Team news from the last few days of mission!

Wonderful team time in the Philippines!

It’s hard to know where to start with this blog – so much has happened over the past couple of days in Ligao and surrounding areas.  It feels like we have been here for weeks!  We’ve highlighted three areas for your interest …

We had a marvelous time at the Nasisi feeding programme (sponsored by One Community Church).  Four times a week, about 70 – 80 young children in this village are fed a nutritious meal prepared by mothers in the local church that was started up here by Pastor Choi and Alma.  The attached photo shows the smiles on all the children’s faces at this meal time.  It’s simply impossible to say how moving it was to see the good people here looking after the most vulnerable members of this small community.  We have attached a photo of the community centre being constructed here at Nasisi – at this stage a simple roofed area.  The pleasing thing to note is the cost of this structure (30,000p) was funded by the local people in recognition of how much they value the relationship they have with this local church! (30,000p is approx $750A) a vast sum of money to these very poor people!)

Many Pilipino families are very large – 12 children is not uncommon!  This many children places a huge burden on the parents to feed clothe and educate their families.  So we were asked to run a Family Planning seminar for the young mums in the community.  In spite of the teeming rain falling on the canvas roof at the time (!), a large number of mums turned up to hear what members of our team had to say on this topic.  The seminar was well received and was a very positive experience for all.

We forgot to tell you that last Saturday the team visited the local jail in Ligao.  Again, this was an experience that is hard to capture in words.  Suffice to say the prisoners very warmly welcomed our presence and freely participated in the worship service led by Pastor Choi and Alma.  A number of our team gave brief testimonies - which was a challenging experience as this environment was so different to what we are accustomed to in Melbourne!  We’re back at the jail again tomorrow (Saturday)

We are very pleased to tell you that the school computer centre is much closer to reality.  A number of the team have been busily working to install the 8 computers our church has bought for the school and wider community.

Project Joshua continues to do much good for children here with disabilities.  Alan and Ben have successfully organized an operation for a young girl (Blessie Mae) who was suffering from enlarged tonsils.  We have also have begun arrangements for another young girl to have an operation to close her palate.  We expect more children to appear at the medical mission tomorrow who may need special medical attention – even surgery.

Bec and Jeanette join the Vineyard team to interview potential sponsor families in an area nearby to Nasisi.  Photos were taken, report cards read, ages and other families information collected.  Over the coming months these needy children and families will be able to be sponsored by individuals and families in Australia.

That’s all for now – we’ll try to write again before we leave the Philippines.  Please continue to pray for us.  We value your prayer support!