Alrighty, so we have officially got to our new place in the Philippines! I am at a place called Children’s Garden International, but everyone just calls it CG. It is a place where they take in a selection of boys and girls off the streets and give them a new place and bed and food and teach them everything they need to know to go to school and get a job one day. There are about 25 boys here right now and about 5-8 girls.
CG is in the suburbs Antipolo, Philippines. There are so many kids living in the suburbs and on the streets. Everyday I walk out of the 2nd Phase building, where Isaac and I are staying with the older boys, and I see kids playing gin the streets and their little tiny yards and on the basket ball hoops that are everywhere. Their love for basketball in this country is very great!
In the 2nd Phase building living with Isaac and I there is the house Father named Richard, the oldest boy Jojet(we call him Jet) he is 21 years old, and Michel who is 18 years old. These guys are some really great guys in every way! They go out of their way to help us feel welcomed and excepted everyday. They make us breakfast in the mornings which has been different than hard boiled eggs and bread!!! Yesterday it was really great rice, some noodles, some very sweet red meat, and coffee. I actually really liked their coffee, it tasted way better than Europe’s coffee did!
Jet and Michel have a business that they have created for themselves. Everyday they go out to the high school and they set up a food cart and sell fish cakes(fried bread), dumplings, and cold chocolate milk! It is hard to find cold things in this place where we are so the chocolate milk sells pretty fast. Isaac and I helped them out yesterday with their business and kids were buying some all day. They stay out there from 9am-2 or 3 PM. That is a long time to be on the street selling food to kids but they are happy doing it.
While we were out there, there were two street boys that came up to Isaac and I and started playing with us. We would pick them up and throw them around and make them feel wanted and loved. It was sad though to know that we can only play with them for so long and that we would have to leave soon.
Also, there is an older woman that lives right across the street from us at 2nd Phase. We call her Nani(mother). Thats a respect thing in the Philippines to call people names of the family members. They call Isaac and I Gurro, which means Uncle I think. Anyways, If i had to describe Nani I would say that she is exactly like Mulan’s grandmother. On the second day of ever meeting her she tried to set me up with her grand daughter! Ever since her grand daughter has always said hi to me whenever she has the chance haha. The next time we went over to talk to her and to tell her that we are here if she ever needs anything done. After that convo she showed us her cat, which is not very nice at all and but Jet! And then she showed us some kind of bird in a cage under a blanket. Jet and I lifted up the cage and there was some weird kind of chicken sized bird in the cage. It was ferocious and tried everything it could to peck us. I asked her what it was and she looked at me and said,” That is my chicken.” But it was clearly not a chicken. So i asked again what the bird was and she looked at me and said,” That is my chicken, T( what the people her call me), do you not know what chicken is?? This is a chiikkeeennn.” She has a huge Asian accent and it made my day. She also buys us things that guys on the street are selling for money and gives to us. I think she is trying to get me to like her daughter haha.
Here is some more about the Philippines. I am currently 13hours ahead of Ohio’s time. It makes the jet lag feel not so good haha. Also, we are in a different hemisphere so the moon looks different. It looks like it is switched or flopped over. The minimum wage here is $10 a day. That is of a whole days work meaning 8-10 hours a day. That isn’t enough to sustain a family or even your self really here. It is 48.8 Pesos to $1. That makes everything cheeper here and I are able to take people out and pay for them and buy them things when I can.
I am missing everyone from home and i can’t wait to see you all when I get home, but I really am having a great time here. So far is it 5 times better than the farm was in every way. sorry for such few blogs, Im going to try and be better about it now because i might actually have something to talk about other than the farm work and the two people that lived on the farm with us that were the only people that we saw for three months.
Thank you all for donating to me so I can hopefully make a lasting impact on these boys lives and so they can touch not only my heart but maybe even yours also! Till next time!
Blog 2
So its been a little while since i have written the last blog but I only get wifi so often so I thought i would just post two of them. This one isn’t going to be nearly as long as the last one but if it is then i must have been caught up in a rant and I’m sorry haha.
Since my last blog I have been to new places and I have tried a lot of new things. Ill start off with the new things that i have tried and the people around here. The people here don’t like to waste anything at all so when they cook something they cook all of it and don’t waste it. So, that being said, when they cook chicken there isn’t a thing that they don’t cook. Yesterday I have had chicken foot on a stick, chicken intestine, coconut water, Balut, Fish balls(fried bread things), and a whole lot of different breads. There were many different tastes in my mouth haha. The chickens foot was very very good and I’m probably going to have that many many times while I am going to be here. The same goes for the coconut water and Balut. The one and only thing that I didn’t like at all and had to stip out was the chicken intestine. It tasted very bad and was very strong. Everyone thinks it is so funny when us americans are trying these new things. I have a lot left to try like dog and chicken head(sucking the brains out of a cooked chickens eye socket).
