We reached the finish line! And what an intense week it was. Especially for Elder Huff. He is the one who handled all of the many spreadsheets, all of the logistics, all of the travel arrangements, and most of the headaches. I just had to be there to support, to help with the logistics and arrangements, help with the set-up, and give my motivational speech complete with doing the hokey-pokey! After our wonderful two days in Biri Island (and boy did we ever need that delightful break to help sustain us through the week) we went to Catarman. We made our way on a boat that we hired privately so we wouldn’t have to wait for two hours, then managed to figure out, (through trial and error and some nice, helpful people) where to catch the bus from the port to Catarman, then to our hotel and ultimately the church. We made it in time for Sacrament meeting, then started the set-up in the cultural hall for all the supplies.

We had to set up for 95 schools! It was quite the process, let me tell you. The next morning, we had a massive number of young missionaries, young adults and other church members who volunteered to help with the set up and sorting. We had two Congressional Districts, so the goods had to be sorted since all of Congressional District 1 was coming to the training on Tuesday, then the District 2 on Wednesday. We noticed there were some schools without boxes, but didn’t know what to do about it. Some of the schools had several boxes of stuff, so that made it challenging as well. Also, the schools who had fewer than 10 struggling readers didn’t get a laminator and they weren’t too happy about that. We started realizing that doing so many schools might not have been such a great idea. We did eventually find all of the missing boxes, but some of them were sent to Tacloban. So there were some slightly disgruntled schools in the end, but overall, it went well.

We had 4 employees of the Sarangani School Division who came up to help train. We normally just have two, but the new superintendent realized she can’t continue to allow John and Edward to miss out on their normal duties, so she wanted to send two more to learn the ropes. That really added to our overall expense, so I hope it was worth it. They weren’t as good as John and Edward, but they will be better than no one, so I guess it is a good idea. We had a church member, brother Barrett, from New Zealand who was such a savior! He opened the building, figured out the tech stuff, helped move loads of boxes, bought treats for the missionaries, and on and on. He married a Filipino woman and has lived here for 18 years. His sister-in-law is the chief of the fire and rescue department so he asked her to send all the rescue workers and trainees over to help unload the truck when it arrived and then they came back on Tuesday afternoon to help set up for the next day. As I said, he was a godsend.

President Corsino, counselor in the Stake Presidency was also extremely helpful. We couldn’t do these projects without a lot of help from the members. In this case, it was great to work with the young missionaries. These pictures are from the first division , which was Northern Samar. They had close to 200 schools involved in the literacy project. That meant we had around 200 people in attendance each day- a school head and their reading coordinator. I should mention also, that Catarman had a bad flood right before we arrived last Friday. Rainwaters reached 5 feet in their homes in some locations. Restaurants were still closed when we arrived, garbage was piled up everywhere and people were distributing food packs. Catarman has had its share of bad disasters, but the people just carry on. They are so resilient! We love this strong Stake!!

Next Stop is Tacloban:

Right after we were finished distributing the supplies for the second group on Tuesday, we were all loaded into a van where we spent the next 9 hours going to Tacloban. Tacloban is a much larger and nicer city than Catarman. We loved the McCarthur Park monument, the wide streets, the hotel choices, etc. It was an upgrade stay, for sure, over Catarman. In Catarman, the streets are full of pedi-cabs and tricycles and there isn’t anywhere to walk. You felt like you were going to get run over at any moment. Luckily, we didn’t have to set up for Tacloban. Kenneth Lee, who is now in charge of humanitarian, and who is the REAL champion for this peer-to-peer literacy went ahead and he had to do the set up for Tacloban, because it was the very next day. Yay!! He also had lots of help there and not nearly as many schools, so he was finished by 11, then headed off to Ormoc to do the same. Once again, the young missionaries helped with everything. So grateful for their help.

When the training was finished, we had just enough time to take everyone over to the McCarthur monument and to go and see the San Juanico Bridge. It is the second longest bridge in the Philippines and has a lovely S shape. As I discovered on the plane out on Friday night, it’s especially lovely at night when it is lit with different colored lights. I really wanted to walk the entire bridge, but we didn’t have time. We were able to borrow the mission van to drive us all to Ormoc, which was such a blessing. Diana Cruz (creator of the Stake Literacy Projects) flew down to help. This was her mission area back in the day so she was so excited to be back. It was fun having her. She loves to talk and was full of so many stories and experiences! And she could speak Tagalog with the Sarangani people. She really wanted to drive from Tacloban to Ormoc, but she isn’t used to curvy roads and it took 3 hours instead of 2.

Last but not least by a long shot, was the Ormoc School Division. In this division, we have President Sombilon, who is a Stake President and also the assistant superintendent of the division behind the project. He is a real literacy champion in his division, so was very supportive. Once again, the young missionaries came to assist. They were so eager to help! They stayed all day, mopping floors, setting up tables for lunch, helping to serve lunches, and in the end, helping schools carry their boxes out for them. We didn’t have any unhappy people here! Nearly 100 schools received all of their materials and many schools had LOADS of stuff. Of course, the more stuff they received, that means they had more struggling readers. One school reported 1,000 struggling readers! We were so relieved to be finished with these three big projects. And so exhausted. Happy to be back home and now we can focus on all of our other projects that have been put on the back burner. As we reflect on these projects we realize that not only are we helping many, many schools and their struggling readers, but many people were able to experience being in our church buildings and witnessing first hand that we do believe in Christ, that we are service minded and that we care for all of God’s children.