Reverend Nihal Attanayake, International Office Director for the UU Church of the Philippines shared the following message this morning regarding the Flooding in the Philippines:

Dear Friends,
I traveled to four congregations from Saturday to Tuesday ...and returned home last night. Heavy rain fall all the way with occasionally burning sunlight. The extremes of the weather was some thing I experienced during this trip. Because of the heavy rain fall most of the rice farms have gone under water. This means people are running short of food because some are not able to dry the rice from the farm, others cannot prepare the land for planting and some have lost the crop in the field. I was in Doldol and members complained of shortage of food.
I was in Malingin and members complained of the farm situation.
In Manila and on Negros all UUs are safe but the larger community in Manila and the provinces are greatly affected as you know through news. Our leader in Manila is organizing relief for the larger community. Here I copy his report.

Bob Guerrero writes: "This is likely to go down as the biggest catastrophe in the history of the Philippines, even worse than the twin disasters of the earthquake and Mt. Pinatubo in 1990 and 1991. Please try to help. 2 more storms coming so things may get really bad. Here is a Facebook photo gallery.
36 hours after the rains fell there are still people trapped on rooftops. Some are sick.
To my UU friends, please inform your church mates. Our congregation here was largely spared but so many are not.
Thanks for your kind attention."

Bob also suggested that those who would like to help out with donations to the emergency relief efforts should go to this site: www.redcross.org.ph
This is the news from the Philippines.
With all good wishes,
Nihal