We have all seen the news, and currently a massive recovery effort is underway in the central Philippines. The international community has responded greatly, by sending people to help remove the damage, rebuild, provide food and water, and rescuing those trapped. The work after Typhoon Yolanda, as know in the Philippines, will go on for years. The lives of the survivors will forever be impacted, unfortunately many are still in harms way.

Okay, how many of you have those friends that just talk and talk and talk and when you say something you get a phrase out and then they talk some more? Okay, I can not see your hands but I think we all have someone like that. To be honest I have been on both sides of this in the last few months. I have been the one to just talk and talk and talk. Then again, I also found myself in the place of having someone just talk about themselves and just go on and on and on. It is annoying at times. You need to say something but the other person just will not be silent. But, don't we treat God the same way?

Many of us have seen the news. One the of the strongest storms ever recorded slammed into the island nation of the Philippines last week, a country so close to my heart. It is shocking to see the numbers coming in already and many areas still have not been reached yet. Several of the areas were still recovering form an earthquake just last month. 

Many of my close personal friends in the Philippines were not effected by the storm. However, several of them have family in the regions hardest hit and have not heard anything from them as communication networks are still offline and it is hard to get to those areas. I would like to ask each of my readers to join me in prayer for all those that have been affected by this storm. 

For those of you wanting to help out with relief efforts, Kids International Ministries is collecting donations. This is the organization I was able to serve during my last visit to the Philippines. They are sending both a short term team and long term teams to help with recovery and rebuilding of churches and ministry centers. Donations can be made on their website at: Kids International Ministries Please choose "Disaster Relief" and specify "Typhoon Yolanda" if using the online form

What does it mean to walk by faith? It means doing what God has asked you and trusting that He will take care of everything. This past weekend I got to be a first hand witness of someone doing something by faith. We took a road trip to the other side of the state of Michigan because my friend was told by God to do so.

The entire month of October I had known about my friend taking a trip to Grand Rapids. I was asked to come along since I had knowledge of traveling to that area and to be emotional support. However, my friend doesn't have money just sitting around to be able to put gas in their car and drive across state. In fact they even do not have a lot of time in their week to be able to spend a whole day traveling and finding another person. So for all this to happen God needed to show up.