Some of Our Children in the Philippines
    

Maricel Micabalo – 13 years old (above right), and Marlita Micabalo – 10 years old (above left)

We met Maricel four years ago the first time we went to the dumpsite at Lapu Lapu City. She had never attended school. She was dirty, malnourished and carried a naked baby on her hip, but she had a beautiful winning smile that captured our hearts. When her mother was approached about us helping Maricel attend school, she said no. Maricel was the oldest child of several and was needed at home to care for the younger ones. Maricel was disappointed, but was accustomed to this feeling of “no hope.” The next year, the mother was approached again. Would she allow Maricel to attend pre-school? It was only half a day. The mother said yes. Maricel was so excited. Her younger sister Marlita (above right) came with her. After a year in pre-school, her mother said yes to elementary school and the girls started first grade. They were full of joy and did well. At the end of that year, Maricel was on the first grade honor roll and her teacher was very proud of her progress. This year, Maricel and Marlita are in 3rd grade and continue to do well. We were there last February on Maricel’s 13th birthday when the above photo was taken. We celebrated that birthday with decorated Dunkin Donuts for the whole group and a special birthday gift for her from her sponsor.

Arman Denzo and Elvyn Febrero are best friends. In the photo Elvyn is taking a splinter out of his friend’s hand. The boys attended the pre-school at the dumpsite which prepared them for public school. When they entered first grade, both boys made the honor roll in their class. This is a significant achievement for children like these boys who live in extreme poverty. The boys attend church at Life Center Dumpsite Church. Often other family members attend with them. Arman dreams of becoming an airline pilot. Elvyn has not decided yet what he wants to be.


Everyday Jemuel (pronounced like Samuel with a “J”) Equipelag asked, “Can I go to school today?” or “When can I go to school?” His family was a new arrival to the dumpsite and Jemuel had never been to school. In June he was one of more than 40 new students in the dumpsite pre-school. Next year he will be ready for first grade. He is a fun, out-going young man who is already dreaming about his future. His older sister Janice is also one of our sponsored students this year.

Elmar Sumalinog, age 9, was abandoned by his parents and living on the streets. His elderly and disabled grandparents have taken him into their home, but they have no money to send him to school. He began 1st grade this year as one of our new sponsored children. In the photo above left, he is with his grandparents. On the right, he is showing off his new school uniform and shoes and book bag.

Mark Anthony Senerpida, 14 years old. Mark is an orphan, living at the dumpsite in Lapu Lapu City. An uncle was named his guardian, but the uncle has been recently released from jail. Mark is pretty much on his own, but he goes to school which is very good. When the church building was built at the dumpsite, some of the older “orphans” began to sleep inside the shelter because they feel safe there. The pastor, who lives in the church building ministers to the boys.

 

The church building of Life Center Fellowship at the Lapu Lapu City Dumpsite (photos below) has a dirt and rock floor and no running water. In addition to being a church, it is the location for the half-day pre-school, a feeding station, living quarters for the pastor and a safe sleeping place for some of the orphans in the area. Because the building is on public land, it will soon be taken down and re-built on a permanent location.
 

   


Feeding the Children:

 

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Report and Trip Diary From Philippines Trip
November 2006 – Kathy Bohlin and Petie Newsome

This has been a very good trip, led by God and anointed by the Holy Spirit. There have been significant contacts that will bring rewards in the future as we continue ministry to the children in the Philippines. .

Calbayog City, Samar – Our First Stop.
We had a very good time with Pastors Danny and Cita Montes. They live in a compound in Calbayog. There are many people living in the Montes compound. Danny, Cita and their 6 children, Jonathan and Nancy Montes and their 3 children, Paul and Emily Montes and their children, Rose Montes (mom), 21 Bible students and some others who are there for various reasons. In addition to housing for all these people, there is a church, a Bible school where students are trained to plant new churches and a pre-school for poor children. They have chapel every morning, Bible school and pre-school. It is a busy place.

We arrived on Thursday morning and had lunch at the Montes home. Afterwards, we went to the squatter community and fed the children noodles with chicken and bread and orange drink. We prayed for a little boy on crutches. He was a victim of polio. I so wanted to see him throw down the crutches and run away – maybe in time we will see it. Both Petie and I spoke in the church Danny has planted at the community in a building owned by one of his church members. The people were very responsive. Several came and said they wanted to accept Jesus as Savior, one was the mother of the little boy we prayed for. Cita told me later that was the first time they had come to the services. Petie spoke to two teenage boys who were there – obvious homosexuals. She told them they were doing wrong things and God said to stop it. Pretty bold, but Ithey listened.

