Si San Isidro ug si MacArthur (Oplan Tacloban Digos Experience)

Dear KNOT

Here’s a faith-experience worth telling. The medical mission team left for Leyte at 4:00 am of January 21, 2014. A 10-wheeler truck full of medicines and relief goods, a bus carrying many volunteers, and a crosswind with five doctors on board braved the cold early dawn to proceed from Digos to the tip of Surigao and from there to ferry by sea onwards to Leyte.
They brought along a statue of St. Isidore as a gift to the typhoon Yolanda-ravaged Leyteños. The team, Drs. Monarca and Mayor, and three lady doctors: Drs. Daligdig, Araune, and Okeng, were praying as they went. But the 11-hour trip came to a stop in Ampuyao, Surigao. Badly eroded roads were impassable; and so the group decided to let the heavy truck go back because it stuck in the mud.
Fr. Allan Joie Nuñez, the Social Action Director was almost at the point of aborting the mission and go back when a messenger said, “Just believe”. He took it as a message from God. And true enough, government workers rushed to fixt the road and the team was on its way again.
The trip went well until another event, a nearly disastrous accident, almost shook the faith of everyone. It was in San Ricardo, Leyte where the bus carrying 52 volunteers almost fell off the road as it engaged a steep climb. It was a sigh of relief as the team finally arrived in Carigara Leyte. But no time was wasted.
The medical team was divided into three. One was sent to Jaro town, and the other was sent to the town of Capoocan and to barangay Naugisan. They spent two days there giving medical aid until up to 9:30 in the evening. The sight of the devastation wrought by Yolanda was indeed heart-breaking. People were barely left with anything. No houses, no livelihood. Even the land was stripped of its trees. People were holding on to the only thing left—faith in the love of God.
On January 23, the team transferred to MacArthur, Leyte. They broke into two groups: one to Poblacion-MacArthur and the other to Barangay Danao. Medical services were rendered until 8 in the evening, and capped off with a mass at 10 pm. The people expressed their grateful thanks for the love of God brought to them by the team who were, far from exhausted, were equally pleased with the mission accomplished.
The statue of St. Isidore was left as a gift; and to everyone’s surprise, the recipient parish also happened to be named San Isidro! At last it was over, and early the next day the medical team departed at 5:00 am on the long road back to Digos. As the people of MacArthur bid them goodbye, one was heard saying “no, not goodbye. We shall return!” that should be the cry.
—Fr. Allan Joie Nuñez, Social Action Director, Diocese of Digos

NB: Digos will go back to Samar this March for another set of medical mission.