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.