The next morning, both of us spoke in the morning chapel at the church, taught in the Bible school and visited the pre-school. FCM supports the pre-school. It is for children of squatters. When these children went to school, they were unprepared because of the poor living conditions. So last year, Danny and Cita rounded up the young children and started a pre-school to get them ready for public school.

We had lunch with Danny and Cita at their house again and I gave Danny the used laptop computer we took for him. He was thrilled! We had a very good time talking about ministry and some of the issues they face in the churches they oversee. They are training their son, Rizzy, to administrate the school. I like him and feel good about God raising up another young “Montes” man for the next generation of leadership.

Then we spoke at a prayer meeting that night and had a very good time. Petie and I are tracking well together. Most of those who attended the prayer meeting were Bible school students. Both of us felt we should stretch them to think beyond the Philippines. I talked about the missions in Peru and Bolivia and the needs there, even about the witchcraft and the effects of the occult and the vultures in Chiclayo. I also talked about the needs in the Liberian refugee camp in Ghana. Petie then came and talked about how we can go to other nations through intercessory prayer. They were on the edge of their seats with eyes wide open. We asked them to ask God for a nation for which we would intercede together. One got Pakistan, another Korea and another Israel and we had some awesome prayer for those nations. Whew! It was good!

I prayed for Jonathan Montes little girl Chloe (6 yrs), his baby. She has a serious condition in which her body produces too much collagen. He has to take her to Manila once a month for treatment.

On Saturday morning, we flew from Calbayog City to Manila and caught the southern edge of Typhoon Queenie. That was a real fun trip in an old prop plane. God had his angels on duty though and we made it fine. We picked up bags we had stored at the airport and flew from Manila to Cebu. Robert and Sarah Cuenca picked us up. Sarah joined us and the three of us took a ferry boat to Tagbilaran City arriving about bedtime and it felt great to crawl into bed.

Tagbilaran City, Bohol
We arrived Saturday night (Nov 11). Tried to reach Fernando Impang, but we were not able to get him. I was going to have Petie preach at his church. But we all three ended up going to Franco Trigo’s church. I spoke and received a warm response from the people. After church, we took 17 kids from the Tagbilaran city dumpsite to lunch at Jollybees (similar to our McDonalds). We sponsor the education for these 17 children. It was the first time most of them had ever been to Jollybees and they were very happy. We gave them the bags of goodies we took and they were thrilled. They expressed real gratefulness for the help they are receiving.

We left from there and went to the city dumpsite, where the church was feeding the children who live there. It was raining and I was to preach in another church in the afternoon (I was already late), so we did not get to stay long.

We went to Happy Church where Lilian Cilacan pastors. I preached and then we went to her home for dinner with the children in her church who are sponsored by us. It was a special time. Lilian is reaching a group of people called “Badjao.” They are street beggars and are despised by everyone. They do not bathe and do not have last names. They are Muslim. Their children do not have birth certificates. We met a family of Badjao who have accepted Jesus as Savior. The glory of the Lord was on this family and they are reaching their people for Christ. The man is pastoring a church of Badjao people and has about 100 people in attendance. PRAISE THE LORD! EVERY KNEE WILL BOW TO JESUS! EVERY TONGUE WILL CONFESS THAT JESUS CHRIST IS LORD!
We went from there to Franco’s church for the evening service where Petie spoke. The next morning (Monday) we had breakfast with those who oversee our sponsored children in Tagbilaran City. We talked about the children and how they are doing and ways to improve the sponsorship program. After breakfast, we took the ferry back to Cebu.

On Tuesday we went to the Lapu Lapu City dumpsite for an afternoon feeding especially for children younger than 5 years old. It was a school holiday so many of the older children came also. I have now been to this location so many times that many of the children know me and remember my name. That blessed me.

Tuesday evening we caught an overnight ferry to Cagayan de Oro.

Cagayan de Oro – Lanao del Norte – Iligan City
We had a wonderful time on Mindanao. Everyone was disappointed that we could not stay for a few weeks. I told them it is a good sign when no one wants you to leave. They were not saying “When is this woman going to go home?”

We arrived Wednesday at 6:00 am after sleeping overnight on the Super Ferry. Waiting for us at the dock were Raul Ucab, Tata (Vergilio) Durante, Rudy Esic and Alex (our driver and body guard). Raul, Tata and Rudy are all pastors and good friends. Alex is former military and now drives a taxi. He took two days off work to drive us around and protect us in the strongly Muslim area.

