The New Drop in Center

These are some of the youth and kids who will benefit from the drop in center. At the center meals will be provided, they can shower, they will be taught more from the word of God, and it will be a safe environment for them to hang out in.

Our work day cleaning the new drop in center...and...Showing off our muscles

Our first fellowship at the drop in center

The Craziest Field Trip Ever

Our team made an awesome connection with a Christian school for squatter kids in February. We wanted to help the school out and bless the children with a field trip. So back in March we boarded 60 very excited kids on a bus for the trip. Before the bus was even moving the little girl beside me was holding a rag over her face and looked like she could puke. 'Come on' I thought. 'we haven't even started to move yet!' Then we did start to move and about two minutes later she puked. So I sent her up front thinking that if she goes up there it might not be as bad because she can see out the front. WRONG!! That didn't help at all. In fact, about 1/3 of the kids that day puked every time we were on the bus. It was unbelievable!! At every stop all us leaders would collect all the kids barf bags and put it in one big barf bag. Never have we seen so many kids barfing at once. We never even thought to take into consideration that these kids have never traveled on a bus before. hahaha...now we know. Despite this, I definitely can't say it was a bad experience. Most of the kids have never been out of the area they live. The places we visited were out of the city so the kids saw mountains, lush jungle areas, a dairy farm and factories for the first time. The look on their faces was priceless. Especially when they saw the mountains.


The Barf Bus

This is the little girl that I held a barf bag for the entire trip

Jollibee, which is a fast food restaurant, was our last stop. Spaghetti totally looks the same coming up as it did going down.

Christmas Party Video

Hey! Our team put together a video for the past Christmas parties. Check it out on You Tube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjCqgG3jQkA

Out of the City!

We hope that you all had a great Christmas and New Years. We spent Christmas with Brett, another Canadian team mate at our apartment. I made a roast chicken and stuffing dinner.....mmmm!! On the 27th Greg and I went to the province with Joshua, Anne and their kids. Joshua is our team leader. We stayed at Anne's family farm. It was great to get out of the city and spend a week surrounded by fields and mountains.

We got to try frog for our first time. Greg even 'butchered' one himself. I know it doesn't look great but the women we were staying with fried them and they were delicious!


The one day we went for a hike up a mountain to a waterfall and another day we took a trip to 100 Islands. Other than that we spent our time relaxing and breathing in fresh air. It was a great trip! Thank you Lord!

...And The Gift Goes On...

Months of preparations + 3 Christmas parties + over 1000 people + hundreds of gifts given + hundreds of smiling faces + a day of celebrating the gift of Jesus = a blessed day for many people. You can see the joy on the faces of the kids and their parents. At one of the parties a mother was so overwhelmed with joy and thankfulness that she cried. It was hard to pick only a few pictures to show because every picture captures the joy and excitement. Their faces are priceless! Because of poverty many of these people would not have had the opportunity to experience some of the joys of Christmas. We praise God for these events and pray that the seeds of Jesus that were planted would continue to grow so that others will learn of this gift.

Thank you everyone who made this day possible. May God bless you more because of your generous and obedient heart!

Medical Mission

Everyone who helped out! It was an awesome team of people!

People waiting in line to register

The Pharmacy

Medical

De worming

Lab

Dental - Many teeth were extracted

When I asked the Dr. how old he thought this little girl was he said "maybe 3 months". The mom told us that she just turned 1 year in Sept. She is so malnourished.You may remember Danica, the severely malnourished girl that I was holding in the dump site. The picture was on our other blog. It was Danica that gave me the burden to start the Giggles program for malnourished children. Unfortunately because of corruption we were shut down and this past summer Danica died. Well, this is another little girl from the same area and in a very similar situation as Danica. Please pray that God will give us wisdom and show us what to do in this situation. This little girl needs help and treatment now.

Never Land

Never Land is a massive squatter area with no road access. It was a former dump site between two municipalities. Neither of these municipalities wanted to claim it as their own so it got the name Never Land and many squatters now inhabit the place. You have to take this small raft/boat to get to the other side. It costs one peso to cross over. When it is raining really hard and the water moves fast you are unable to cross so there is a very sketchy zip line available.
We met another missionary from IT that has a ministry in Never Land with his church. Every Sunday they hold an adult Bible study, a youth Bible study and children's program.