Everyone here also apparently wants our skin color. Being the only white guy on my team, I get many many flirtatious things from many many different women of all ages. For example all the girls at the church today wanted pictures with me and there were about a billion it seemed like. Then after church while walking down the road we stopped so I could straighten some stuff out with my team and an old woman with no teeth came up to me and I asked her how she was and she said that she is doing great because she got to see me and called me very handsome and said she loved me before walking away. The people are very very nice here and are attracted to white people. Even the guys on the street call me handsome as they walk past me hahaha. I just thought i would throw a little bit more information your way!(aka ranting)
Next on my list is some of the things that I have done this week. Two days ago or so, Isaac, Jen, Libby, and I went with all the second phase boys(older boys) to go to the street to see some street kids and play around with them and feed them. We went at 8PM-10PM and it was a really good time. We got there and all the kids knew Jet and all the kids and listened to them as they introduced them to us. We got out a huge rope and started jump roping with them and it was a real good time. Then we Prayed with them and gave them food and sat and talked. I met one guy who is one day younger than me and has two younger brothers that all live on the street. He was the one guy that hit me hard because he was only one day off of being the same age as me and look how different our lives are right now. That really hit me so I thought I made alright friends with him. Then today we were walking to church and went through the city and I hear someone yelling out my name over the craziness of everyone. I looked around and saw him running up to me and he asked me what I was doing and told me that he was parking cars. He was very proud to say that because that is a job that you can get and he was happy that he was working. So I was very happy for him and gave him a bro handshake and told him that he is great and I couldn’t wait to see him on Friday night again. I hope that God will use me to make a big difference in his life.
Then yesterday Hillary, Jen and I went with Aunty Sharen to go see a family that lives in the street. I thought that we were just going to see one family in the street but when I got there there were tons of them all living in makeshift houses in an ally way. It was a whole neighbor hood of people and kids running around everywhere! I was amazed at the living conditions of the people living here. Everyone had like a couple feet to their names. There was a gutter system in the middle of the walk way as we were walking back to her friends family and we passed a little kid half naked pooping and peeing in the gutter system…….that was everyone restrooms. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I have seen poverty before but nothing to this extent.
We finally get to her friends house and I was thinking that there would only be one family but I forgot that the family and Extended family have a very big bond here and that they stick together through thick and thin. I walked into maybe a 5by 10 foot area that the ceiling was maybe 4 feet from the ground. They gave me the only chair they had and sat and talked with us. Thats when they told me that two families live in this area. One of those families had 5 children and a mother and the other had a mom and dad and 3 children. That leaves one foot of space for each person. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. They were holding a naked baby and feeding him and everything while we were there and just let him pee on the floor because it was dirt anyway.
The mother with out a husband there told me that her husband was set up by the police in a police raid of their house and they found drugs in the house. He got sent to prison and then got the sentence of life in prison. LIFE! Just over drugs. Then I heard that the prisons are getting over filled with people and they don’t have any more space here so when they find people with drugs the police just kill them. I couldn’t believe what i was seeing and hearing. She won’t ever have her husband back and has to take care of all of the five children by herself now. Her 9 year old son parks cars and he gets some money and he brings it home and gets food for everyone. The nine year old is forced to be the man of the family because he is the oldest male and he has to provide for everyone because his dad got taken away from him and his mom isn’t making enough money to feed everyone. This hits me very hard. Everyone back home in America have huge huge houses and yet they still complain. These people didnt complain once while they were there they just asked us to pray for them because they are feeling down because it seems like it is one bad thing after another. The children and the people that live here are so nice and they are so happy and always smiling and they don’t even have enough room to sleep at night. The kids on the street get kicked off the street while they are sleeping because they are sleeping in the wrong place! Yet, you can walk around america and see millionaires who are more mean than every because they don’t have the latest phone yet or the newest car. If you slept in a trash can then you would have more space then these people have.
There are so many people here that you can’t throw a stone and not hit someone. Everyone is always touching everyone because there isn’t enough space. Poverty is real and poor people are real. This is the lowest I have ever seen people live. I would love to urge people to keep praying for me but also pray for the people living over here. They may go days without eating. Today I saw a woman bathing in the gutter off the side of the road. There is much needed help here.
Also, I thank anyone who has donated to me or is donating to me or will. I have bought a lot of food for a lot of people and am using all that money for others because I know that is Gods money and thats why you donated it to me! I also want to thank anyone who has been praying for me. It has been rough and still is rough. I am only making it because of all of you who are holding me up and believing in me. Thank you guys so much. I am trying to listen to the Lord and trying to see what he has for me to do with my life and I think that he wants me to go into missions but I just don’t know how yet. I am still listening everyday and trying to find out more about him and myself too. Thank you all for reading this and I can’t with to tell you more soon! Till next time!!
