We were grateful that the folks in Malekula and Santo islands were not seriously affected by the cyclone, being that they are on the far west side of the archipelago. Further east is the island of Ambae, and we were able to talk with leaders there and send a shipment of rice and tinned meat to help the locals get back on their feet food-wise. Thankfully the brethren there were not as hard-hit as other areas of the country.
Additionally, the island of Tanna in the south was hit quite squarely. I ended up making three quick trips to Tanna post-cyclone, in an effort to determine how best we could help the locals there. On those initial trips we were able to supply families with tents, tarps, and food items. As mentioned in a previous post, even the outer island stores stayed well stocked due in large part to Vanuatu’s pre-existing shipping channels, which made it much easier to ensure that everyone had access to food.
We work regularly with brethren in four different villages in Tanna, and it was determined that we needed someone on the ground there to help facilitate the distribution. Tom graciously accepted the position, which included him coming to stay with us in Vila for a week to help unpack goods from the Brisbane-originated containers, and box up things to send to Tanna. We initially sent 60+ boxes of clothing, bedding, toiletries, medical supplies, food, etc., to be placed in the hands of local leaders for distribution. I was pleased with the way they distributed these goods far and wide, and were a blessing to many people in their communities and beyond.
The church buildings in both Loun and Iatukun Villages were badly damaged. The Loun building was made completely out of local materials, and so within a couple of weeks of the storm, they had already picked up the pieces and reassembled their meeting place, albeit about 20% smaller than the original due to damaged materials. We are currently making plans to help them construct a more permanent building, and believe it will be serviceable by yearend. The building in Iatukun had a corrugated iron roof that was completely demolished, and so we were able to provide new sheets of roofing iron. The local Christians salvaged the old roofing iron to quickly piece together shelters and kitchens.
Housing was also an issue in Tanna, primarily because most of the houses were made completely from local materials … materials (bamboo, wild cane, coconut leaves) that will not be available again for quite some time due to the storm. Our solution was to provide a heavy-duty chain saw for the brethren to use to mill lumber from the trees that had fallen, ripping posts, rails, and planks to rebuild houses, kitchens and toilets. The chainsaw also came in handy as they undertook the huge task of cleaning up their gardens, as there were large tree limbs strewn everywhere.
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