Manila - October 29

Alive and well, well almost.  We have had two sick people for two days but thankfully, God has brought them back to the better side of OK.

What is going on here?  Well, the men have just had a time of worship with the workers of the children's.  These were all men and they asked questions such as how can I pray when I have no food for my family.   Can you imagine what an starter question that was.

The women are having a bible study with some of the of the community as this is being typed.  This was the first they have been able to meet with the women and we are anxious to find out how it went.

We can here thinking we wanted to start programs like this but found out the real servants of God here had already started so we plugged ourselves into their program and helped.  At times, we were the leaders and struggled some with the language but all went well.

We have been involved with the feeding of the victims of last years typhoon.  Some are homeless and some have no jobs.  this morning, we went to a tent city that was set up in an area where no one will see them.  The people were glad to see us and some were moving to government housing set up next to the tents.  These are one room houses with dirt floors and limited amenities.  No bathrooms, no electricity, no water and dirt floors, yet the people are happy they have a place to live.

With each feeding trip, a nurse comes to along to treat the sick and hurting.  Today, some of the people asked if we could help a little boy who was dehydrated and under nourished.  We had the nurse look at him as we are not medical people.  Her evaluation was the was suffering from parasites, most likely tape worms.  We were not equipped to handle that but will follow up with our next visit.  Stories like this are everywhere.

With every opportunity to serve God here, I am amazed at how much we and the donated help from our church is remembered.  People of the community seem never to forget us and the children especially remember.  They ask about Lolo(grandpa) Mack, Tita(aunt)Cindy, Ate(sister) Brooke and Ate Megan.  A hug and a smile means so to them.  The gifts of the heart are some of the most precious.

Last night, was a first for us.  The men spent and evening meal in the homes of men of the community.  The men are Philippine workers of Kids International Ministries.  They have very limited income and in most cases, could not afford to feed another mouth.  Soooooo we came up with an idea.  We meet the men and take them to a local fast food place.  We allow them to order what ever they would like for their families.  We then take the food to their homes and spend the meal with them.  So far, Jollie Bee is the favorite place.  This is a glorified McDonalds with chicken and spaghetti on their menu.  We may never want to see another hamburger joint again as we have another five nights of this ahead.  It is such a blessing to spend this time with them and their families.  They wish to show you their families and their homes.  The custom here to to always feed a visitor.  We would feel very uncomfortable to let them do this when they have so little and we are so honored they allow us to provide.

Please keep us in your prayers.  We see so much need and would like to fix it all.  Also pray for the spiritual needs of the people.  We see God working in parts of the community but there is much spiritual work to be done.  Pray that God opens more hearts to His word and that those already saved can impact the others of the community.

That's all for now.  We are getting ready to go feed some more.

God Bless us all,

Dave

Feeding His Starving Children in the Philippines

Today is Tuesday and we had the most amazing day.

After breakfast, some of us went to the TayTay market to purchase some snacks to give away for after the bible study that we had planned with the kids at the Arthur center. The Arthur center was one of the first projects that we helped build the first time we came to the Philippines in 2006. Today we had about 110 kids that came to listen to the bible story and play games. As always the water balloons were the most favorite of all.

Before we started the event, Pastor Better took us for a walk to gather up the kids and the kids started to follow us to the street where the chairs had been set up for the bible study. From there we rushed back to the house to pick up food that had been prepared. The food came from MN from an organization called Feed My Starving Children.

This experience was the most amazing thing, we took the food to a location that the team went to last year when the typhoon hit Manila. The children came with their cups, bowls, glasses or whatever they could find to get some food. This is an area that you can’t even imagine. The group that went last year shared with us that all that we were walking through was under water last year.

Please pray that we will have enough food to do it again tomorrow.

Brigitte for all of us

A Full Sunday in Mindanao

Hi all -

Sunday started off with visiting the local Mt. Moriah church, and Kevin and Tom were asked to share their testimonies, which we did, and then after a wonderful time of singing and sharing, we were able to hear from the heart of their local pastor Larry.

After a good lunch of Lechon Manok (Roast Chicken), Dave, Tom and Kevin accompanied a few young men from the church to visit the local jail. We each shared with a different group of prisoners in English and had our Filipino partner translate into Visayan. It was amazing to see the conditions that prisoners live in....50 men in one cell that would probably only hold 4-6 men in the equivalent size in America. The men sang worship songs they had been learning (14 had been recently baptized) and they were so happy to have us visit and share from the Bible with them.

Finished up the evening in town with friends enjoying the Filipino dessert known as Halo-Halo (translated Mix-Mix) which is a mixture of many tastes and textures that you can't imagine. Tasty for those who are adventurous! :-)

Tomorrow we will be heading back to Manila to begin our work in the Cuatro community.

Kevin (for all of us) -- in the coming days others will post.

The Travel Fiasco is over - time to get to work!

Well, we all made it. Some of us (Kevin in particular) delayed by almost 20 hours along the way and got to enjoy Japan longer than intended....so it was a 3.5 hour drive through Manila traffic, say hello to friends and the older kids (they say hi to you Super Lolo!) and then catch 3 hours of sleep before heading back to the airport to pick up Tom and Brigitte and catch our flight to Mindanao.

Writing this as we have our 6:30AM breakfast at McDonalds on our way to Malabalay for a few days working with the childrens home and Mt. Moriah camp where they hold Saturday feeding and VBS type programming....some rumors about us doing some construction project with bamboo today (building a chapel?) but we will see what the day holds -- it will be a full day no doubt!

We will write again as we have time and access....keep us in your prayers that all will be accomplished.

God Bless -

Kevin (on behalf of the North Haven Philippines team)

For those of you wondering about typhoon Megi (Juan) and team members already in the Philippines.....

Posting the message below from Dave & Nellie....also, Carylyn Fetalvo emailed to say all is well with her.

I'm leaving for the Philippines today (from Denver), and Tom Ferch and Brigitte McConnell leave from MSP tomorrow.

Kevin Mattson

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hi everyone,

WE are safe and mostly dry. We were on the edge of the typhoon area and had nearly our days of wind and rain. Some of the roads were flooded but we were able to get through.

Heaing to Mindano tomorrow. It is presently 6:10PM on Wednesday. Hope and pray you all have a safe trip and will see you in Malaybalay.

God Bless,

Dave and Nell

We will be blogging again this trip -- watch this space for news from the Philippines!