Facing storm damage

Walker church supports Filipino work hit by Washi

WALKER — A week before Christmas, Tropical Storm Washi hit the Philippine islands with 56-mph winds and several feet of rain, killing an estimated 1,000 people and causing massive mudslides and property damage.

The Rev. Herman Holland saw last month’s news reports of the devastation and worried about his friends on the other side of the world.

“It was very frightening — a very serious emotional feeling because I’ve gotten so involved with the Filipino people,” Holland said. “You can only imagine the sorrow and the pain they must be going through.”

For the past 15 years, Holland has been going to the Philippine island of Negros to hold evangelistic crusades and assist poor villages in the jungle-covered hills above Dumaguete City.

In that time, he’s built eight churches and missions, many of which were destroyed by the storm.

Holland is pastor of the 300-member New Day Christian Centre in Walker, a church he and his wife, Deborah, founded in their Sherwood Manor home 29 years ago.

The son of a carpenter, Holland is a licensed general contractor who has built hundreds of custom homes in the Baton Rouge area in the past four decades.

Two of his adult sons work with him at Herman Holland Builders.

He plans to fly to the Philippines on Jan. 24, a few days after his 65th birthday, to assess the situation. He’s expecting major property damage, he said, but is thankful there was no loss of life in the villages where he has worked.

Holland first went to the Philippines to assist Furlin Borgue, a missionary from Loranger the New Day church supported. Borgue died last year from cancer, but his Filipino widow, Christina, continues his mission work while raising their three American-born children, Holland said.

“It was still raining (there) when she called me and the winds were still blowing, but the damage had already been done,” Holland said. “They were in the middle of a bad situation.”

The New Day Centre is supporting Christina Borgue plus 17 other Filipino evangelists, and sends her $920 a month to help 46 families — $20 per family.

“You can’t feed a family of four here at McDonald’s for $20,” Holland said, “but over there you can feed a family of four for a month for $20.”

The storm flooded New Day’s main church in the village of Bayas and filled many of the concrete and steel buildings with mud.

Several years ago, he helped the men there start a cinderblock business, where they make blocks by hand, one at a time, using a metal mold and sell them for 2 cents apiece.

“They had about 10,000 blocks already made that got buried in a mudslide,” Holland said. “The winds blew down their building and they lost all their tools and supplies” such as sacks of cement and the metal mold.

The main 50-by-50-foot headquarters church, the Filipino people named New Day Christian Centre after the Walker church, can’t be used for the annual meeting, he said, so the meeting may have to be in a tent.

“Six years ago, we started the church in a tent with eight people, and last year, after we finished the building, there were so many people we couldn’t count them all,” Holland said.

He also helped the Filipinos purchase some land and built a concrete and steel building where they breed and raise pigs, he said. “The piggery — that’s what they call it — was destroyed along with most of the piglets.”

Last year, he said, he took some medical professionals with him who hosted clinics during the daytime while he helped the men build a dormitory for local missionaries.

“Many, many of the children have never seen a doctor,” Holland said.

When he preaches, someone has to translate his message, he said, because he doesn’t speak Cebuano, a language spoken by about 20 million Filipinos.

There are always a few people who can speak English, Holland said, so he can communicate with some of the people he meets.

When he first went to the Philippines, the people and their needs immediately tugged at his heart, Holland said. “They’re still raising rice in the little villages ... with water buffaloes.

”They are poor, poor, poor,” he said. “You can go in with just a few dollars and make a difference in their life. That’s why I go there.”

Besides the physical hunger and poverty, Holland said, there is great spiritual hunger for the biblical Gospel as well.

“They don’t have the interference and the interruptions we have in the civilized countries like television and all that stuff,” Holland said. “If you give them the word of the Lord they believe it. Their faith hasn’t been tainted by anything.”

“We are so blessed even in this hard time we’re having now with families struggling in America — our worst would be their delight,” Holland said. “Our message to America is to continue to open our hearts up.”