Flood Relief
We have started administering the flood relief finances that we recieved from AOGWR. We came up with a four stage plan, releasing certain aspects of relief and assistance on a weekly basis to the 100 selected fanilies in the Fairview area. The relief goods are being released over a four week period in an edeavour to ensure that target families are assisted in the best possible way.
The assistance is termed a “Re-establishment Package”, where the aim is to give 100 families the various items needed to actaully conduct life. Families will recieve pots, pans, gas cookers, various household items, various containers, food preparation items, things to wash clothes, school uniforms, bags, stationary and shoes. Twice during the next month families will recieve a 50kg sack of rice, plus weekly food allowances.
A secondary goal with the flood assistance is too purchase as many of the items as possible from the sourrounding area and so inject finances into the local economy.
Pastor James Troup has so far been the one administering the relief and has done a great job.
Jerome – Malnourished
This is Jerome, he is 6 and 3rd degree malnourished. His lips are dry and cracked, his body is very weak, his appetite is all but gone and he will be full of worms. There are 5 other children, who are ok. The father is a scavenger, the income is not enough. This family will be starting in our family sponsorship program this week.
The message of Jesus Christ is good news for this family, because with the message comes the hands and feet of His ministers. First thing we do with Jerome, is de-worming, as it is almost a guarantee that he is full of worms, usually both round worms and thread worms. The worming stuff we use is in the form of chocolate squares, and Jerome is like every other child, he loves chocolate, so it is never hard to get the kids to take the worming medicine. Literally the next day he will be worm free. Next we weight him. Then he begins on specialised milk formula, again chocolate. We gave him some while we were there and he loved it, and the good thing for him is he will be able to drink as much as he wants, the more the better. The milk is 380p (AUD 12) per 400gram tin, he will prob’ need a tin every 2 days, 3 tins per week, an absolute impossibility for his parents. He will also start on liquid vitamins daily. We can save his life.
We had a chat to mum, she seems to be a good mum in a difficult spot (not all parents are good people), we explain he needs to eat fruit and veg’, or what ever they are eating as well as the milk. He has a week or so to show some signs of improvement or else he will need to go to a specialised malnourishment hospital for treatment. The best news is Jeromes mum got saved today. She was one of 5 ladies who accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour.
Hands and Feet of Jesus – walking to where people are and then holding them up until they pull through whatever their need might be.
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the things that I have done you will do, and even greater things you will do…”
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“Most assuredly” – this verse is like the rest of the bible, it’s a certain promise, sealed by Jesus Himself, backed by all of heaven, it can never fail, this will work…
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who said this – Jesus, therefore it’s true…
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who did He say it to – Me and You…
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what are the qualifications needed – “he who believes” – nothing else added, just to make it easy for everyone to do…
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This faith of yours will lead to fruit, real, tangible, lasting fruit, seen by all…“you will DO”
Every born again, bible believing, Spirit filled christian is “so able, so full of ability, so incredibly qualified”…let today be a day where you “arise and shine” in Jesus name. Let the message of Jesus Christ be good new through you today, change some ones life.
God Bless – Mark
Slum Missionaries – “He said GO…”
History in the making…we are sending a “SELF FUNDED” team to Cebu for four days to work with another Aussie Missionary, Lucy Longdon.
They will fly there and back using their own money. Now, for some of you reading this you will think “big deal, so what”…BUT remember where these people come from, how much they earn, how huge this step is for them. They believe God is sending them, they are going as Missionaries themselves, they are going to give, to serve, they are not going to receive, they are not being paid…their own “Faith” is making this possible, not their financial situation.
Sometimes we have all the money in the world and we still find it hard to do what Jesus wants us to do. The Lord God Almighty in His infinite wisdom, spoke to people who live in a third world slum and told them “to GO into all the world and preach the gospel”, and as amazing as it might seem, they are “going”, just because He said. How incredible is that, sounds so biblical, sounds so easy.
And another amazing thing is they actually believe that they have something to contibute, I am not sure how they saw themselves before, but now they see themselves as preachers, ministers, and missionaries. They see themselves as “able to have an impact”.
It might seem like a small thing, but it’s very exciting.
Can we learn any lesson from this simple display of FAITH…?
Bless you Mark
“Pigsa” – Boils
We found this little boy a few days ago. He had had a large “pigsa” (boil) right in the middle of his back for the last two weeks. For some reason it had not burst (which is bad) and the parents had tried to keep it clean, but had not sought medical attention. They are very poor, often the poor won’t go to hospital because they can’t afford the medicine anyway, so what’s the point.
