For Filipino-American community, an anxious wait for news

After two days of trying to contact relatives in the Typhoon-ravaged province of Letye, Laura Malaki-Lambert still has no news. But she isn’t giving up.

“What can we hold onto, right? Hope,” she told Al Jazeera from a small church in Queens, N.Y., which serves the local Filipino community.

Her plight is a common one for the Philippine diaspora, members of which gathered over the weekend in communities across the U.S. to hold vigils and offer support for those anxiously awaiting news from back home.

Days after Typhoon Haiyan first made landfall, the world is only just beginning to grasp full impact of the devastation left behind in its wake, with much of the destruction visited on the small island Philippine island of Letye.

While still early, estimates report as many as 10,000 people have been killed by what has been described as one of the worst storms ever to hit the Philippines.

The storm has had wide-reaching impact on both people living on the archipelago and to the country’s expats, who number large across the globe.

Malaki-Lambert’s brother and other relatives live on the island of Letye. She told Al Jazeera all she said she can do now is pray.

“I’m anxious because I haven’t heard from them for two nights. I’ve been trying to call them for two days, two nights. Sometimes the phones would ring, but nobody would pick up,” she said. “It would say that I can’t get through or it’s unattended. Or sometimes there’s just no connection at all. It’s dead.”

Malaki-Lambert is a member of the Filipino-American United Church of Christ in Richmond Hill, New York. The church was already raising money to help support the victims of an earthquake that hit the Philippines just a few weeks ago when the Typhoon struck.

“We thought ‘that [the earthquake] is a tragedy,’ and so we helped,” said Reuben Cedino, pastor of the church. “We called for any help that we can, and we raised funds.

“We are in fact still raising funds for them and Friday comes and here’s another tragedy. It’s just so overwhelming.”

The church is not alone in trying to help in the aftermath of the storm.

In a statement Sunday, President Barack Obama made special note of the “incredible resiliency of the Philippine people.”

“The spirit of Bayanihan will see you through this tragedy” he added using the Tagalog term for community spirit.

Such sentiments were already playing out across the U.S. In Los Angeles, more than 200 people from the Filipino community held a 5k walk to help raise money for victims of the earthquake and typhoon.

Meanwhile, around the world, people are holding vigils in support of victims of the storm. Pope Francis on Sunday prayed for Typhoon victims in the Philippines, a country with one of the largest Catholic populations in the world. He asked others, via his twitter feed, to do likewise.

Malaki-Lambert was one of those who joined Pope Francis in prayer. But for now, all she can do is wait.

“We’re just hopeful,” she said.

Al Jazeera