I've been in the Philippines for about 2 weeks now. We have had so many ministry opportunities here at Kids International Ministries (KIM). Here is an update on all that we have been doing:
Children's Home:
This is an orphanage for children who have either been dropped off or their parents signed over parental rights. This is the first orphanage that I have worked at that you can actually adopt from. The children here range from 5 months old to 16 years old. All of them attend the local school. The children at the home are sponsored and this pays for them to live there, eat, and go to school. Even if the children aren't sponsored they still receive serves through private donations to the Home. In this ministry we come play with the kids, love on them, play some basketball, and help with anything that needs to be done around the home.
School:
This Christian based school is unlike anything I've seen! As a teacher I loved being there. The children come to school at specific times according to their ages. For example K-1 come from 8-11 and 2-3 grades come from 11:30-2:30. The dynamic of the setup is so interesting. The children are basically free to do as they please in terms of getting out of their seats and using the bathroom. I was astonished at how much they completed with this freedom. It shows how much, even as little children, they value education! Here we got to tutor the children in reading. I LOVED THIS! I forgot how much I loved teaching little kids to read.
Feedings:
There are several different communities that KIM reaches in their feedings. They go 2 times a day during the week with food. We drive throughout the community and yell, "FEEDING!" and everyone runs out. We go to a place called "tent city" which is exactly just that…a city of tents. There has been massive flooding in specific areas of Cainta Rizal (Where we are staying. It's near Manila). This is another area where the feedings take place. The joy of the people in the Philippines really take me back. It's so easy to be joyful because of them. I don't understand how people living in such poor conditions can have SUCH joy.
Street Kids:
We are living in a poor community of Cainta Rizal. There are children here who need our love and Jesus. Our ministry with them is to play with them, build relationships, and ultimately tell them about the hope of Christ. They are constantly outside of our compound WAITING on us to come play. It's seriously adorable.
Construction:
I'm not going to lie… I had a hard time when I found out that I was going to have to do this. Kalah and Bailie love doing construction, so I knew that it would be a possibility, but wasn't expecting to do it. We dug holes, moved rocks from one place to another, put mud in bags, helped make concrete, created an assembly line to get concrete up to the workers about 15 ft up a man made scaffold (this was scary)… ALL IN THE RAIN! It. was. a. blast! It ended up being my favorite ministry. 🙂
From now on I will be categorizing my blogs by the following: Ministry, What God is Teaching Me, and Funny Stories. This helps me keep my blogs shorter and the ones that need to be serious can be and the funny ones can be funny.
Thank you to everyone to has been so supportive!
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Because He is Awesome!