We drove to Lanao del Norte and spent a lot of the day at the orphanage with Abraham Chiu. We met all the kids living at the orphanage. They got permission to miss school so they could be there to meet us. We teased Pastor Abraham about having many sons. The stories of the children who live there are heartbreaking. The youngest is 18 months old and there are older young people who grew up there and have stayed. They welcomed us with a banner and flowers. We ate lunch and listened to them sing for us. These kids have had everything you can imagine happen to them. One little girl had only been there a week. She was extremely wounded and depressed. She is 13 and was raped a year ago. She gave birth to a baby girl as a result. When she told her parents, they beat her. She has several brothers who also beat her many times. I felt impressed to minister to her and Sarah went along as interpreter. While the girl told her story, Sarah began to weep and the girl began to weep. The girl is terribly wounded, probably suicidal. God has given these kids a safe place of love and acceptance. Evelyn has a degree in chemistry, but works as a social worker. Robert Cuenca told me they don’t have much support and operate mostly on her salary.

We also went out to one of the other areas where Abraham ministers to a group that lives by the sea, a very poor community. We drove to the end of the road and kept going until we got to the ocean and found their little village.

I believe we will be helping them in their ministry to the children. God will show us how He wants us to work with them.

We left Lanao del Norte and went to Jollybees in Illigan City for a special time with our sponsored kids. Oh wow was that fun! Those kids were so happy. One of the little girls lives under a banana tree with her mother and several siblings. When it rains, they get under the bridge. Others live at the dumpsite or under bridges. Some of them had never been to Jollybees. The boys had tops in the bags we gave them and if they didn’t have fund with them! I don’t think I can explain it well enough for you to get the picture, but it was great. Those kids were wild with joy. Rudy Esic, the pastor who oversees them says there are many more children ready to be sponsored.

Afterward, we went to Rudy’s church and I spoke at Wed night prayer meeting. I was still wearing the clothes I had slept in on the ferry boat the night before. When we got through, we were ready for bed for sure.

The next morning (Thursday) we drove into Cagayan and met Raul Ucab. He took us to some of the areas where he ministers to Badjao. We went into one house where there were about 30 people living in one room about the size of our living room. Even then, Raul provided the house for them. I guess, they were sleeping on the sidewalks before. We did not have time for lunch before meeting Glen Melo at his church so we just waited for supper. It was ok. The heat kind of takes away the appetite. If we have plenty of water, we can skip a meal or two.

We met with Glen Melo and his wife Aymi at their church and he told us about his ministry to the poor children of the area.  We all fell in love with them. He is doing an awesome work of reaching families through SSS (Sidewalk Sunday School). He has SSS at 5 sites now with 200 to 250 children at each one. So he is ministering to 1000 or more kids every week. He is planning to begin 5 more sites very soon. We saw into the back alleys where the children live. I have never seen anything like it anywhere. It was overwhelming. Glen asked, “Do you want to go there?” I said, “Yes, you lead and we will follow.” I truly have never seen anything like it. It is a sprawling maze of houses and humanity.

This could be overwhelming you know? The need is too great for us – Abraham, Rudy, Glen, Tata, Raul and it goes on and on. God will show us what to do.

Lapu Lapu City:
We took the Super Ferry back to Lapu Lapu City. For our finale Sunday, Petie preached at Robert Cuenca’s church while I preached at the dumpsite church. I think I had the best assignment. After lunch we took over 100 sponsored kids to McDonalds. That was more fun than you can imagine! I have really grown to love those kids and I know many of them now. Several of the older kids made a point to tell me how grateful they are for the help in going to school. Some wanted to know if I knew their sponsor and wanted me to say thank you. It was so good to see the improvement in the countenance of so many of the children who are sponsored. The attention and the prayers for the children are have an observable impact on them. To look at their photos when they began with us, before they were sponsored, and to see them now is a remarkable thing to see. The change is that dramatic.

So that is how we ended the ministry on this trip -- with a fun trip to McDonalds with more than 100 kids. It is a day I will never forget.

We have been told to be ready to sponsor 1000 students next year. It is not hard to see that there are easily that many who need what we are doing. If that is what God has in mind, so be it. My prayer is that as we grow, we can maintain the close and personal touch with the children and the pastors who minister to them every day. God bless them all.

Love you,
Kat