Help, my heart is not formed properly…
We found this little family a few weeks ago. Mum, Eli is 19, dad, Rowel is 21, they have a 2 year old girl and a little boy who is 4 months old. The baby, Rainiel has a heart problem. One of the walls in his heart has not formed properly. He is very malnourished, so tiny. In the photo look at the wrinkles in his little arms, poor fellow, will need a miracle to survive. He has some medications from the hospital and is monitored and seen by the hospital often. His mum seems very dedicated to him. The father, although a boy himself, works hard and they are trying their best…but how hard can life get for two children who have children. There would be nearly no education at all between the 2 parents. We often talk about peoples “lot in life”, well how would you like this to be yours…
We had a decent rain a few days ago and their whole house was soaking wet, we have since put a new roof on for them and fixed up a couple of walls on their home. Chris is taking vitamins for Rainiel every few days, we are helping with scans and transport money to and from the hospital. We are trying to save his little life.
If there is ever a need to pray, now is simply it. We say that often for the more extreme cases that we find, and truly prayer is so often the only answer.
Water Sports…Baseco style…
Well, our water might not be the cleanest in the world, actually in the Lonely Planet Guide, they say that “if you were to swim or dive in in the Pasig River you would see some horrible sights in the 15 seconds it took your body to dissolve after you entered the water”…not sure if it is quite as bad as that, but it’s not the best either…but for our locals it’s a source of fish, washing water, a continual, communal, free flushing toilet and of course it’s a place of fun for the kids..!!
Check out these photos…
Children of Baseco…
Here are a few of our “Extra Special” little friends. We are not supposed to have favorites, but we all do. All over the world woman and children bear the largest part of the burden for being poor. Children are so cute, so innocent and also so unable to change their own circumstances…check out some of these little faces…super cute…
- Photo – My absolute favorite is a little girl named Daniela. She was not even born when we began working in Baseco. She was the first girl in a family of 3 boys. She sees me and that’s it, she toddles up, climbs up and she has me. I gave her the nickname “Girlfriend”, if I call out to her using her nickname, she responds. She is super cute and she is mine. We will send her to school and change her life, how could you not…look at her.
- Bogoy, real name Lewis. Such a quite natured little boy, only one older sister. His mum works 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. His father rides one of our Pedi Cabs. Just a beuatiful little man, loves Chris.
- Marlin Ortega. He broke the top bone in his left leg…ouch. He will spend a few months in plaster, unable to move. But at least his mum can carry him around using the piece of wood between the two casts, and I am not joking at all.
- These are two of Girlfriends brothers, Jimboy and Barnie. Barnie would be one of my favorite little boys and a great mate.
- A plate of rice, nourishing…not! But for some this is often all they eat.
- Might not be the latest posteurpedic mattress in a quite air conditioned room full of toys and teddies, but it seems to be working for this guy as he sleeps in the middle of a busy market area.
- If you want to enter the Kingdom of heaven you must become like a little child…amen.
- Work…un-earthing metals or hard plastics in a fresh truck load of land fill.
- The last photos is just a sad photo. Small, malnourished child, sitting alone in a slum home…no one caring, no one feeding, no one helping…until we come along.
The conditions that children live in around the world is often hard to comphrehend, perhaps impossible, until you see it yourself. Every photo that gets posted on this blog, I took myself. We didn’t search for them on the net and post them for an emotional response, or in an effort to raise finaces…we post them so that people “KNOW”, and hopefully in the knowing there might rise up a few individuals who will get a burden for the poor and who then begin to make a differance in the life of some one other than themselves.
Bless you – Mark
Hope City Team
We have had Michael and Matthew here from Hope City in Melbourne, they have been great. They have got involved in everything from prayer meetings, feeding sick children, to house renovations. But most of all they have got involved with people, they are connecting on a personal level with our leaders and workers, getting to know them as their friends. Sometimes we tend to see the poor as projects, and we miss the fact that they are people too, these guys are connecting, building relationships that will last a long time to come.
They are a good example of christians and great ambassadors for their church. Here are a few of their pics….hope you enjoy them. There will be more photos to come in following blogs.
Smile Train – some of the next children…
After Muhammads successful operation, here are some of the next children in line to get their faces fixed up…
Changing lives one person at a time, there is nothing hard or complicated about it. Have a go yourself, and you will find that it is not that hard, everyone can help somebody else in the Mighty Name of Jesus Christ.
Student Sponsorship Program…so cheap, so easy to do…
One of the major needs in any third world country is access to education. We don’t realise how many of the worlds children either cannot afford to attend school of any kind. Once a child, especially a boy, hits 10 years of age he will often be working to help the parents raise what might be another 10 siblings. Parents who have had very little education themselves, will not realise the importance of education for their own children. Lack of education is one of the reasons poverty exists and grwos in under developing countries. Education is a means of breaking the poverty cycle.
living and working in a large slum has shown us both the importance of education, but also how cheap it is to send a child to school for a year. We have the luxury of basically no admin’ costs, so the cost of sending a child to school for a year is ridiculously cheap.
In our world AUD $90 will put a child in elimentary school for the whole year. This includes two full uniforms, new shoes, bag, books, all stationary and all school fees for a whole year, and in most cases this will also leave money left over at the end of the year that just goes straight to the family of that student…$90, what a joke, less than $10 per month, who could not afford that. One less Big Mac meal a month, and you could put a child in school for the whole year. High school obviously has many more costs, so nearly AUD $300 is required at this level of education – but again breal it down, less than $1 per day.
We currently have nearly 200 students that we send to school, kids who’s parents just can’t afford it. We have church groups that sponsor children, individuals and we also sponsor many students ourselves…it’s such any easy way to change a life.
