Thursday and Friday Oct. 25 & 26

We left early in the morning to head up north to the province.  To you foreigners, that’s going to the country.  We were heading to visit Dave’s family for two days.  Brigitte was introduced to the province life and met many new friends.

As she would say, we went to a home to say hello and had something to eat then went to another home to say hello and had something to eat and so on and so on and so on.  That is the custom here.

We had some rain from the edge of a typhoon cell but it did not affect us to much.

The visit was way to short but this was not the purpose of our trip.  We made it back home safely.

Dave

Wednesday Oct. 24,2012

Today started out with a visit to one of the water stations. We had one of the elders of the station area telling us about how blessed they feel to have water available to them without buying it from water trucks in the street.  Many of you know the story of these people spending one third of their income for water.  Our church now provides funds annually to establish a new water station each year.  As these stations are installed, the ownership and control is given to the community it serves.  It is up to them to control and pay the monthly usage charge.  This particular community decided to increase the price of water by a few pesos and use the extra for needed improvements.  The woman telling the story told us that because of having the water station, they have been able to create a concrete play area for the children, pup up light poles and lights for dark walkways and pay for the electricity. All this while paying less for water than before and all because  water was brought to them.

As we returned to our LMC home, as we call it, we stopped at the children’s home to visit with the workers.  They are so happy and excited that we remember them.  What a blessing they are to the children. 

It was 9:30 and time to leave to help with a feeding for homeless and displaced families from the last typhoon.  Some of the homes are still under water and these people will need help for quite a while.

After returning home and having lunch, I had a chance  to visit Errol.  He was a teacher at one of the local school.  Because of errors of his actions, he was released from teaching.  His heart was heavy and hurting.  We talked about love and forgiveness and that God is the only judge.  After sharing, we prayed and he was encouraged to seek God and accept the consequences of his actions.

We next went shopping for items we needed.  After each showing of the Jesus film, we give those present a gift of an apple and cookies.  It is a treat for them.  We also went to the grave of a boy named Michael.  His mother’s name is Malou and she does the cooking and takes care of any need we have.

Our day concluded with a visit to Josie’s Angels.  We spent time with the girls playing, trying to make journals, singing praise songs and praying.  Some of these girls do not know Jesus so we hope to reach out to them.  

Jazz Home and CCC School

October 22nd Philippines, Jazz home

Nellie and I went to the Jazz home, it stands for Josie’s Angel’s Zone. These 29 young girls range from 8 to 17/18. We stared out with a pizza party for them and then painted t-shirts that we had brought along with fabric paint. They had never done anything like this and WOW, what great creations came from them. Many put on bible verses, some were very simple and some were over the top busy with scenery words and there name’s.

Brigitte


October 23rd, Philippines, CCC School

We stared out our day by getting ready to show the Jesus film to the young moms off the Quatro community. One of the new ministries her that was started not too long ago by the nurses is a maternity ministry. This will help them to be more proactive and have healthier baby’s so that they have a better chance in life.

It seems there are always new ministries that pop up through the K.I.M. organization. There are so many people that need help, all you have to do is turn around and there are more.

At 2 pm Emily Miles (some of you might know her) picked us up to go to the bank and to the store for more snack’ and juice as we were to show the Jesus film in her community. It was a great night being with her, her team and the lord in our presence.

The Philippine Mission Team

Monday, Oct.22, 2012

Monday, Oct.22

Well, we made it. It seems the hardest part of the trip, so far, is getting the blog sight to work.  After analysis, and the help of Joel Johnson, we are up and running. My prayer is we can keep it going.

The trip was fine but< just like as always, long.  We arrived at 10:30 PM on Friday, that is, 11:30 AM your time the day before.  We were welcomed by Jeff Long and His Wife Colene.  It is nice to see a friendly face and not have to worry how we will survive.

Saturday we renewed old friendships and met new people.  As life goes, we have lost friends to this world but can rejoice in knowing we will see them again in heaven.  We found that more people remember us than we thought.  We pray that we can influence them for Jesus.  What a blessing to already have that connection.  We met with the pastors of the two churches and arranged a schedule to show the children and adults of the area the Jesus film and the children's version. We went shopping for snacks and fruit to hand out at the showings.

Sunday arrived and it was off to church.  We went to the services at both services and praised the Lord with old and new friends.  The people were thankful for our attendance and were looking forward to more interaction.  After a quick breakfast, we prepared for the children showing.  Like a boy scout, we had to be prepared. We were ready to show the film and the computer projector did not work.  A quick run back to our place and a new laptop was ready.  Of course, I did not know how to set it up.  Again God was faithful and provided the pastors son who is a techy and fixed to up.  We had 130 children watching the movie and like children, all was chaos.  It was surprising to see that at scourging and crucifixion, all the children were quiet and focused on the story.   Later, we showed the adult version to about 100 people and after both showing provided a small snack of fruit and cookies.  As we walked back to ' home'  all we wanted was sleep.

Now, today is Monday and we are getting ready for another busy day.  Please pray for the people of the Philippines and their need, both in this world and their salvation for the next.

For the team, God Bless
Dave

Thursday in the Philippines

Thursday, November 4th


I know it has been several days since we blogged, we did not have access to the internet and so it goes in Manila one never knows.

Here are some of our highlights from the last 3 days. Our day always starts with reflection and prayer, breakfast, recapping and planning out the fine details for the day.

Tuesday the Women went to the beach with Josie Longs here girls 23 of them call themselves Josie’s Angels. Josie also has her team of about 6 Ladies that work in the beauty salon they and their family came with us as well. The ride to the beach was about 4 hour one way, we left the house at 4 AM. All in all there were about 70 some people that went; Josie had rented a bus to take them all. We rode in the car with Josie and riding along in traffic in Manila or anywhere else is always interesting. It was amazing to us to see the reaction of the family’s and the kids to see the ocean for the first time. Josie is an amazing young Woman of 23.

The Men had a good day fellowshipping with other men and setting up VBS for the next day.

Yesterday Wednesday was spend going to Tent city with food and medicine, had a VBS for about 120 kids, spent time with the children from the Children’s home and the big kids as well.

All in all we from the team have had an amazing time and are said to have it come to a end.

Brigitte

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