Day 5

Today consisted of staff devotion with all the Malate and ODC workers and visiting Laguna, the girls home (with two boys). Our day started at 9:45 which meant we could have a lie in, we went to the Malate center where I joined the children (who were covering themselves and me in paint) painting a picturesque scene of grass. After a sticky 15 minutes the staff devotion finally began. We had a moving worship and sharing time, afterwards we had yet another delicious lunch which never fails to fill up our big bellies.

We then had our first experience of the Philippino skyway (motorway for the common Englishman) our crazy yet “safe” driver Lito was in his element scaring us all in the back. We passed the journey playing games and singing silly songs as we always do, and Simon was winding us all up as usual. When we arrived at Laguna we were greeted by the social worker Jane who gave us a short orientation of the Laguna house. Laguna is a long term home for girls who usually join from the Malate center. We were all very happy when a plate of banana fritters and ice cold water came in which put us all in a good mood. We then went to the top floor where all the girls were waiting for us to show us their dances and songs. Yet again we were amazed by the talent of these children who put a lot of effort into entertaining us. We then had to follow them with our tin can song which didn’t quite match their excellence even though this was our best performance to date, watch out Britain’s Got Talent!

We played and danced with all the children and some members of SLT attempted to play basketball with them but got thrashed.

Afterwards we went downstairs to find a delicious meal waiting for us which we ate with the staff from Laguna. After we were full, we prayed for the staff for all the work that they were doing, one of the prayer requests was for us to persuade our best friend Prince Harry to come over to the Philippines next year and marry off one of the beautiful staff members (female obviously)!

It was finally home time after a busy day, we were all tired but as we are ladies we still managed to fit in some much needed shopping time and a drink at the famous TGI’s.

God bless

Asher (formerly known as Ashleigh) & Debster (formerly known as Snook Debbie Deb and Deb for short) x

Photo: Basketball between Lito and the Streetlight Team at Laguna.

Simon in his Sunday best.

Day 3 in Manila

Just a note from Rachel and Anna…

Today began with a visit to the “Reception Action Center”, a government run programme which provides a temporary shelter for street children in Manila. After having a talk from the staff team about the project, we were asked to play games with some of the kids, which we were completely unprepared for! (Enter Bosco’s improvised action songs). We were also joined by a group of local students from the University of La Salle, one of the well known universities in the Philippines. We weren’t sure what to expect from this experience, but the kids were full of joy and it was a real encouragement to see projects such as this working in Manila to help street children. It was so heart warming to walk into a room full of smiling children, despite all the hardships they’ve faced.

After collapsing back at the Shalom Center and causing a scene involving hats (see photos), we set off for our visit to Smoky Mountain, the rubbish tip where about 5000 families live. Once we got there, the blazing heat and burning charcoal smoke immediately created an uncomfortable environment. It was touching to see kids’ faces when we handed out lollipops, although it was difficult for us to know we couldn’t do much else to help in the short time we were there. We were surprised with how healthy the children looked, considering there was glass everywhere, as well as constant overwhelming smoke from the burning charcoal, which must have been harmful to their lungs.

We then headed back to the Malate centre to attend the “30 minute graduation”, (which turned out to be an hour and a half.) The young leaders from the ODC made awards for the children which included prizes such as “Most active”, “Best dancer” etc. It also involved many, many action songs and an unexpected presentation from us. So yet again Bosco’s singing came in handy.

We were all set to go back to the hotel, little did we know that we had a feast of noodles awaiting and a visit to the Mall of Asia.

Busy day! We’re absolutely loving the trip so far and looking forward to tell you all about it in person.

Lots of love and God bless, Rach and Anna xxx

A note from Snook Debbie Deb Deb.

The plan for Sunday morning was to attend the service at the Expats church but unfortunately our dress style was sport casual and Church was semi formal. So Sol wisely then decided to take us to the Cathedral of Praise which was an interesting experience and not what we were expecting. More of which we can share when we return. We did get one or two new ideas for St. Mary’s and we were especially impressed with the security team looking welcoming armed with loaded rifles at the gate. Anyway, after seeing the offering being carried out in a Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man’s Chest type box we understand why there is a slight contrast between the Cathedral of Praise and SMB.

Lunch with Sol and staff was at the Business Area and it was interesting to see a completely different lifestyle of Manila. After lunch, it was on to the Handicraft shop for some souvenirs, complete with Sol’s 60% discount and free gifts.

Lucky for us and you that they do overseas delivery!

Then it was back to Benitez Street to spend some time with the children and the young people, which was fun and very rewarding. Anna, Ashleigh and Deb made bracelets and beady men which the younger children really enjoyed. Simon, Chris and the boys had fun with a drum workshop with an added street dance performance, where Shrimpo gained some cool new moves

Meanwhile, Rachel and Bosco spent time with the young street preachers who are a great bunch of young people and very inspiring. Dr. Chris and Andrew (Dad) sorted out the medical mission for Tuesday and we ask you all for prayer to make the whole organisation of the afternoon to be successful.

