Medical Mission

Every person that came to the medical mission were prayed for and taught about the relationship that God wants with them. Please pray that the church we partnered with will be able to followup on each person that attended and that each person will have a growing desire to know Jesus more.

An amazing tooth pull. Her tooth was HUGE!
106 people came to have teeth pulled.

About 450 people were seen by a physician.

Yup! It's the same little guy!

This is our little man who had the worms and was malnourished. He's now standing and even walking on his own! Compare this with the previous pictures we have of him. The changes are amazing!

Family Camp

The Mercy Ministry held its first ever family camp in May. We choose nine families that are active in the ministry to attend the camp. All families had to be complete with both parents and children. Half of these families live on the street and others in a squatter community behind the drop in centre. It was the first time for everyone to experience eating at a buffet and for many to sleep in a bed. The one dad was actually looking for cardboard to sleep on because he couldn’t get comfortable in the bed. The camp was held at a beautiful Christian camp about 3 hours from Manila. We held four sessions for the parents, two of which were separate sessions for them men and women. The invited speakers spoke on family ethics, how to overcome poverty and building up Christian families. Greg and I along with a few other staff took care of all the children while the parents were in sessions. With nine families there were 25 children, 6 of them being infants and another 15 under the age of five!! This was a challenge! As tiring as it was, the children had fun colouring, watching movies, playing on the grass and swimming. We pray that the parents have learned God’s purpose and plan for their marriages and how to raise their children in a Godly way.

Family Games

Festival

It is the time of year here in the Philippines for festivals and fiestas. A few weeks ago our language school did a trip to the Lucban Pahiyas Festival. At this Festival, houses in the town are decorated with different vegetables. They say that pretty much everything you see on the houses can be eaten. You can see by the pictures below how the houses were decorated. Very creative!

Lost Hope to Gained Hope

A lot of things have been happening since we have moved that have been keeping us extremely busy. A few days after we moved we found out that a young man (21 years old) that we minister to was very ill with possible tuberculosis. He was very weak, lost a lot of weight and was having a lot of difficulty breathing. We took him to get an x-ray and the next day it was confirmed that he had TB (tuberculosis). He was in critical condition and needed to be treated right away. After driving to 5 different hospitals/medical centers, he was finally admitted and had surgery to insert a tube into his left lung to drain the water. After the surgery, he was transferred to another hospital with a TB ward. He is being monitored and treated there until now. We have also just found out that he has an infection in his liver. Please pray for a full recovery and provision for medication. This young man has had a very rough past. He lives on the street, has sniffed solvent for many years now and was recently in jail. Shortly after his surgery, he had pretty much given up. He thought that it would just be better and easier for everyone if he would just die so people wouldn't have to spend time and money to help him. He has now expressed how he doesn't want to go back to his vices. Please pray first and foremost that he will realize how much God loves him and wants a relationship with him. Please also pray that God will give him the strength to stay away from the vices and peer pressure that he will face when he recovers.

Our New Pad

Well, we're pretty much all settled in now to our new apartment. It has been so good to be so close to our ministry site. It's only about a 5 min walk to the drop in center. Below is a picture of our new view. We are situated right beside a railway with the train passing at 6:30 every morning, so we no longer need an alarm clock! We can see Laguna Bay and on a clear day we can see the beautiful mountains in the distance.

Oporation Christmas Child

This entry is way over due but we still wanted to share this experience with you all. At the beginning of February we had the privileged of giving out Operation Christmas Child Shoe Boxes to 90 children who are connected to the Mercy Ministry drop in centre. After being apart of packing shoe boxes for many years at home, it was very exciting for us to be on the distributing end of things. The kids were so excited! We started the activity with prayer and songs. The children were then put into smaller groups where we taught a Bible story, ate food and then distributed the gifts. As they opened their boxes of gifts they were overjoyed with what they received! We wish that everyone who has ever packed a shoe box could experience the excitement and joy of watching the children as they open their boxes.

What a Change!

These are new pictures of the malnourished boy we took to Gentle Hands. He is doing great and getting super chubby! No more worms either! God is so good!

It's Not Spaghetti

We wanted to give you an update on our little buddy we took to Gentle Hands. He is being treated for worms, gastral infection and malnourishment. The above picture is not spaghetti. Yup! You guessed it. These are some of the worms that came out of him. When we went to visit him this past week we brought along his four year old sister who is also malnourished and full of worms. She is also now staying at Gentle Hands to be treated. Please pray for continued improvement in both of the children's health. Please pray also for the family that they would come to a loving relationship with Christ.

Christ Is The Only Answer

Several weeks ago one of our girls (19 years old) was arrested for sniffing solvent at home while "taking care" of her 1 year old son. She has been facing a lot of troubles and to escape these realities in her life she chose to sniff solvent. She is now being charged for child and drug abuse. We had the opportunity to visit her last Friday. She seems very regretful for what she did and knows that she needs to pay the consequences for her actions. Since she is considered an adult (under 18 is a child) her punishment will be worse. It wouldn't be so bad if the jails here were actually correctional. Right now she is just in a tiny community jail MIXED WITH MEN!!! When we went to visit her my heart broke for her. Dianne, our new social worker was with us so she actually talked to the guard about having them mixed. It's actually illegal i think but he just said "well we separate them at night." When Diane asked her if she was alright in the jail mixed with men she just started to cry. Please pray for her. Yes, there does need to be action for what she did, however my fear is that she will be more hurt and that this will not help fix the problems she already has. Pray for her protection, her case to be worked out quickly and that she will really draw close to the Lord and know that He is our only answer to our problems. Pray also for her two children. She has a four year old daughter and a one year old boy. The little girl is already quite malnourished. They are now supposed to be taken care of by their grandma, but because she goes out to work all day she pulled her 11year old daughter out of school to take care of them. Please pray that God will give us wisdom in this situation. It is not right for an eleven year old to be pulled out of school and be the 'mother' of her niece and nephew. We are really praying for wisdom to have these children placed in a Christian orphanage until their mom is ready and capable of taking care of them.

A Second Chance

At 16 months, this little boy is the youngest of five siblings. His family lives in a squatter community behind the drop in centre, in the worst conditions we have seen yet. Their home is about 7 by 3 feet, has a dirt floor and has an open ceiling into the family above them. Their neighbors throw a lot of their garbage and human waist right beside their tiny home. We have been providing milk for this little boy because he is so malnourished. His mom is often coming to us for help because he and his siblings get sick very frequently (who wouldn't in those conditions).Last Friday when we were at the drop in centre she came to us because he had diarrhea for two weeks straight. Already malnourished, we could tell he had become very dehydrated, week, and loosing more weight. Knowing he was becoming critical and knowing that 50% of children in the Philippines die from diarrhea we brought him to Gentle Hands, which is a Christian humanitarian agency, on Saturday. We have taken children to Gentle Hands before and they have been very helpful and trustworthy. We got a text from the woman who runs Gentle Hands last night saying that she de-wormed our little boy and started him on antibiotics. She said he is very sick but hopes that he will recover from his sickness and malnourishment in about one months time. Please pray for his total recovery. Please also pray for his family. We are trying to help this family in means of livelihood but their signs of initiation and desire to change is minimal. Pray that we will have wisdom and discernment as to how we can help.