We sponsor children in Manila and in Mindanao, christians, catholics, muslims, non-believers – anyone at all, everyone should have access to education.
Childrens Ministry
Children all over the world are often the worst affected by poverty and corruption. Children have no choice, they are the recipients of the consiquences of the choices of others. We have always focused on children. We have run childrens activities in both of our churches and always provided food and vitamins for children.
Since Sarah Harrison has been working with us in Baseco, she has focused primarily upon childrens ministry. Until this point we had had healthy childrens ministries, never huge, but healthy. It had always needed a bit of a push along and was in need for some focus and attention…but at the time we were only two people and you can’t do everything as well as you need to and not everything can get the attention that it needs to get…but Sarah changed that.
The last email I recieved from Sarah (mid January) we had more than 200 children who attended childrens church in our normal sunday service. There are now three healthy childrens ministries, with all the games, action songs, prizes…all the stuff kids love and enjoy.
In three months she started a completely new childrens ministry, which now has an average attendance of anywhere between 90-150 children, plus grown the other 2 churches, one to 200+ children. While we had the crusades with Eddie Coe, we also had three seperate kids crusades in the afternoon in three differant locations. I actually did not get to see any of the kids crusades, but the reports and the pictures from Sarah were great. God bless the kids, amen.
All the kids at the crusade got books about Jesus, they did face painting – they just had a ball with the kids.
Sarah has been a huge blessing to us. The youth help her, she is training them in areas of childrens ministry, she is having a great impact.
She came to us not really all that certain what she was going to do, and after some discussion we more or less threw the doors of possibilities open to her and let her go (of course keeping an eye on things and watching over her when it needed to happen). I sort of figure Jesus can use anyone to do anything at anytime…so we need to provide oppotunities for people to find their place and do what God has called them to do. It’s great when people just come to serve, and they just do whatever you ask them to do, but to have people with initiative, desire and vision that you can just “let go” is another thing.
The rule is – “Jesus releases God given potential, He places a NO LIMITS sign on every true born again believer. He always says “Yes, you can can do it, have a go”. Sarah, is like every christian, she is succeeding simply because she is having a go. She is preaching the gospel and Jesus is working with her just like He promised.
Great to see – what could He do with you…have a go and find out…
Eddie Coe – Healing Evangelist
Hi there to all, now that I am in Australia for a while, I have time to write so more thoughtful or reflective blogs about past events in Baseco.
December of 2008 we had an Australian Evangelist, Eddie Coe come and do a series of meetings in both Baseco and Mindanao – the short comment is, they were great, beyond expectation and had lasting results.
For those of you who do not know Eddie Coe, he is an Australian Evangelist who has been around for a while. An ex shearer, who got powerfully saved, baptised and filled with the Holy Spirit. A man with a genuine gift of healing, something that seems to be becoming rarere and rarer, especially in Australia. We would all confess a belief in miracles and many see miracles, but the differance between faith and believing , as we are all called to do and then seeing a genuine gift in operation…is something else.
In particular in Mindanao we saw some incredible, undeniable instant miracles –
- two mute children spoke
- numerous catarachs instantly dissappeared
- a number of blind eyes opened
- a back brace was removed from one gentleman and he carried it home
- canes were put aside
These were some of the more noteable and visible instant miracles. Then there was just the continual manifestation of Holy Spirit power, many people being affected without even being touched physically. Many people confessing to various pains and ailments leaving their bodies, with most of them doing actions that they could not do before. Then there are the whole range of things that you cant verify in anyway at all, people simply believed it had happened. If I was to count all of these things that ever I saw happen, or that people reported to of happened over the 3 nights of meetings, there might be a list of 1,000 healings, this would not be including salvations and people who were baptised in the Holy Spirit. We had 3 nights of meetings and perhaps we averaged 400+ people per night, most of the crowd would come out for some prayer need each night. A few people had progrssive miracles, where the problem was fixed step by step each night.
I am a believer in miracles, we see real miracles often and always have for many, many years…but even I was suprised and blessed by what I saw the Lord do, amazing instant miracles.
Now Eddie Coe the man, has a few rough edges on him, just like we all do (the problem is that we usually choose to ignore our own short fallings in favor of focusing upon some one else’s), but Eddie Coe the man of God, has an incredible power gift for salvation, healing and deliverance. There is a presence about him that is just raw Holy Ghost. I have known Eddie for quite a few years now and there is a refining process going on, there is a great grace factor upon him as the Lord works on him. He is a differant man to the man I knew years ago, God is at work on him and definitely through him. Eddies heart is for souls and for Australia.
Anyone who is invloved in christian ministry knows that we need more genuine gift ministries, more real breakthrough gifts – we need more Eddies, they are sometimes a bit offensive, they sometimes do not fit the traditional church mold, but we don’t want them to, we don’t need more of the average and the ordinary…we need more of the power of God, we need more of the radical. Of course it all needs to work within the framework of the church and clearly within the confines of scriptures, but we all need the differances that gifts ministries bring to our lives and to our churches.
My personal opinion is that Eddie has a gift that can take our nation, Australia for Christ. If you are a pastor or missionary reading this article, I would encourage you to prayerfully consider (emphasis on prayerfully…do all things through prayer, good ideas rarely work) consider inviting Eddie Coe to your church, your area, your work overseas.
Without exalting the man Eddie, we will definitely have him back in the work in Manila and Mindanao, we need the fire and the passion that he brings, our people need to see the gifts in operations, it has so blessed and changed our local leaders and local pastors.
In the pictures there is a man witha back brace. I am not sure whether he had a disease or an injury, but he clearly was walking gingerly as he was assisted to the front for prayer, but after prayer the brace came off and he walked up and down a few stairs at the front of the stage area.
