We have arrived!

Hello from hot and humid Manila. Apologies there has been no blog sooner – IT issues beyond our control!

A team of us from St Marys Bletchley set off on Tuesday and arrived late on Wednesday at Manila airport. We were delayed by about three hours in Doha due to a rain storm – crazy!

For those that don’t know us we are a team of nine people…..

• Andrew – Streetlight Trustee – we have christened him “Dad” as he has all the dosh and if we want anything he pays for it. Awesome.

• Bosco – he actually is a dad to Ashleigh and Rachel – again it seems that if you ask him for anything he gives it. Nice bloke and thank you Bosco for loaning your laptop to the team.

• Rachel – Bit too good at card games for my liking – obviously too many hours misspent in lower sixth where she is studying hard (allegedly)

• Ashleigh – …her claim to fame is being taller than her Dad. I’m sure she has several other claims to fame that will be blogged about later. She is currently training to be Simon’s glamorous assistant while he performs his infamous magic tricks…..

• Simon – drummer…magician….bongo basher extraordinaire…. His drumming skills seem popular with the kids who are taking great delight bashing his bongos to bits….

• Anna – arty farty and fashion chick – her yellow sun glasses have gone down a storm….

• Deb – Brown Owl and our secret weapon – the kids have not been exposed to her Brownie Songs yet…..I wonder how Oki Toki Unga will go down?

• Christine (Chris H) – Chris is a GP and will be using her skills during the trip. More importantly she is a hardcore Man United supporter and was delighted that the airplane had football highlights showing during the flight.

• Chris S – also known as “Shrimpo”. Will be doing his best to spread the word of harmonica to all he meets.

On to our first few days…………

We arrived safely on Wednesday. Our flight was delayed leaving Doha by three hours because of heavy rain! We were met at the airport by staff from Kanlungan and shared a meal with them before crashing for the night.

Thursday was our first full day. A day of contrasts. I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

Our first visit was to the Malate Centre. This is a temporary home for street children that for whatever reason have found to be in vulnerable situations. They may have been abandoned and left to live on the streets or found to be in an abusive family relationship. The staff at Kanlungan offer temporary shelter and a refuge while the children’s needs are assessed. Ideally they look to repatriate children back in to their families but this is not always possible. Those that are allowed by the authorities to live permanently in the Centre are then offered long term care and a home within Kanlungan. More of that another day.

The second picture is a Drop in Centre where kids literally visit for the day. They are offered food, somewhere to wash, and basic education. These children will not end up in a regular school as we know it. The teaching they receive at the Day Centre is likely to be their only education. At the end of each day they return home. A shocking statistic is that 50% do not have a father/mother or adult figure and therefore home for these children is literally the street with other children as “support”. The other 50% live in a shanty town nearby; we visited their “home” it was challenging to say the least – very dark dense shanty town. There were times when the atmosphere of the place became oppressive. None the less kids were delighted we visited and mothers wanted to show us their “home”.

Next picture is of a coffee shop. No ordinary coffee shop. It is staffed by young adults that have come “through” Kanlungan from often as young as five. The coffee shop gives an opportunity of employment and earning a wage. Remember these “kids” you see came from the Street. Parents often have never been traced. They have no birth certificate and this stops them getting employment. The coffee shop is an amazing opportunity to give them employment, feeling of worth and a chance to give back to Kanlungan. The coffee shop opened in February. It was a dream come true. A significant part of the start up costs were met by Streetlight Trust and Sol and the staff were so keen to say “Thank you” and express their gratitude for the support of Streetlight trust.

I’ll leave you with a final picture of Simon and his growing fan club!

Just a quick blog to give you a flavour of the day. So much to say and so hard to know where to start. We have all been struck by the warm welcome we have received, the faithfulness of staff and children alike and the signs of hope we have seen amidst some difficult situations. God is good and we thank Him for what he is doing through this place.

Only complaint – no toast for breakfast – still there was corned beef and fried egg which Simon bravely tried and survived (we think).

I’ll leave you with a question….who are Kuya Ian and Lolo Malcolm – people keep asking for them….??

Tomorrow Chris H will lead a medical surgery together with another doctor and other health workers. The rest of us will be supporting the day and working with Kanlungan staff as they “welcome” over 100 children….it should be another full-on day.

Night Night

Chris S