WELCOME
News May and June
Street Children
Some of these youth, which came off the street 5-6 years ago, are now leading the work among the street children. Every week they go out on the streets to gather the children for teaching, singing and a nice meal. It is done three different places in the city. Children down to four years old are among those they gather. As we come together in the open area in the centre of the city, it starts to get dark. The children sing with joy, listen very attentive to the word of God and pray with all their heart as they are lead in prayer. Then they have a meal with rice, chicken and vegetables.
School Supplies
The one time giving of school supplies are helping more than 6000 children go to school this year. It is also a powerful way of showing the love of God and we give both the children and the parents the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are now working at the big dump site in Cavite helping the poor families living there to send their children to school. On the picture you see some of the children at the dump site going home with new school bags. We will also start a feeding of the children and a daycare to see a change in the lives of the families living at the dump site.
Food distribution
Last Monday, we had this month’s distribution of food for the 17 villages we are helping because of the drought in Mindoro . This food is a supplement to the root crop they already have, and is helping them trough the crises preventing malnutrition and sickness. The rainy season has just started, but still there is at least three more months before they can harvest again.
Opening of the Centre on Mindoro
The new community-development centre consists of three different buildings: Education program (preschool, school supplies and sponsorship program), Health program in the Islin centre (delivery room, medical help to the poor and health promotion) and Community help with work training and relief help programmes. In the last building we also have an office for ICMF and the team working together with ptr. Santie to reach out in the Mangyan villages with the gospel and health promoting effort. Here we are additionally keeping equipment for reading the Bible on the different Mangyan languages enabling the illiterate to ”receive” the word of God for themselves.
This month we will also have more youth camps on the centre. For many of the youths this is the first time they experience coming to camp. It is great to be able to help the poor that would not have been able to have a proper vacation.
Unusual drought
We are having an El Nino season, an unusual drought, right now in the Philippines. El Niño is a global coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon. The name El Niño comes from the Spanish name for "the little boy" and also refers to the Christ Child. The reason is because when the phenomenon of an El Niño happens, it is normally around Christmas time. It usually happens in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of South America and is characterized by unusually warm temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean.
The last El Niño began in September 2006 and it lasted until early July of 2007. Since July 2007, El Niño has been a little quiet until now. In the US this will cause a crown year with the best crop ever (like 1997), while the Philippines, Indonesia and countries in our region experience a terrible drought and starvation for many people. Warm winds dry out the land. The effects have been seen in the Philippines since Christmas and are now felt by the people in Mindoro. It is an unusual dry season and nothing grows without watering. The Mangyans normally just live of the things they harvest day by day in the mountains and have no money to buy food. This lifestyle causes a lot of problems when there is a drought. They will normally harvest cassava, sweet potatoes, burut, gabe, rice, bananas and name. Many villages have no more food and can only find some name. Name has a poison that must be washed away before they use it as food. The Mangyans know how to do this. The cassava and other crops don’t grow any more. Many of our Mangyan brothers don’t know what to eat from one day until the next. When speaking to Santie two days ago, he started to cry when I asked about the situation. He said: My people have no food. But I am looking to God to help us through the next months. In their churches there are 300 families. I asked him to gather the other leaders and look at all possible solutions for their people. We sat down with him to make a plan what can be done. In addition to some food given, we must find seed of vegetables they can grow around their houses to help in the crises. They will not be back to normal harvest before September.
The last El Niño began in September 2006 and it lasted until early July of 2007. Since July 2007, El Niño has been a little quiet until now. In the US this will cause a crown year with the best crop ever (like 1997), while the Philippines, Indonesia and countries in our region experience a terrible drought and starvation for many people. Warm winds dry out the land. The effects have been seen in the Philippines since Christmas and are now felt by the people in Mindoro. It is an unusual dry season and nothing grows without watering. The Mangyans normally just live of the things they harvest day by day in the mountains and have no money to buy food. This lifestyle causes a lot of problems when there is a drought. They will normally harvest cassava, sweet potatoes, burut, gabe, rice, bananas and name. Many villages have no more food and can only find some name. Name has a poison that must be washed away before they use it as food. The Mangyans know how to do this. The cassava and other crops don’t grow any more. Many of our Mangyan brothers don’t know what to eat from one day until the next. When speaking to Santie two days ago, he started to cry when I asked about the situation. He said: My people have no food. But I am looking to God to help us through the next months. In their churches there are 300 families. I asked him to gather the other leaders and look at all possible solutions for their people. We sat down with him to make a plan what can be done. In addition to some food given, we must find seed of vegetables they can grow around their houses to help in the crises. They will not be back to normal harvest before September.
