Fiji looks a bit different since Tropical Cyclone Winston paid us a visit. It is the worst storm to hit the southern hemisphere since records began, and still more and more stories of destruction and loss are coming out of its wake.

The government set a curfew at 6pm on February the 20^th. We had already secured everything that could fly away, and so we sat down inside with the two DTS speakers who were staying with us. Not long after that the power was cut and the storm began to rage around us. The sound of the 230km/h (145mph) wind was deafening as it banged against the window panes and tore big branches off trees.  Nevertheless we crept into our beds knowing that our cement house would be strong enough to withstand the forces.

The following morning the sky was still dark and threatening and we stepped outside to find ourselves in a very different place. The trunk of the dead mango tree outside our house had severed off and had landed on the other side, just missing our house. A pawpaw tree had also snapped and had pushed down our fence to lie in our garden. Lautoka was stripped of greenery and as a result we could see all the way to the hospital in one direction and the sea in the other.

For us, the cyclone was little more than an inconvenience – cleaning up the mud and water that had come in, clearing the debris around the house, having no clean water, electricity or communications for a while, having limited fresh food available to buy. It was with shame that days later we began to realise the impact this storm has had on Fiji as a whole. There are stories of tsunami waves sweeping people out to sea, entire villages razed to the ground, roads cut off and crops destroyed. 44 people have lost their lives. This includes the baby that was torn from the arms of her mother and swept down a river. It includes the mother of 6 who wanted to fetch some belongings from her house and was killed when the roof collapsed. It includes the unsuspecting man who opened the door to his house and was immediately pulled out by the wind and blown away. Kaba (long term Marine Reach staff member) still has no idea whether her sister and her 7 kids in the Lau island group are still alive. Every day they look at their pictures and try to phone but there is no answer.

In the meantime the government has joined with the UN in a flash appeal for foreign aid. There is a huge construction need and food insecurity as agriculture has been wiped out. The population of the island of Koro has been completely evacuated, and there are Australian and NZ helicopters flying about, sussing out the damage and delivering aid.

So what are we doing here in the middle of it all? Here we are, trained medical staff, working as part of an NGO in what happens to now be a disaster zone. Unfortunately we are quite limited in that we rely on setting up our clinic in a village hall or church, which in the worst-hit areas are now occupied with people who have lost their fragile homes. And we are still running a school, which is our present God-given responsibility to our students. More importantly though, as we know from our experience in disaster relief so far, the road to hell can be paved with good intentions. There is no shortage of stories of well-intentioned volunteers making life worse, rather than better, for disaster victims and we have already heard that the Emergency Operations Centre has turned away busloads of people who had turned up to help. The aid needs to be well focussed and allocated, so we will wait for those in charge to let us know when and where we are needed.

We are going on a one week medical outreach the week after this, and then we have further opportunity during the 7 week outreach in May-June. The need will still be there, and with the time to do advance work and research what needs there are, we can be the team that arrives when the initial aid is dwindling but the rebuilding of lives has only just began. We hope to soon get some training in trauma counselling, collect more donations for aid (it is free to transfer money internationally to Fiji at the moment), and will continue to intercede for this nation to discover God’s will for us here.

In saying all this however, we have still helped Vijay clean up his farm, supplied him with a water filter, fixed his fence and have collected donations to provide his family with a brand new roof after the cyclone destroyed parts of the old one. This week Ali and one of our students sourced the materials, loaded the truck and then spent yesterday strengthening the supports before fixing the new tin sheets down (being well rewarded with a goat curry).

Thank you for all the kind messages sent to us. We pray that we can be the hands that help bring some good out of this, that somehow we will be able to minister hope to those who have lost. It’s a big and daunting job but we are thankful to be here, thankful to be alive and to have something to offer.