Typhoon recovery: Sleepless nights for those in search of help and giving help

CEBU CITY, Philippines — [From Deseret News]

Ever since the storm, Benson E. Misalucha finds it hard to sleep. There is too much to do.

Along the coast of the Philippines the wreckage from the storm festers under the sun — villages flattened, trees pulverized to splinters, the smell of decay and rot rising with the heat. Misalucha knows that far away from the attention of the world, in little villages most people don’t know exist, water is scarce and people are hungry. That’s where he wants to go.

Misalucha is the country director for Humanitarian Services for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or to put it more bluntly: disaster relief coordinator for a country that regularly sees typhoons, not to mention the occasional earthquake and volcano eruption. It’s a wonder Misalucha ever sleeps at all.