On Easter Sunday 2021, the island nation of East Timor was struck by Tropical Cyclone Seroja. The storm took more than 100 lives in East Timor and Indonesia, and left thousands of people homeless and hungry due to the destruction of houses, livestock and crops!
Sister Rosalva Sandi, M.M. works in a rural region of East Timor that was especially hard-hit.
Almost all the villages lost their fields and many animals. The loss of their gardens can cause hunger in the whole area. – Sister Rosalva Sandi, M.M.
All of this has taken place amid a surge in Covid-19 cases in East Timor, which is only now beginning to receive vaccine doses for its people. Sister Rosalva and her teammates are helping bring relief to the town of Aileu and several remote villages. In some places they have had to walk several kilometers because the roads are blocked or washed out by floods and mudslides.
Once they are able to reach the isolated communities, Sister Rosalva and her colleagues begin assembling packages of food to distribute. “We are sending rice, oil, sugar, flour, and salt,” she tells us. “We will be delivering 7.5 tons of food and train volunteers to deliver it and document the work they are doing”, says Sister Rosalva.