Fung-wong (known locally as Uwan) was the second typhoon to strike the nation this month. Last week, Typhoon Kalmaegi killed more than 220 people in the central Philippines. 

Survivors need humanitarian aid —but that’s not the only thing. 

“Believers are praying and in one way or another organizing relief operation[s] to be able to respond,” says Herman Moldez with A3. “But more than that, I think we really need to be more aggressive in advocating creation care.”

Moldez explains that part of Kalmaegi’s destructive force came from deforestation. Rainfall on mountainsides in central Cebu province turned into floodwaters that villagers below weren’t expecting. Compare that to the Sierra Madre Mountains in the northern Philippines, which helped to lessen Fung-wong’s devastation. 

Yet the financial profit from logging, quarrying, and development are strong temptations across the Philippines.

“We just pray that the government will really think about this,” says Moldez. “Because it’s really the problem of the government — why they allow the quarrying and building such places [resorts] on top of the mountain where it will create a lot of problem[s].”

Find your place in the story 

Thousands of people in the Philippines need aid after these storms, but many also need strong voices in the public sphere. Pray that Christians will speak up to spare future lives and honor God. Moldez says to pray that discipleship will lead believers to act as “salt and light” in their society, rather than focusing inwardly on church attendance numbers.

“My prayer is that in this whole talk and on discipleship and following Jesus, that this [creation care] will be part of the agenda: that following Jesus in the context where we live will require response to creation care. Many people are not yet able to think in that way. So we need a more holistic worldview and Christian perspective to guide us in obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ,” says Moldez.

Header photo: stock image courtesy of Nothing Ahead via Pexels.