Deb

Medical Mission #1

The medical mission. What can I say? Only that if we’d been on the Apprentice, Lord Sugar would have had us in the boardroom for a severe talking to. Who was the project manager – actually that wasn’t very obvious, as we thought the Kanlungan team were leading! Our supposed leader (Andrew –aka Dad) was dispatched to find additional medicines which meant hopping on various Jeepneys and visiting what seemed like most of the generic pharmacies in the area, mostly to no avail. To be honest our team seemed to have bought up every pack of multi vitamins going.

Back at the Day Centre, things weren’t working out quite as planned. The team thought that we’d got through most of the patients. Except that at least 30 of them were sitting in the room where Dr Chris was trying to hold the surgery. Suffice it to say it’s hard to hear a dodgy chest when there’s loads of children crying and chatting in the background. Eventually, Brown Owl (aka Debbie) took on the role of the fierce receptionist, shooing out most of the patients downstairs so that Dr Chris could get on with her work.

By mid afternoon, there was nothing for most of us to do so we left Dr Chris and Debbie to it, only to discover that they were still hard at it hours later. So what happened? Seems like word had got around about Dr Chris’ excellent clinic. So various other people who hadn’t been scheduled to turn up did so and they just got let in. Eventually, after 7pm, the clinic finished. By which time the rest of the team had returned from visiting various street people in the surrounding area. Some of them we’d seen at the medical mission earlier in the day so it was nice to stop and chat to them, with translation provided by the wonderful Kanlungan staff. We met a lady with several children that Dr Chris had seen earlier on. All of her worldly possessions were in a cart, and the children slept in there at night. A real eye opener for us. Life there seemed unimaginable as we returned to the comfort of the Shalom hotel.

God bless, Andrew.

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

Final Blog

Hi everyone,

Our final blog. Who would have believed it?! Our two months in Manila is over already! I still can't believe it! It has gone so fast.

Sorry it has taken so long to write this final blog. Leaving Manila last Monday kind of 'took it out of us', so it has taken a while to get round to doing the practical things, and finishing off loose ends.

Speaking of loose ends, that is sort of how we spent our last week in Manila -finishing them off I mean. We had lots of different painting 'projects' that we needed to do, starting with painting a wall in the soon-to-be counseling room in ODC. We painted a rainbow and the verse on the back of the Kanlungan T-shirts; Mark 10:14 (I think). We really did enjoy doing that and the kids very much wanted to get involved and give their ideas:) it was a very nice, relaxing activity.

After finishing the wall, a group of Japanese students arrived at ODC, and we found ourselves accompanying them and the children to the community where the children live. It was one of the best experiences of the whole time. Although we knew of this community, it was the first time that we had seen it. The kids were so excited to show us their homes and where they play. It really felt like a 'community'. It was really strange walking round and having children calling our names, both children that we know very well but also others that we didn't! It was quite surreal. This went on till quite late in the evening.

Our next little project was with the kids at Benitez. We did some finger painting on the wall! Now, I do realize that in theory, children + hands in paint (usually) = disaster! But actually it was really good, we laughed a lot with the children and had a lot of fun with Teacher Joan and Ate Michelle too.

The other thing that Ate Sol had asked us to do was to make a plaque for the farm building. It was something that we had been thinking about for quite a while. We had a photograph, taken outside the Mall of Asia, of a sunset over the sea. It was beautiful, so we went and had it printed on canvas (which is easier said than done I might say) and then painted over it in order to edit it; and Sol had a quote to put on it. We were very proud of it, we make a great team!

On saturday, we had to say goodbye to the children at ODC in only half an hour, as we were leaving to go to tunasan for their 9th year anniversary. At the time we weren't happy that the goodbye had to be so quick as it was not how we planned it, but it actually turned out to be a blessing. From the moment we walked in we were holding back the tears and when we actually said goodbye to the kids, they all burst into tears and there was no way we could hold them back any longer. We just about managed to sing 'let the children come' with them, which was the song we taught them a few weeks ago. Eventually we had to leave a whole room of kids crying their eyes out, we really had to make ourselves keep walking and tried not to look back as it was too hard.

The tunasan celebration was fantastic. They don't do celebrations by half! It was at the local church and all the kids from the dumpsite, that tunasan do so much work with, were there. They had performances from kids that go to tunasan, from the girls at pacita and testimonies from a few of the older boys that have grown up in Kanlungan. There was also praise and worship and a sermon. It was really inspiring and heart warming. We are really glad to have been able to be a part of it.

Our goodbyes on Monday were also really hard. The children at Benitez had prepared a presentation for us and then presented us with a card and some gifts. They also gave us individual messages too. We sobbed through the entire thing. We love all the kids so much that it was heartbreaking to leave.

We managed to say our final fair-wells to everyone at the coffee shop and the staff at Benitez and ODC before making our way to the airport. :'-(
We are so sad to have left, but the children and staff will always be in our hearts. We hope so much that one day we will be able to return!!!!

Thank you so much to both Kanlungan and Streetlight for allowing us to have this wonderful experience! It is something that we will never forget, and it has taught us both so much. We can't wait to come home and share more of our experiences with you all, and photos of course!

Thank you so much for all your support and prayers. It has meant the world to know that you have been behind us 100%.

Lots of love
Sarah and Heidi
Xxxxxxxx