The problem in this case is the location of the pigsa and the swelling it is causing is making it hard for this little fellow to walk. But a little bit of care and kindness, a little bit of antiseptic powder and betadine, a clean bange daily and for some reason this thing burst after 2 days (I say God did it). This was a deep pigsa, look at the hole it left in his back. The hole looks bad, but it’s great, no puss, no infection and the wound will heal now. So we literally pack the hole with antiseptic powder and betadine, a clean bandage and in a few days this thing will be all fixed. Not that hard to do, but makes a huge difference to this little boy.
Looks a bit messy, but we are all that concerned with neat and tidy, we want him fixed.
Most of our leaders can now confidently treat minor stuff like this, but it is so often these little things that get infected and become serious problems, so if we take care of the minor stuff, it does not become major.
Same in our walk with Jesus amen, it’s the little foxes that spoil the vine, deal with the small stuff as soon as it happens and it never becomes a serious problem.
God Bless – Mark
Great Picture
Pictures really do speak a thousand words sometimes…WELCOME TO MY LIFE, Jhon Rey 2 years old.
Ongoing Medical Work
Marivic is our local Pastor, but she also doubles as nurse or doctor from time to time. In these pics she is treating two seperate burns victims. The burn to the foot, is just such a bad place to get a burn, so hard to keep it clean and infection free…both ladies come daily to get their dressings changed, the wound cleaned and the burns cream put on. They were both hot water burns.
The last picture is only a small portion of the burn, as it is in a very inappropriate area, the ladies abdomen, both thighs and under the breast were all burnt. The inside of the other thigh is far worse than the side you can see in the picture.
But Marivic does a good job, she she is very thorough and very gentle, these should both heal up fine in time.
Mark
Hair Lip Operations
HAIR LIP OPERATIONS – “SMILE TRAIN
Hi there to all – look at these results, great stuff…3 children have had operations so far…
Our first hairlip child was Muhumad…check out the before and after…PHOTO 1-2.
This next one is Noah, this is a stunning difference, you have took look a few times to see the same kid…he had to have a false upper lip put in so he could drink and put on weight before the operation, what a difference…PHOTO 3-6.
Then there was Jonmar…PHOTO 7-8, all of these children still have cleft pallets to fix in a few months time.
One of the aspects of Jesus, was that He “went around doing good…”, of course He did it in the power of the Holy Spirit and with pure miracles, demonstrations and manifestations of heaven (due to various lacks in our own personal lives we tend to do things with finance or medicines – which can never be the right way to get stuff done…but until our hearts open to God and His Spirit, it’s all we have at the moment)…but none the less great results for these children and their mothers.
I think that we have 7 more children going through the examination progress before they can get their operations, including a 28 year old man, who can hardly talk due to the size of the cleft in his pallet.
For more info’ please do a search for “Smiletrain” on the net and spread the word about how easy these things are to fix.
God Bless – Mark and Chris
STUDENT SPONSORSHIP
Student Sponsorship Program…
We are nearly at the beginning of a new school year, and so we have spent most of the last two weeks getting organised for our sponsorship program. Collecting all new data and photos, checking students are enrolled and completed last year, seeing who dropped out, collecting new students – it’s a bit of an admin’ job.
Sponsorship for 1 year costs AUD $90 for Elementary School and AUD $250 for High School. The majority of our students are in Elementary School.
We prefer to start students in grade 1 or 2 and try to take them all the way through to High School. We have found that starting students for example in grade 4, will usually result in that child leaving school. If a child has not attended school in those early years, they have probably been working, and while they might be earning a very small amount, they are at least earning something. If we try to put that child in school, the parents will not encourage him to continue and the child will prefer to have money in his hand than to sit in a class room and perhaps be hungry…so we try to start them early, before they have worked. This scenario is especially true for young boys. We have numerous Muslim children that we sponsor in Baseco, 16 of them are in Mindanao itself.
This year we have 221 students enrolled n the program. We provide uniforms, new shoes, bags, all stationary needs and cover all additional tuition costs throughout the year. In some instances it also provides enough finances for transport (depending upon the individual students needs).
We try to keep the parents accountable for there spending and requests over the course of the year eg: a mother will receive pesos to purchase a uniform, she will need to produce either a reciept of purchase or the uniform itself before she will receive her finances for shoes and then stationary. If there is no reciept they must go back to the store and get a reciept before receiving further funds. Accountability is a big need nationwide.
For those who contribute to the sponsorship program we are incredibly grateful and you should be receiving your new student profiles in the next week or so.
