By Geraldine Gomez, wife of CCT Pastor Ed Gomez, as told by CCT Staff Myra Gaculais del Rosario

Thursday, November 7 was just like any other weekday. It had been sunny all day, business establishments were busy, children went to school. There seemed to be no reason to leave for the night but my children, Ephraim, 9, and Shalom, 5, and I packed some clothes anyway.

My husband, Ed, had received a text message inviting our family to stay at the Philam Life building for safety. For days, the news carried reports of a super typhoon brewing over the Pacific and Tacloban was going to be directly in its path. Just a few days earlier, Ed had passed the insurance agents’ licensure exam which is why the company had his cell phone number.

Late in the afternoon we said goodbye to Ed who would keep an eye on the house. I could feel neighbors smiling behind us as my children and I left with overnight bags and pillows.

Several other families had received the invitation too but no one else came to stay at the three-story building in downtown Tacloban. In a room on the second floor Ephraim and I pushed some tables together, spread out our blankets and settled down for the night.

The wind started to blow menacingly at three the next morning. By four o clock it was howling mercilessly. It was the scariest thing I have ever lived through.

I felt like crying but I didn’t want the children to be terrified. Instead I clutched them tightly, and we alternately prayed and worshipped God. Soon the lights went out. A little later I couldn’t reach Ed on the phone. I wondered how he was faring and quietly prepared myself for never seeing him alive again.

The wind finally died down at ten o clock in the morning and we took stock of our surroundings. Bodies were floating in the flood water outside. The wind had peeled away part of the roof and rain pouring in had flooded the top floor. The glass door at the main entrance to the building was broken and water had reached nearly nine feet. But in the room that had been our refuge, every single window pane was intact. Not one was broken.

At about five in the afternoon, nearly 24 hours after we had said goodbye to Ed he walked into the room, having walked all the way from our house for the past several hours. He said that our roof, except for the part over the bathroom was gone. His precious collection of theology books (he is a pastor and Bible school teacher), our wedding album were hopelessly damaged. But we were all alive, safe, and unhurt. Reunited, we thanked and worshipped God as a family.

Ed and Geraldine Gomez were beginning to introduce CCT's savings mobilization program in needy communities in Tacloban a few weeks before Super Typhoon Yolanda devastated the city.