In the Tacloban Mission, she was regularly tending to crops, helping to fix up homes and clean out rubbish. Fire fighting wasn’t uncommon in these tightly packed communities. Many times missionaries would run to get buckets of water, helping as the entire neighbourhood would assist in fighting the flames of a kitchen fire or electrical failure.
On arrival there were people everywhere. Two houses had caught fire and the fire department didn’t have enough water from the trucks to put out both the fires. Sister Kalonihea said:
“We just knew they needed our help, so we filled up buckets with water. There were people everywhere scrambling to help put out the fire, we got right to the front of the crowd”.
“After the fire had been extinguished and everyone left we went to locate the family and offer our assistance. They were all just heart broken to see their home burned and wondered why God would allow this to happen”.
“We asked if we could help with the clean up, but they refused. Seeing the great need, and sensing the family’s pride, we insisted and just started hand washing some of their clothes, they were full of smoke and ash from the fire”.
“We weren’t washing for a long time, when one of the family members called us over to come and look at something, what we saw was amazing”.
“Look, look, it’s the only book that’s not burnt, and look it’s not even wet”.
