This is heart breaking. We are doing our best to help these families.”

OBI has a disaster relief specialist on the ground in Myanmar who is right now strategizing our relief efforts to help aid these desperate survivors.

The leader is telling me the children are sick with diarrhea and badly need a new roof, which is made out of corrugated steel tiles. I’ll see what I can do for a quick initial project.

After that, I have arranged for a driver with a 4 x 4 to take me and my translator to some of the worse-hit areas. We will assess the needs of the people and look for partners already in place. My hope is to get as deep into the zone as possible tomorrow.

I have been unable to get through to anyone at the YMCA clinic where OBI and Humedica hired three local doctors and two nurses. I hope to be in touch with them tomorrow.  I am also trying to track down the World Food Programme team.

I think the doors will soon be open for other aid workers to come in, but for now, OBI is on the ground doing our part in helping the people of Myanmar.

SINGAPORE – Yesterday I met with the Ambassador who was very happy to hear about Operation Blessing’s willingness to respond, but he indicated that he is waiting for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to give the green light to issue visas. He said that all communication is down, travel is difficult, and he purchased many satellite phones for his government. He is doing his best to get us into Myanmar.

As aid workers continue to wrestle with the visa issue, the situation in Myanmar is just getting worse. Hopefully we will be able to get into Myanmar soon.

Our teams in Thailand, China, Indonesia and the Philippines are also standing by, waiting for visa approvals. A team of doctors with Humedica, our German partner, is also in Bangkok waiting for their visa.

I attended an NGO meeting in Singapore, all of whom are ready to deploy once the door is opened. But all are facing the same issue on visas. A couple of the representatives from the NGO’s were Myanmar nationals who became emotional as they shared what was happening in their country.

Sadly, they have not been able to contact a number of their friends and family and are unsure of their whereabouts. As I am writing this, I just got a call from a friend who said that many of her friends from Myanmar who are working with her are not able to get in touch with their families. As the death toll number increases, it is bringing fear on their hearts.

One of them was able to talk to some friends in-country and told them that they were coming to help them. They answered, “Please help us…we have nothing. Bring your own food…we cannot provide for you. We have nothing.”

They also indicated that the roads are okay but in some of the most affected areas only boats can be used. I’ve been involved in a number of disaster relief situations, but I cannot even begin to imagine the plight that is going on there.

All we could do now is to pray for the people in Myanmar.

If you would like to get involved in OBI’s disaster relief efforts, including aid to cyclone victims in Myanmar, click here to make an online donation.

SINGAPORE – It has been a long and frustrating wait since I first received the news about last Friday’s devastating cyclone that hit Myanmar. Each day the death toll seems to grow exponentially. First it was several thousand, then more than 22,000 dead with 41,000 missing. Today, some are reporting a projected death toll of 100,000.

International aid groups are slowly getting visas from the government to enter the country and begin relief efforts. While we wait, however, thousands are going without food, water and medical attention.

I’m leaving Singapore tomorrow a.m. and headed to Bangkok to meet up with a medical team of doctors with our German partner, Humedica, who are on standby to get their visas. The plan is to fly into Rangoon (Yangon) tomorrow to begin treating cyclone victims at a Humedica/OBI-funded clinic.

We are told that the clinic is currently operating under severe conditions. We have employed two local doctors and three nurses who have already seen more than 600 patients. Conditions and flooding on the ground is so bad that patients cannot make their own way to the clinic, but instead have to be picked up in small boats and carried in.

Once we arrive in-country, we can assess the needs and begin to expand our relief efforts. Our partners DHL, Water Missions International, Mission Aviation Fellowship are standing by to help us bring in water purification systems as well as more doctors and medical supplies.

If you would like to get involved in OBI’s disaster relief efforts, including aid to cyclone victims in Myanmar, click here to make an online donation.

Suffolk, Va. – It is day 2 …and we began by going to a local “look & leave mission” conducted by the Suffolk Emergency Management.  Residents gathered on the lawn of the Parks and Recreation Department to hear instructions on how they would be escorted to see their home for the first time since the storm.

It was a day of flooded emotions . . . sadness, anger, frustration, love, compassion and accomplishment.  Questions consumed them such as “What is left? Is my still home standing? How many personal items (pictures, graduation invitations, wedding gowns, etc.) will I be able to find and stuff in my plastic bag that was issued to me when I arrived?”

I watched as the residents were told they would only have 10 minutes to look at their home and retrieve any personal belongings.  They all huddled in circles and were grouped by neighborhoods. 

I stopped to talk with the Bob and Joanne from the Burnett Mills Subdivision. The couple was probably in their sixties, and I listened as they began to talk about how hard it was to believe and accept that this really happened to them. 

They had insurance, but the depth of their pain was just as real as someone who did not.  They reminisced about each special tree they had personally planted, how much they loved their home and just hoping there would be some special items left they could retrieve. 

I bent down to pray for them, asking God to comfort them.  As I ended the prayer, Joanne wiped tears away saying, “Thank you. I need that.“  I stood up gave Bob a big hug. With the embrace came tears. . . Real people with real pain.

As I walked away, the first bus of residents returned from their “look and leave” experience.  I will never forget the sight as they filed off the bus, crying with deep sobs.  One African American gentleman helped his family off the bus, with one small bag filled only halfway with items he was able to retrieve.  He looked up at the City Councilman present with silent tears rolling down his face and said, “How? How can this happen to us? This is the very thing that happened in New Orleans during Katrina.”

Other residents were shouting in anger; others numb from the shock.  Operation Blessing teams listened to their stories and passed their concerns on to city officials.  We called the Billy Graham Chaplains and asked them to come and talk with the residents as they were returning.  

It brought us such strength to have this rapid response team that we could call on to focus on the emotional care of the residents as we continue to get volunteers and construction teams mobilized to help these residents pick up the pieces of their lives.  The chaplains moved slowly through the crowd, listening to stories and loving on each family member represented.

Today started as a day of pain and hurt but ended as a day of reward and accomplishment.  We were able to be a voice for the residents and break through barriers so that experienced disaster relief professionals and volunteers will be able to help these residents begin collecting their belongings and clearing their debris starting tomorrow – day 3.