Saturday morning at 2am we packed a truck with gifts and games and headed to Olongapo, a city outside of Manila. In Olongapo we partnered with ten of the local churches to hold another party for 600 children and their parents. These churches are located in the poorer areas of the city. Each child again received a gift bag and each family a grocery bag. We wish you could have seen the huge smiles as the kids pulled items out of their bags one by one and showed it off to the person beside them. Kids were playing with their toys around the entire arena and my personal favourite was the 20 + boys in the middle of the arena pushing, zooming and of course crashing their Hotwheels. It was priceless. 
Our favourite party was held in a tribe in Kanawan. You might remember this place as we had wrote several months ago about a dvbs we held there. Anyways, the same day as the party in Olangapo we went to Kanawan. When we arrived, there were at least 30+ men from the tribe and dozens of beautiful children that met us at the road and carried all of our 200 bags of toys & food up the mountain on a fairly steep, circuitous trail to the village. We would have never been able to get everything up there without them. Even the kids were eager to help carry our packs. We were exhausted once up there from our early morning and full day but the kids were so excited to see us. We played and talked with them for hours. That night we had a great sleep in our tent and woke up to the kids peeking in our window. The women cooked all the meals for our team in kettles over open fires. The food there always tastes so good! Sunday morning we attended the village's outgrown church. It was such a blessing. The joy of the Lord was very evident! That night we had a bonfire with the people of the village. We played games and did dance presentations (yes, even we danced....it was a team thing). Some of the kids and women from the tribe danced their traditional tribal dance. The next day (Monday) we had a party for the 200 kids (from the tribe and from the school). We again had games for the kids and presented the gospel message through a puppet show. The kids loved their gift bags, especially the sunglasses, beanie babies and Hotwheel cars! The boys were racing the cars down an incline, boys & girls were wearing their new sunglasses and placing them on the front of their heads when not in use. Aside from toys they also received flip flops and an umbrella. Of course they loved everything that was given to them. When it was time to leave, the children plus many adults helped carry all our luggage etc. back down the mountain to the road where the vehicles were waiting.
**The little girl (Esmeralda) sitting alone in the picture by the wall had just won a prize in a game. While all the other kids were still playing games she sat all alone to play with her new toy.
Once we got home we crashed from all the traveling. Then the next day we had a fellowship with all of the partner churches of Youth Mobilization. It was a fun event and a way to just thank the churches for their support over the past year.
The next day we had the Mercy Ministry party. This year we held it at Jollibee which is a popular fast food restaurant here. This was a smaller party compared to the rest with 139 people. We played games, had a few presentations by the youth and some parents and our team leader Joshua gave a gospel presentation. After he spoke 19 people went to the front as a sign that they wanted to make Jesus Lord of their lives. A grocery bag was given to each family, a gift bag to each child and a pair of shorts and a t-shirt to each youth.
Sorry this has gotten so long. We hope you were able to get through it all. It is incredibly hard to put into words everything that God is doing here. Please pray for the people we have been able to minister to at these parties. Pray that the seeds that have been planted will be able to grow and produce good fruit.
