By Lois Rogers |Correspondent

As they seek to help relatives caught in Super Typhoon Haiyan's deadly snare, a transitional deacon and a seminarian for the Trenton Diocese have their “boots on the ground” in the worst hit regions of the Philippines.

Father Oscar Sumanga confirmed Nov. 25 that the diocese has received word that Deacon Augusto Lorenzo Gamalo and seminarian John Michael Patilla, who began traveling to their native land Nov. 15, have made contact with their parents and siblings.

Father Sumanga, diocesan judicial vicar and native Filipino, reports that despite great odds, all members of Deacon Gamalo and Patilla's immediate families survived. Sadly, five members of Patilla's extended family perished, said Father Sumanga. Nine others are still among the missing.

The men are doing what they can to improve conditions for their parents and siblings, said Father Sumanga . He said they are also seeking to locate members of their extended families who were living in the Leyte and Samar regions so badly battered when Haiyan hit Nov. 8.

In a telephone interview before he left for the Philippines Nov. 15, Deacon Gamalo indicated he had had a brief communication with his sister, Lourdes Anne, and knew that they were hunkered down in a hospital in devastated Tacloban where his father was being treated for a stroke.

In her faxed message, his sister explained that “all systems” were down throughout the city and that officials didn't expect power to be restored for six months.

During the brief phone interview with The Monitor, Patilla, a fourth year student in St. Mary Seminary and University, Baltimore, said that there “is no single moment when they are not in my mind.” At that time, he said there had been no word from his grandparents who reside in the coastal Samar region.

Father Sumanga said that Patilla was similarly desperate to locate his family. He had lost contact with his father, mother and sisters when Haiyan's flood waters ravaged the coast of Samar where they reside.

“For (the Patillas) it was the rise of the tide,” Father Sumanga said. “The flood washed everything out and for about five days there was no communication. When  (the tyhpoon) came, the father was in Manilla where he works and he did not know what happened to one of his daughters and his wife.”

Instead of the usual one hour plane trip from Manilla to Samar, the journey took Patilla's anxious father four excruciating days, said Father Sumanga.

But what started as a quest for the bodies of his wife and daughter had a miraculous ending when both women were found alive, Father Sumanga related.

The latest information, in a still difficult communication situation, is that both families, having lost their homes, are temporarily residing with family members, said Father Sumanga, noting the “huge devastation” has impacted every aspect of life in the area.

The families “are in a very unfortunate situation,” he said. The aim of Deacon Gamalo and Patilla is to see their parents and siblings safely through and then concentrate on looking for missing family members.