Farewell Tour

Last weekend the Children's Home staff got to spend a quick weekend away in Baguio, the "summer capital of the Philippines" to say goodbye to Jhett, one of our social workers. Jhett is heading to Vietnam to spend 13 months volunteering in program development for children with HIV/AIDS. For the better part of this year Jhett has already contributed so much to the home with her expertise and experience. With her leadership we received a key accreditation needed from the Department of Social Welfare and Development and she also helped pave the way for the first adoptions to happen in the near future. While we will miss Jhett, we are thankful for her months of service here and wish her blessings on her work in Vietnam. Plus, what we lose in Jhett we gain in our two new social workers Richelle and Sci. Along with Mae, we now have a dynamic team of three working hard every day for the kids.

Baguio was a great bonding time with the staff in a beautiful setting (and much cooler temperatures than Manila). We had fun seeing the sites in the city and also going out to spend an overnight at Jhett's family home, a 1920's traditional stilt house in the middle of mountains and rice terraces. We picked and ate plenty of fresh fruit, planted a rice terrace, and enjoyed each other's company out in the boondocks - literally. That expression actually comes from the Tagalog word for mountain, bundok. That's exactly where we were. Goodbye Jhett and thanks for all your hard work. And hurry back to Manila!

DJ and Rachel

God's blessings flow from KIM to OMF

Two days prior to OMF's appointed day for us to pay off the building we invited OMF leader Theo Jansen over to receive the check for the payment in FULL. The 11.5 million pesos(about 260,000 usd) allows us a building to use for decades to come. Another million or so pesos will be given to the government in taxes and fees and the remaining funds will be used to help spruce up the place and put a new roof on our garage/storage area. The twenty plus bedroom facility was built in 1983 and was utilized as dorm for the first two and half decades. We are glad we have a home for short term missionaries, the Jeepney Magazine, future older children home kids, our Filipino staff as well as missionary staff. The wonderful blessing will be well utilized for the growing ministry of helping kids know Jesus.

Read about this more on our 'location' section Yunjin Lyso Ministry Center page of the website..

To God be the GLory Great Things HE HAS DONE!
Jeff

When Things Go Right...

For anyone who has spent even a day in Manila you would agree that it is chaotic- efficiency and speed are not strengths of this city. Being fully prepared to spend the ENTIRE day in the city, 5 of us KIM staff ventured out to get our drivers licences, so we could legally be able to drive in the chaos! As it usually goes we spend hours filling out paperwork and being transferred from room to room getting hysterical medical and eye exams (which is a whole blog entry on its own) Today was my third attempt to get my licence because of what I mentioned earlier- the efficiency and speed are not the strong points of how things run here.

Today, however, today was different; a minor miracle! We arrived at the Land Transportation Office at 9am and by 12 in the afternoon all five of us had our licences in hand and were on our way home! We are very grateful and realize that it was a rare occurrence. In fact, so rare that is just had to be posted in a blog!

Almost Finished, With This Project

Friends,

As you can see by these pictures we are getting close! God has been so faithful to add funds at just the right time! We have walls, ceilings, a roof, inside walls.... Its been incredible to see teams arrive at the right time to do what they were gifted to do. Recently a team of six painters came from the KC area and really did heaps of work inside and out to get things 'rolling' in the paint area. Colors were chosen by friends in the know that had just arrived to serve and have a gifting in that area. Its really neat how God works.

As we go down the 'home' stretch we need a few things to see this become reality... What is reality? We will be able to feed and dine with our kids and staff over 60 in all at one time(family style) I LOVE IT. Above the dining hall is a great room for our nursery. In fact its has four bedrooms a kitchen, play room and four bathrooms. We are excited to be able to serve ten to twelve children in this area.

What do we need to finish?

