Samoa Gets Hit Again

With so much tragedy in the news last week, you may not have seen that a category 3 cyclone (“sustained hurricane winds of 120 mph and extreme destruction”) devastated Samoa—including our little canoe village of Matafa’a.

cyclone evan (pacific ocean hurricane) sitting on top of samoa

I finally was able to contact them yesterday. Nobody was hurt and the canoes survived, but most of the houses and gardens were destroyed and the villagers lost most of their possessions and clothing. Ten families are living in the church. The entire island will be without electricity for months.

I will be going to help in mid-January—bringing a generator, water purification system, building tools, and donated clothing. Already, a wonderful company called LifeSaver USA has donated one of their revolutionary water filtration systems. Thanks to them and David Sisneros!

If you are near Los Angeles, please collect any summer-type clothes for me to bring—children and adult sizes: t-shirts, polo shirts, shorts, lightweight pants, lightweight dresses, sandals, baseball caps, towels, etc.

And if you can spare a financial donation, I will make sure it goes toward helping them in the most efficient and appropriate manner.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Jon