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
Medical Mission – Temporary Relief for the Poor…
We just had a Medical Mission in our church in Baseco. We had 2 doctors and 1 dentist who worked really hard for most of the day. The doctors saw 330 patients and the dentist pulled out more than 100 teeth from 45 patients…they worked hard, volunteering their time to help the poor. Every patient got medicines and vitamins for their various ailments.
We had a team of our leaders praying for people and sharing Jesus with everyone. It was a big day for all involved. The guy who provided the clinic is a German Missionary named John. He had a team of 14 workers doing various things all day. Here are a few pics…
Medical Missions are a catch 22 situation…you medicate people who will need medicating again. Many of the people who attended the medical mission have minor sickness’s that are not life threatening…but it does allow us another level of connection into the community, allowing us to find some of the more serious disease issues, as well as opening up more opportunities for prayer and potential miracles.
We found another baby who will need a hairlip operation and our second rare case of Kwashior Kor Malnourishment. A very deadly form of malnourishment, where the child looks fat, but is severley malnourished. The fat look is due to the childs internal fluid leaching into the skin due to the child’s internal organs de-hydrating. Predominantly caused by a massive vitamin A deficiency, along with basic lack of food and vitamins.
Missionaries Wanted…must be qualified…aren’t we all…?
Here are some shots of Don Bosco, Temporary Housing – horrible place that is in need of Churches and Church Planters…check out the photo’s…what could you and Jesus do here.
You must be qualified to work in places like this, even though Jesus said “Go into all the world and make Disciples”, many don’t seem to think that this applies to them, it’s only applicable to those around them…
Some qualifications you will need to work in this place…
- An all consuming passion for Jesus and equal passion for people…
- You must not love your life, you must love the lives of others more than your own…
- You must be prepared to loose your life…maybe literally…
- You must not want earthly security, possesions and wealth…
- You must be prepared to “GO” even if someone won’t recognise you or “SEND” you…Jesus has recognised you and He has sent you already…
- You must be prepared to “GO” even without all of the resources and money in the bank…
- You must be prepared to really live by faith – not by your paycheck or offerings…you can learn this on the job, more than likely this will be the best way you can learn this lesson…
- Jesus must be your source for all things…
- You must listen to God first, well before man…(man does not like this, many people think that they are the voice of God for you)…
- You must run everything man tells you to either do or not do, by Jesus first, not the other way around…this might mean you often “dis-obey” man – so you might be seen as rebellious and un-submissive…
- You must either know how to pray, or be prepared to learn on the job…(on the job, is one of the best ways to learn)…
- You will need to fast, even when you don’t feel like it…
- You will need to understand that money is not the solution for everything, and that your level of faith or success is not always measured by your income…
Many of these qualifications don’t fit well with some of the theologies if “wisdaom” and “prosperity”…but they do fit well with the basic teachings of the gospel and with Jesus last words “TO GO”…
If you look at all of these qualifications and think I can’t do all of those things, don’t worry, because in reality there are no qualifications except to “BE BORN AGAIN”. If you are born again, you will follow Jesus and He will lead you to the lost.
Go back over the pictures, look at them, see the people (not the place) and ask yourself how can me and Jesus help that person…and then come and “DO IT”…
Bless you – Mark
Poverty, the Worlds Challenge…
SMOKEY MOUNTAIN – OLD AND NEW…
We took a couple of Aussies, Michael and Matthew into both the “new and the old” Smokey Mountain. The “old” is more or less closed down. A literal mountain of rubbish, that now has grass growing on it and is surrounded by 4 and 5 storey buildings, which house the residents that came off of the “old” Smokey Mountain. But as you walk through there you see that really all that has been done is the re-shaping of a slum. Before they lived and worked on the dumpsite, but the high rises are cesspits of activity. Some have power and water, some don’t, so they are simply high rise slums, cramming a lot of people into relatively small areas with not alot of natural ventilation (perfect breeding ground for T.B, scabbies and a whole range of contagious diseases), plus of course all of the increased possibilities for a variety of crime to grow, spread and become organised. There are of course positives about the buildings, they are structurally sound and won’t fall over in a typhoon, they shouldn’t leak a lot, so they do provide improved shelter…pro’s and con’s…
But unless you change the economics of people, relocating them can often make very little difference to their general living. Plus relocation does not address any areas of people hearts. Hearts hold values and beliefs, people do what they do, because they believe it to be right, or perhaps because they think that it is the only option that they have, so unless the heart of man is reached, touched and changed – he will be more or less the same, no matter where he is location wise. We are the sum of what we believe, christian or not.
