All Settled In

I have been here for only a week and a half now and feel quite settled in. I have a cute little apartment in Muntinlupa, which is a sub-city of Metro Manila. To put all your minds at ease, my barangay (neighborhood) is very safe. (It’s so safe that I could go for a run in the area in which I live.) One of my neighbors is a Filipino lady who has an eight-year-old son who is deaf and a three-month-old baby girl. Her husband works on a ship and therefore is only home for a few weeks at a time. My other neighbor is another intern who is here with Extreme Response. He has been a lifesaver as he has shown me “the ropes,” so to speak, when it came to which tricycle taxi, jeepney, or bus to take, as well as where to buy groceries, which ATM to use and where the closet laundromat is.

I spent my first week settling into my apartment and meeting the amazing community organizations that ER partners with. (I will try to keep my description of each of them brief.)

Youth Mobilization: is an outreach to children in poorer barangays or squatter communities. YM goes into these barangays twice a month, usually on Saturdays, and has Bible study and craft time with kids from six to ten years old. Part of this ministry includes making house calls to parents to build relationships within the community and see how they can help the parents further their child's education. Most of the fathers in these communities are the sole provider for their families. Their jobs are mainly seasonal, and when they are out of work, they fish in the nearby river to provide food for their families. During the rainy season, their homes are often flooded, and it is common for a fire to break out during the summertime due to the closeness of the houses. This is a ministry that needs more local volunteers. Kids within these barangays want to join the YM program, but YM cannot take on more children without the extra volunteers. I hope to join their ministry at least one Saturday a month.

IT Tender: is a program that works with the street kids of Metro Manila and provides them with educational skills starting at pre-school up to high school. These programs also include tutoring for out-of-school youth who are preparing for a high school exit exam equivalency. (When I say out-of-school, I mean these kids had no choice but to leave school to provide for their families.) There are three different levels of street children here in Manila. The first is the most extreme: children who sniff solvents and are exposed to sex trafficking and other types of drugs. They do not have parents because they were either abandoned or neglected and create their own little family together. The second level consists of children who have parents (or at least one) and remain in contact with their families but spend most of the day working on the street selling whatever they can to people in cars or who pass by. Finally, the third level of street children have families, but the entire family lives on the street due to a lack of income or no income. IT Tender works in several different locations, but I will volunteer one day a week at their central location, which serves kids who live in Napocor (which are shanties built around an electrical tower) and Putatan, which is located by some railroad tracks. I met a few of these kids the other day when the pre-school teacher and I visited Napocor. They are delightful and freely run up to you, grab your hand, and offer you a bright little smile. It seriously melted my heart. I cannot wait to spend more time with them and build relationships with the community's people as well.

Seeds of Love: is a program that reaches out to children who have cancer. It was founded in 2010 by Pastor Junie and his wife, after spending the past year watching their one-year-old son cling to life as he had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Doctors had told Pastor Junie and his wife they needed p100,000 ($2,000) to start treatment and that they needed to begin within the day or their son would not survive. Pastor Junie and his wife did not have this kind of money and walked out of the hospital, asking God for a miracle. By the end of the day, they had received p50,000 from people within their church community. The Doctors amazingly gave the “go ahead” to start treatment, and by the grace of God, their son is now six years old, healthy, and in the 1st grade.

The children who come to Philippine General Hospital with their families to receive treatment are from Provinces, about a 10-16 hour bus ride away from Manila. Because of the distance, some of the children cannot complete all their rounds of chemo. The hospital can only house eight children at a time, and there are at least 80 children who cycle through for treatment. I met children as young as one and a half and as old as eighteen. Some are doing well, and their bodies respond to the treatment. However, others are in their final stages and are clinging to hope. Seeds of Love desire to build a halfway house for these children and their families so that when they come to Manila for treatment, they will have a comfortable place to stay and rest and not worry about the stress of traveling back and forth. Seeds of Love also provides the parents with food during their four-day stay and specifically checks in with every child, parent, and doctor weekly.

Batang Matinik: (which means Smart Kids) is a program that ministers to families that live in the countryside or Provinces, as they are called here. These families live about two hours away from Manila in a farming community called Quezon. Pastor Ariel and his wife, Ate Marlyn, work to empower families devastated by typhoons and build up self-sustaining businesses such as piggeries and rice farming for parents to put their children through school without applying for sponsorship programs scholarships. Batang Matinik’s slogan is: “whatever you do, be the best at it.” Their main goal is also to educate the children of Quezon and, while doing that, inform their parents, especially the moms, because they play such an influential role in their child’s life.

As of right now, these barangays are still re-building from Typhoon Glenda (which hit the Philippines in July of last year.) Typhoon Maysak is scheduled to hit their region on Saturday. After seeing the devastation firsthand, I can see why there is such a lack of hope and even a fear because once they finish re-building, another typhoon hits, and then another. The homes that have been re-built are made of concrete or wood with a tin roof tied down by string and wires. Most of their houses are one-bedroom. They are lucky if they have a separate living and bedroom area. A single "bed" takes up most of the space with their belongings stored in plastic containers to prevent as much water damage as possible. Most families share a sleeping area. An average family varies from six to eight children. You can imagine just how tight a living space this is, but regardless they are happy and have so much joy and love to offer to people.

I am spending this week going through orientation and training for the Manila Children's Home (MCH.) Part of my training has included pouring over case studies of the ten boys currently living at MCH. Most boys have at least 15 different file cases ranging from abuse, neglect, and malnutrition. I will be trained in administration duties and what will be expected of me as a house parent. I also plan to tutor the boys at least once a week in their studies. (MCH is very excited that I am a former teacher. In addition, the Extreme Response Director of the Philippines has asked me to help him and the staff with English speaking and writing skills.)

I know that I've only been here for a short time, but I love it. It just seems right, like the puzzle piece is complete for the time being. I hope to start my language class by the end of this month (each course runs for a total of 12 weeks) and, Lord willing, if I have the extra funds, to continue until my departure in December!

Things to PRAY for: (consider these to be continual prayer requests even though I may not post them every time I give an update.)

• For more volunteers to come to Youth Mobilization, so they will not have to turn down kids who want to be a part of their program.

• For Seeds of Love and their ministry--to the children who are undergoing chemo and their parents. Pray that their bodies are receptive to the chemo they are receiving and that the Doctors may have wisdom when deciding which medication to use. Also, pray that the parents of these children may find comfort and peace in our Heavenly Father, despite not knowing what is to come.

• For the people in Quezon, where Batang Matinik ministers and Pastor Ariel and his wife, Marlyn. Pray for their protection and safety during typhoon season, for their self-sustaining businesses to be successful, and that there will be an overflow of provision for the families within this community. Many of the people that Pastor Ariel and Marlyn minister to are not believers and are very superstitious. Pray for their hearts to be open to hear the Word of God and that the example of Christ’s love that Pastor Ariel and Marlyn demonstrate will forever change Quezon.