Tiling the entire first and second floor? 5000.00 usd

Lights and fans? 3,000.00 usd

Table, chairs, appliances, beds, dressers? 4,000.00 usd

Remaining windows and doors? 4,000.00 usd

Thanks for helping us complete and utilize this GREAT addition for the kids,

Jeff

School Days

School is going really well. We are almost done with our first quarter. This past month some classes have been able to go on some field trips to Corrigedor and the zoo. We have were able to graduate one of our kinder classes to first grade so we are very excited for those students and they are doing well with their new curriculum. Many of our other students in the grade school will also be graduating to the next grade levels in the next month or so.
All the students love their art, PE and Library classes. I am able to interact with all the students as the Librarian. In the grade school class we are reading "Swiss Family Robinson" and in the younger kids we are reading "Treasure Island." The students love it so much that everyday someone asks me are we having "ribary" today? They can't say library very well.
As we finish this quarter we are also getting ready for a talent show that we will have in September and our tryouts for that will be August 18th. So many exciting things happening with the school.

Celebration of Life

One thing will always be true and that is time never stops. And there are so many blessing that come long with that truth. Here in the nursery we are able to enjoy many opportunities to see these precious children grow over time. Each one of our six babies continues to wow us with the changes they go through. Recently our family was able to celebrate the 1st birthday of twins, Daniel and Jacob. At the beginning of their lives they were faced with many hardships. Born premature, the boys weighed 2 pounds and needed to spend that first month in the hospital. What was truly a miracle was that they had survived several abortion attempts. In the past year, they have just continued to thrive. So on July 29th, with very delighted hearts we partied for the celebration of life! We know that the boys enjoyed their first cake. Of course frosting and chocolate cake went everywhere, but that was part of the fun. We had set up a pool outside on the grass for some fun is the sun swim time. There was lots of splashing, playing and laughing done by everyone. We are so thankful to our amazing LORD for the past year of life.

Daisy

Boys

New Faith Family Children's Home Manila is currently home to 9 boys ranging in age from 8 - 13 years old. We call them the big boys. Most families don't even have 9 kids, let alone that many boys in this age group. Therefore, as you can imagine, things can be difficult with them at times. The simple fact is that issues are bound to arise when that many boys are living together. Compounding that is the fact that most of these boys have grown up with broken families, no families, no father figure or a bad example of one, on the streets, etc, etc. We want these boys to grow up to be godly men, breaking out of the cycles of violence and neglect that they were found in, in a culture that frankly often writes off boys as trouble from birth. That is usually a self-fulfilling prophesy. But it doesn't have to be.

So, as an activity to specifically focus on the big boys, we recently did a three-day camping trip to Corregidor Island, a major World War II historical site just an hour into Manila Bay from Manila. Here on this tiny island, the devastation of the war is uniquely preserved in the ruins of barracks, gun batteries, and other buildings that still sit crumbling as they did the minute the bombs hit them all those years ago. And there are no ropes and barricades, just a free-for-all to explore these places. Plus, there are countless caves, beaches full of shells and treasures, monkeys, jungle...it's a great place for the boys to spend some time away from the Home, just them. And they had a blast. Besides exploring old ruins, dodging bats in caves, and learning a little more about their history, the boys overall just enjoyed camping on the beach and spending hours in the water. They were shocked at first to find how salty the ocean is! Now, in a nation of 7,107 islands we are surrounded by salt water, but not surprisingly, these guys hadn't really experienced that yet. They caught crabs, body-surfed, jumped off the pier into the water, had campfires and made s'mores...all with minimal fighting and a good spirit of camaraderie.

Working with the boys every day can be a challenge for the whole staff, but there is so much beneath the surface of each one of them, so much potential to be the kind of Jesus-following men that will make a difference in this world. We are happy they got to experience Corregidor and have an adventure of their own. There were some great moments there when all the other relational conflicts and dynamics were peeled away to reveal nine boys playing happily on a simple beach. Pray for Rene, Jude, Joseph, Benjie, Jomel, Fritz, Jeric, Regie, and Alvin - that wherever they end up in life, they will be quality men, serving God in their own unique way.

DJ and Rachel