Well I just gotta brag on our GIBTK team. They have worked 15 – 16 hour days through the weekend. And not a peep from them about overtime or makeup days off!

Here Tams Note from today! 

“Dai Loc is the district which has been affected seriously by the flood coming at the same time with the Ketsana typhoon. GIBTKs’ team did 2 distributions of relief in 2 Dai Hong and Dai Phong commune of Dai Loc with 300 gifts in the 2^nd of Oct.

We realized that the supplies we gave to 300 hundred people in Dai Loc are likely very little in comparison with the need of most of people here. Thus, GIBTKs’ team decided to do another trip to other two communes of Dai Loc to give out essential supplies to 200 poor families on the 5^th of Oct.

Only by a fact – finding trip, are you able to understand the hardship in lives of people in the countryside. Yearly they face unexpected natural disasters. Today, the supplies we gave out were a little bit different from the previous days. We recognize that food relief is very important to many families in the flooded areas.

But there is one thing that isn’t less important than that. That’s right; I am talking about school supplies for children in these areas after the flood. Many children cried because they lost their supplies for school. They had no notebook to get to school.

First, we stopped at a primary school to give out 500 notebooks to 50 children who have been suffering from losing all notebooks of this school - year. They held the notebooks they got tightly so that they could not fall in to mud. Looking at happiness on the face of these children, I could understand that it is the notebook which represents their dreams and hopes for their future!   

Dai An is a commune which has been suffering heavy losses caused by the disaster that happened the 28^th of Oct. After distributing foodstuff supplies to 45 families at the People Committee, we did a tour to visit 5 families who lost everything and whose houses were entirely collapsed in the disaster, but no one has come to do relief since the flood went away.

We spent 30 minutes walking on a road covered with a 30 cm thick layer of mud to reach just one of these families.  But I didn’t feel discouraged. In contrast, I still felt happiness flowing in my heart. I walked so fast in mud that no one could get near me. The local authority asked me: How I could walk so fast.

Did something frighten me? I guessed no one could understand the reason why, they would never understand my desire of helping people in need. It has been very strong in my heart and urged me much in getting to the families to give them the supplies they need and encourage them at this time.

 I know that it was God who gave me strength and belief to do what he needs me to do. I did see happy tears in eyes of an old lady who lost everything, but she felt encouraged and cared a lot when we visited her family.

 The chairman of Dai An People’s Committee told me that each family whose house was damaged completely by the typhoon and flood will be supported 3 million to rebuild the house, but how they can build their house with such a small amount of money. That is also a question that has made me think a lot.”               

 If you feel led to donate you can go to our website www.givingitbacktokids.org click on online donations and put typhoon in the comments box. Forgive for mentioning this over and over. But for those that may have just heard about the typhoon that hit Vietnam.