Great Journey

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Psalms 16:11




God takes us through a great journey called life. For most of the time we don’t know where it’s going or leading. The path itself is not important. The important part of the journey is the relationship we develop along the way with God.


In January 2007 I retired from Hospital Administration, being single and still young (relativity) and active I applied for a short term mission trip to the Philippines. I arrived October 2007 and stayed until February 2008, returning to Canada for four short months, knowing that I would return to the Philippines. I came back June 2008.
Sometimes we try to understand why God has put us here or try to discover our unique purpose or calling in life. I know that I have found that calling by giving and volunteering and working in Cuatro Cainta Rizal. There are so many opportunities that is presented each day to reach out and to be the extended hands of Christ in this community. This ministry in not confined within the walls of the children’s home to the 40 abandoned and neglected children God has placed in our trust, but through many other avenues including the squatters community and school.
God has provided me with an amazing opportunity to serve Him in the talents and gifts he has given me. I love working with children and assisting in health care. For the past five months I have had the privilege to be involved with these children, the community and the lives of those serving in ministry a His service.


As I invest my life in the lives of many children here in the Philippines, my prayer is to promote an atmosphere of trust, health, safety and love for the many children God may bring our way. Mt prayer is to invest in their young lives as they in turn give back to God their given talents and abilities to Him for the further development of their people




Philippians 4 7-9 Do whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely and admirable if anything is excellent or praise worthy –think about such things. Whatever you have learned or heard form me, put it in practice and the peace of God will be with you

Piano Lessons:

I am sitting listening to the simple sound of scales going up and down deliberately and rhythmically on a piano at the YunJin Lyso Ministry Center. Today is the first day of piano lessons for some of our kids,a huge blessing thanks to our friend Joy. Joy is probably one of the best piano players in Manila. She is the primary pianist for the University of the Philippines Chorus, one of the premiere programs around here. She plays in the worship services for Greenhills Christian Fellowship, one of the largest churches in Manila. And, she is the niece of Glenn and Grace Ayala, our friends in Mindanao that donated the land for the Malaybalay camp and children's home project.Joy is volunteering her time with the kids to teach them piano twice a week. For a young woman with so many other things going on, that's an awesome commitment, and we are grateful! I started piano lessons when I was a young boy, which led me into a lifelong love of music. Piano really opens the door for young creative minds to really understand and appreciate music. It gives such a good foundation for either continuing on with piano, or learning new instruments. Music is a huge part of Filipino culture, and consequently a great ministry tool. A lot of these kids have already shown great interest and potential in things like singing, guitar and piano at their young age. How cool is it to have a piano teacher volunteer to continue developing those skills and interests? We are thankful for Joy and her service and look forward to seeing the kids continue to learn and use music as a way to reach people. DJ

GOD works in amazing ways:

This past week we hosted a team of 24 middle school students from Hong Kong ICS.... This is the second year they have come to impact the children's home and community. My what an impact....

These pictures show community members utilizing the 'new' space that has been created by the hard working friends from HK... Yard work, concrete work, taking up old tile,putting in new tile, painting, planting , were all a part of the big week long service time.


A neighboring church/seminary approached us a few weeks ago asking if we'd be interested in buying their land and building. I was in shock as this facility, although lacking significant maintenance was a 'light' in the community. A seminary had been training dozens of future church leaders, a church was feeding the flock from the community, a youth group had been reaching out to the youth in the streets surrounding our children's home.


We graciously declined their offer and countered with, " let us help you breathe some new air into your sails" and keep your boat afloat during these stormy times. The end result was the kids from Hong Kong, some of the their donated funds, and community kids pitching in to right the ship and chart a new course. Praise God!

Today God has lifted the leadership spirits and we are looking forward to future partnership, including the building of playground equipment in their spacious well shaded yard, a couple of rooms in their building will house our community school-grades 3-6 someday, kids from the streets are coming in for Bible study basketball games,our staff will be enrolling in a course, '" how to study the Bible"and their building although far from being 100% sound is on the mend....

WHO WILL COME TO HELP US FINISH what 24 middle schoolers started?

Opportunities abound in the Philippines,

Come and help,

Jeff

Heartlyn's Story

The nursery has seen quite a few changes these past few months. The new nursery is finished, and we moved into it back in October. Also, on September 30th, we got 3 new additions to our nursery. Tyra, 2 years old, and Chris, 11 months old, are a brother and sister who came to the children's home. Also, we got a little baby girl, Heartlyn, who was 2 months old at the time.


All of the babies have amazing stories, but I am going to share Heartlyn's with you. Her story is such a clear picture of God working miracles, I still get chills thinking about it. We got Heartlyn late in the afternoon on September 30, 2008. She seemed to be drinking fine, though it was obvious that she was not used to being fed the right kind of milk. The very next day all the new children were taken to a newborn screening, just to see if they had anything extremely wrong with them. Heartlyn did not come back from the screening. She was so sick that she was taken to the hospital right away. She has green feces and green goop coming out of her eyes: the doctor said that she had an infection, but they were not yet sure of how bad it was. It turns out that her white blood cell count was so high that she could not even survive normally. As well as the infection, Heartlyn also had Pneumonia and at least 3 other sicknesses. The doctors said that she probably would not be coming home for months.