Then we went for a walk through the “new” Smokey…bit of a head spin for westerners. People living in and on a really feral rubbish dump. Kids walking through it all with no clothes, no shoes, playing in it, toileting in it, bathing there, people washing clothes, cooking food, mothers birthing children in the trash that they call home, people living every aspect of life in conditions that we would find hard to imagine. Children who have lived their whole lives there, where this is their concept of normality…and it will be for their children as well.
Conditions such as this should never be allowed to become anyones “normality”, it can never be justified, should never be allowed. There are more places here in Manila that are like this, many more places in the world that are the same or worse. Countries hide them from the tourists, hide them from the officials that visit, but I want the world to see them, I want as many people as possible to come and see them, walk through them, smell them, get involved, get dirty…these places exist because we either do not know they are here, or we choose to ignore them once we do know they are there. Don’t ignore them, don’t think the issues and problems of places are too huge to fix, nothing is impossible for God, and you don’t need to be the solution for everyone in a place like this, but you can be the solution for ONE FAMILY or ONE CHILD, and you should be the solution for whatever you can manage. Jesus said “the poor you have with you always and whenever you want to you can help them…”, Mark 14:7, notice He said “whenever you want too…”, it might not even require that you pray about it (although I would never say NOT TO PRAY, as man always ought to pray), but just obey Jesus and do it whenever you want to.
The world needs to rise to the challenge of World Poverty, each person needs to do something, the world is made up of individuals, you are one of those individuals, we can fix this together, there is enough of everything for everyone. There are plenty of people who are doing stuff to help others, but there needs to be more, come on, let’s rise to the challenge to change our world.
As you look at some of these photo’s, you will naturally look at the horror of them, but look at the people and don’t ask yourself how can I change this picture, but how can I help that one person…you can help someone, you are able, you just need to be willing.
Bless you – Mark
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.
The Pedi Cab Program…it works…
Pedi Cabs, short distance local transport. Basically a bike with a side car on it, for passengers or goods transport. A poor persons job.
There would nearly be no people working in this industry who own their own Pedi Cab, the rent it for varying amounts of money, from some one who might own 100 or more. The rental price is relatively expensive and is paid daily to the owner. To ride in one of these is a cheap, but negotiable price bwtween 10 – 50 pesos per ride. The rental can be anywhere between 50 – 120 pesos per 12 hour period. We have known people who work in this industry to ride their Pedi Can all day and come home with enough money to buy a couple of kilos of rice – not enough to live on.
So we developed a program whereby we produced 40 Pedi Cabs, had them made brand new. We selected drivers from people who were already working in this industry and we gave them a Pedi Cab. They still have to pay us a rental, but our rental is onle 10 pesos per day (whole day, 24 hour period). This 10 pesos per day is then used to send one of that drivers children to school for the year. So the driver is giving us 10 pesos and we organise and facilitate for their child to go to school, it’s nearly like a forced savings plan – we get no profit from the rental, the drivers child recieves his rental via education.
The benefits to the program are many fold – before the driver only had his Pedi Cab for 12 hours of the day, but now he has it in his possession everyday, all day…so dad can ride it all night or day and an older son can ride it whenever it is not in use, so they can double their income if they are prepared to work . This allows the husband more family time, he can even take the odd day off so that he can attend something at school with his child or help the mother at home.
This program has been running for nearly a year and it works. It is changing peoples income and their attitude to life…hope has come, there is now a reason to work a bit harder and try a little more.
To produce a Pedi Cab, register it and license the driver costs AUD $350 per unit, once the driver has the unit, the program is self funded. Another great way no only to change life, but to lift financial pressure off of a whole family.
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.
Miracles abound in the world of Jesus Christ…
Rakma, a muslim women, with a simple injury that got really badly infected. Once we found this lady we took her to two seperate hospiyals, but nobody wanted to treat her. So we did it with Jesus and alot of love. We prayed, kept the wound washed, cleaned and covered….then God began to touch it and it began to heal. These pictures are incredible…there are no limits in the world of Jesus.
No doctors, very little medicine, no real hope in the natural – remember we live in a far from sanitized slum, nothing is clean. Many people might not believe these particular photos, but they might just inspire hope in some one…there is a miracle waiting for you.
Another miracle from the Hands of Jesus…
This little guy had burning kerosine spilled down his arm. The first photos id three days after the initial burn, already there is limited arm movement as the muscle has shrank. Imagine the pain that he had been in after a burn like that…the next photo is taken three days after we found him, nothing but a scar…a full movement has been restored.