The importance of Salvation Based Education, can not be overstated. Once you spend some time in a 3rd world nation, the importance of education, stands out as a major priority in turning nations around. It is so easy to take education for granted when we come from educated nations, but without education, most nations would slip into 3rd world poverty within a few generations. Here in this nation we need Godly, Spirit filled, educated young men and women who can think and problem solve, who can introduce new ideas and implement positive change. Children who will grow up and become national leaders.
THIS IS ONE OF THE AIMS OF STUDENT SPONSORSHIP.
The POWER of Prayer
One of the constitutional enforcements of the Gospel is prayer. Without prayer, the Gospel can neither be preached effectively, promulgated faithfully, experienced in the heart, nor be practiced in the life. And for the very simple reason that by leaving prayer out of the catalogue of religious duties, we leave God out, and His work cannot progress without Him. Praying men are essential to Almighty God in all His plans and purposes. God’s secrets, councils and cause have never been committed to prayerless men. As praying men are a help to God, so prayerless men are a hindrance to Him.
The work of Ministry and the work of Missions has so many varied methods that it employs to accomplish it’s work – how many of those methods are backed by really solid prayer..?
It often seems so easy to do so much, but often the “much” has very little if any eternal value.
WE MUST BE PEOPLE OF DEEP, EFFECTIVE PRAYER.
Changing Hearts…
“CHANGE” THE HEART OF A CHILD… (or of anyone…) & YOU CAN POTENTIALLY CHANGE THE WORLD…
There are all sorts of quotes on the net about changing children and changing worlds through them. I have no doubt that this is a truth, although it’s clearly a long term task.
The bible says that “as a man thinks, so he is”, the bible teaches that out of the heart of man spring forth all sorts of good and evil, what comes out of the mouth is the overflow of the heart. Our hearts and our minds are very closely related. I have no doubt that if you can honestly and genuinely change the heart of a child for the better, you can potentially change the future of nations. Everything that comes out of man, starts with a thought and then becomes an action.
Third world nations become third world nations through the same process. It is either poor and uneducated thought process’s and ideas, which once implemented bring poor results, or it’s lack of mental disciplines to see good ideas taken through to completion, or it’s a lack of good values and morals (most 3rd world nations are incredibly corrupt with massive abuses of power and resources by the rich), which comes from bad hearts, again, this is often due to wrong reasoning or wrong values. To change a nation you must change it’s heart values, to do this, you have to change people, and most importantly you have to change people who have the potential to go on and make changes. So we need to to teach people who are able to teach, and train those who are able to train.
Changing values can take a long time (unless God is involved and renews peoples minds by the Spirit, then it can happen overnight), so in order to change the future of a nation, you must start with, or at least focus upon, the children. So we either need to recognise and encourage gifted children, and/or we need to enable children to be gifted, give them the right input, expose them to the right things in order that they can develop into great people. Everything that you do with a child is so important, but for me the 3 most important things for me to focus upon are these -
- Totally UNCONDITIONAL LOVE – children (all people) must feel genuinely loved simply for who they are, not anything they do…
- My EXAMPLE – this has so much more effect than anything I teach or say…I must be what I teach and say…my example teaches much more than I realise…
- They must always be told…YOU CAN…especially focused upon…YOU CAN do anything God leads you to do…connect a child to the thought that there are no limits, no boundaries, that there is nothing that can’t be done and connect that child to God…
It all comes down to “CHANGE” – CHANGE the way a person views their situation and circumstances, CHANGE the way they view themselves and their impact upon their situation or circumstances – and then you have a person who can bring CHANGE to their situation and circumstances. Here are two children who could easily go on and “CHANGE” their worlds…
Look at Mayrelle Robedillo for an instance, she is 6, nearly 7. In her class at school, there are 70+ children. Mayrelle is at the top of the class. Her lowest grade for any subject has been 95%, she went for months with every test being 100%. With a class so huge and a teacher unable to cope, Mayrelle is often teaching one side of the class while the teacher works with the other half. She is now growing up in a “full on” Christian family, her mother is a pastor after being “born again” for just 3 years, her father is full time in ministry after 2 years. She is speaking English to us everyday, she is getting good values and ethics – she is always being told what she “Can Do”…imagine her when she is 21…WORLD CHANGER…
Roderick Mission, smart little boy, 11 years old. At 9, he was the man of his house. He was at school full time and then in the night, all night he was out in the markets working, as he was the sole provider for his household, mum and 3 sisters. Some nights he would earn 300p selling plastic bags to shoppers in the markets, that is more than many adult men earn daily at their jobs. And while he did this he kept his grades high, but would often fall asleep in school. So he has already a great work ethic, a sense of responsibility, great English skills…imagine him when he is 21…he says he is going to the President, we tell him “He Can”…WORLD CHANGER…