That night two volunteers went and stayed overnight at the hospital with Heartlyn. They felt led to pray over Heartlyn, the whole night! So they did, they prayed over Heartlyn's little body nearly the whole night. The next morning, the doctor came in to check on her as usual, and the doctor was amazed by the changes in Heartlyn. The infection was gone! She was eating normally and the fever had gone away. Heartlyn came home that very day. Everyone was just blown away by God's grace and His miracles! Praise God for his love!

Alex

Meet Alexandra. She is one of the newest arrivals at New Faith Family Children's Home, having come on the last day of September with her two younger siblings Tyra (2) and Chris John (1). The other two have plenty to say about them as well, but this is about the big sister - a picture of the kind of children we often care for. She is not orphaned or abandoned. But she comes from a very difficult home life. Maybe she is 7 or 8 years old, we are not sure. She is surprisingly big though; maybe it's survival of the fittest - her siblings are undersized with far more health issues.

Alex cried and cried when she first arrived, a fish out of water in this large, nice home with so many kids and staff. But her new reality slowly sunk in when she was given clean clothes to wear, was shown her own soft bed to sleep on, then sat down with the other kids for a good meal at dinner. After a month to adjust to her new life, she was able to start school for the first time yesterday, beaming in her uniform as she left with the other kids. She has been loved-on immediately by the staff, which had an instant effect in her awakening. Alex still has a very fiery attitude and temper that understandably emerges at times and she can really get into it with the other girls. But she is learning to abandon that as she settles in at New Faith and as we as staff keep pouring into her. She smiles a lot now and says she is happy. We are happy to see the changes in Alex; pray she continues to grow into the girl God wants her to be.

East Coast Fun!

I bet you have never seen a blog from the east coast well, since I am the only one from "the team" from the east coast and this is the first time I have written one from here. Lots has been going on. I have been able to go to one fair already and will go to another one this weekend. But at the last fair was able to meet up with a girl who is really interested in coming for a summer to work at the Children's home. I have also received donations for the Home as well as being able to see some of the cards that Megan has made that highlight some of our kids. I was also able to host two open houses for people to come over and see videos, pictures, artifacts, and taste some food from the Philippines. those that came loved it. From that I have four of my friends that are praying about coming over to work at the Home for a couple weeks or for the whole summer. I have visited my alma mater and have made good contact with them in setting up trips and internships to the Philippines with us. SO lots of great things are happening here.

I am continuing to work while I am here in the states and enjoying being with family and friends. It has been a great time for me to be with my family as my brother is now training to be a corpsmen (medic) with the US Navy (hope to see him for Christmas), my other brother, in his senior year, won the conference with a strong possibility to go to Nationals with his college, my sister will take her Athletic Training Exam this weekend, and my dad having had several surgeries. My mom and I have been hold down the fort. Taking care of our chickens 2 dogs (that just had surgery), and our duck. As you can see never a dull moment.

Kim Courtright

Looking Back and Moving Forward

A year ago six foreigners were standing on the side of the road with luggage. Colene stopped, offered help and dropped them off at their designated spot. An hour late I got a phone call wondering if i could house these same people and 'oh by the way they are looking for ministry opportunities". A year later three ministry teams have come in separate months and done amazing things for the children's home in Manila, Malaybalay as well as the communities we reach out to... Over fifty workers and ministers of the gospel joined our efforts and many other groups around Manila this past month.

A year ago over twenty middle school kids were stranded at the Manila airport. They had just arrived and were suppose to head up north to minister however a typhoon shut down all travel and thus the call came to our children's home wondering if we could put these young adventurers to work. We did and a year later this same school has sent over administrators , two other work teams, and countless blessings for the homes in Manila and Malaybalay.. The middle school teams from their school arrive again next Monday!

Two years ago a team of aspiring workers showed up from Minnesota with a young couple named DJ and Rachel Langefels leading the team. A year ago this couple had enough of short term experiences and came to give their lives to God while working with our Manila children's home. This past couple of weeks the core group of the Minnesota team from 06 arrived again. After finishing their time one person wrote about the amazing change that had occurred in the lives of the kids and how impressed they were with DJ and Rachel's role and how they were being used by God!

God has indeed blessed our small group in 2008. We are pumped and excited to see what stories will be told a year from now as we see some of our first kids being adopted into forever homes all around the world!! First up are our twins, Daniel and Jacob who will be traveling to live with their parents in Elgin, Ill. sometime later this year or early next. Oh yeah, it was a little over a year ago that a group of short term medical missionaries were involved in saving the lives of the twin's mom, Daniel and Jacob....

What has your year been like? What will the next year hold? Keep looking for those God given opportunities to be about HIS work and have fun looking back at what God has done in your life in the coming year....

Thanks for allowing us this privilege...

Jeff for the Longs