Michael's Experience

Michael's Experience in the Philippines

My name is Michael and I'm a 28 year old anasthesia and ICU nurse and a Paramedic. I'm also very blessed with a lovely family.

On a Sunday evening I read an email which changed my entire life; the need for a nurse in an Israeli/German team to travel to the Phillipines to help where as needed after the horrible natural disaster.

I had been to Israel and I have traveled before, but I've never been to an natural disaster area. For over ten years I had waited for a mission like this and here was the possibility.

Arriving in the Phillipines, the hardest part for me was the planning phase. It was very tough for me, but I really learned a lot.

During this mission I experienced a lot from both a cultural and medical view. I usually work in a big hospital with a huge trauma center, we have high tech equipment to treat our patients. In the Philippines, we had to send sick people home with medication and told them how to treat their wounds themselves and come back the next day.

The only thing we had was some medicine, some bandages, and some diagnostic equipment, a good emergency back up, our hearts and minds, and the blessing of God our heavently father, which was the most important.

It worked!!!

And it will work again!!!

There is so much I could tell, but it`s to hard for me to pick out a single story. If you look at the pictures and the people in them I think you will see that this mission was a success. What made me very happy was that four days after I returned to Germany, I was able to drive a part of the second team, which included my best friend, to the airport.

So, we didn´t let these people down, and tried to help as much as we could.

Thanks to everybody who supported us in praying and giving. This meant so much to us and made the job possible.