Last Two Teams Deployed to Samoa

Some nine months after a tsunami devastated parts of Samoa, The Salvation Army has just sent its last volunteer construction team to help rebuild the country’s worst-hit areas. The Salvation Army has been working in partnership with Habitat for Humanity to assist the island nation in its recovery.

Six Salvation Army teams of builders and labourers have assisted in the construction of fales since major reconstruction efforts began. National Emergency Services Coordinator Major David Bennett has been responsible for assembling and managing the teams. The two most recent teams, who left on 8 and 15 June, were the last to be deployed by The Salvation Army as Habitat for Humanity’s Samoa Rebuild Project concluded at the end of June.

Alison Shaw, Salvation Army Senior Services Coordinator in New Lynn, recently joined a delegation that visited Samoa to view building projects organised by Habitat for Humanity. She met some of the Kiwi volunteers and the villagers hosting them, visited construction sites and attended the dedication ceremonies of two fales, including one at a site where two New Zealand sisters, Rebecca and Petria Martin, lost their lives in the tragedy on 30 September 2009. The New Zealand High Commissioner and Her Highness Masiofo Filifilia Tamasese, wife of the Samoan head of state, attended that special ceremony as well, in commemoration of the two Kiwis.

Seeing the devastation caused by the tsunami and hearing stories of death and survival was sobering, Alison says, but she was challenged and inspired by the ‘tenacity of faith of the Samoan people’.

She was also invited to a function at the New Zealand High Commission where Prime Minister Tuiaepa Sailele Malielegaoi thanked the many volunteers and aid organisations that had contributed skills and funding to assist the reconstruction efforts. Helping by providing badly-needed shelter in Samoa was ‘one way of practically demonstrating the love of God and reassuring them of his care’, Alison says. It was also a rewarding way for the volunteers to ‘put feet to their faith’.

‘I felt very proud to be a Kiwi and to be involved with The Salvation Army, knowing that the contribution that has been made is changing the lives of people,’ she says.

from War Cry magazine