I’m currently sitting in Granada, Nicaragua but I’m writing to you about the Philippines. I’ve done this several times now (wrote blogs about a country after we’ve already left it) and I realized that I blog better that way. I have several good blogs/stories from the Philippines and I don’t want to ditch those in favor of writing about Nicaragua. Since we’re still getting settled in our ministry location I’m going to take this first week to tell you stories about last month. Here’s the first one…
While doing ministry in the Philippines I realized that many projects involved taking pictures. (Courtney was awesome by offering to loan me her camera for the month. Thanks girl!) Profile pictures of kids at the Children’s Home were needed for bulletin boards, files, and scrapbooks.
There’s also a magazine called the Jeepney that needed photos for its first issue coming out in early February. Jeepney will be sold by the homeless to the upper-class. Not only will it provide jobs and income to the homeless but will also raise awareness of poverty and social issues in the community. The theme of the first issue is water. Government provided clean water is minimal and the price of purchasing it is often more than can be afforded by a family living on the streets or in the slums. The social workers at Jeepney have been working with the poor and homeless community in Manila for many years so they showed Allison and I around and introduced us to many people.
We met Joseph and Theresa and their 5 day old baby, Jarus. Joseph was sorting through trash he had collected that morning so he could sell it in hopes of earning enough money to buy their son’s birth certificate from the hospital. The birth certificate cost 150 Picos ($3.75). We toured through the Livelihood Center and Half-Way House where 4 previously homeless families have been given a job and place to stay. They make cards and sew small pieces of fabric together to make wash rags.
We then walked over to a local slum to check out their water situation. Several people sat out front taking bucket baths and washing clothes. There was one hose that ran through the community of over 100 families. We walked down the narrow, dark alley between homes for awhile before emerging into a small square of sunlight above the community well. The water is greenish-yellow and filled with various shoes, buckets, and other assorted trash. This water used to be clean but now is only used for washing clothes.
The next night we went back to the church that sponsors the half-way house. Once a week they serve a meal to the homeless and share a message with them. While waiting for the food to be served we spent time with the people who had come. Since I don’t speak Tagalog we found a common language in my camera. They loved posing with each other and I got a couple pictures of the kids drinking water for the magazine.
All these pictures got me thinking. These people probably don’t have any pictures of themselves or their kids. I had been taking pictures of people in the community near our house and realized they probably don’t have any either. I was able to print several pictures and give them to Joseph and Theresa. It is probably the only pictures they will ever have to remember what their newborn baby looked like. I only printed a few but when I went to distribute them I was overwhelmed with their reactions. I wanted to do more but wasn’t sure how. I talked with Jeff Long and we came up with an idea. Family Portraits.
