It is terrible. Before moving beyond the lighting of the Christ candle and call to worship, we prayed and spent silence reflecting on the typhoon. We also took up donation knowing there will be a special appeal by next week.

These words were on the CBC news page.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has said Canada will provide as much as $5 million to support humanitarian organizations helping typhoon victims. 

It will be interesting to see exactly how much actually gets there.

I've heard a bit, but have seen very little about it.  I'm guessing communications are pretty bad right now, and in this day and age people expect to see video or at the very least pictures for it to make the news.

I think the Canadian government is matching donations made through registered charities - I imagine the United Church will soon let us know of a fund set up to receive donations, as this has usually occured with other large scale disasters.  

There was a fair bit of info on the news this evening - devastating damage & loss.  My community is home to a large number of people who have come from the Phillipines - including many of my colleagues at work, and some families in my church.  All were remembered in our prayers at worship this morning. 

I'm just catching the news now, so it does look like there's going to be a decent amount of coverage.  I did see a fair bit on FB though, before there was much more than limited updates.

This small town has quite a few people who came from the Philippines - some still wait for news of family and friends.

Here is the link to the page re UCC donations to Phillipines relief - 

https://www.gifttool.com/donations/Donate?ID=1955&AID=3036  

We Fellowship Baptists are helping to fund two agencies to do work in the area. The first is Across Borders for World Evangelism, and the second is Emmanuel International.

You can find out more at http://www.fellowship.ca/TyphoonRelief

I see that the banner was posted to the top of the WC page last week - that makes donating much simpler.  I wonder if the UCC tracks & publishes receipts to the fund - would be interesting to see the numbers growing. 

Why doesn't the UCCan encourage people to donate to get government matching instead?

I believe the government does match these donations chemgal - at least that has been the case in past appeals - churches are recognized registered charitable organizations. 

Yes - I just checked the banner link - 

" The Canadian government will match, dollar for dollar, donations made to the United Church by December 9."

What about provincial?  For Alberta I thought it was only the Red Cross, I don't know about the others.

It looks like BC is matching Red Cross as well.