Smokey Mountain Kids

The above picture is of an area on the outskirts of Manila called 'Smokey Mountain'. Here, people, many of whom are children, earn a living (if it can be called that) by sorting out rubbish that gets dumped there and selling what can be re-used. In essence, they are recycling.

A mother from my (Lara’s) class visited this area 10 years ago. She saw that there was no hope for these children. As young as 3 years old, they spent their days scouring the dumpsite, barefoot, for plastic, paper, cardboard... anything that could be recycled. Their older brothers and sisters and parents and grandparents were all doing this too. It’s not too hard to imagine what these children will be doing when they’re 30, 40, 50... And their children like them.

Her heart was greatly moved, and she decided to come back to the Philippines permanently and set up a school for these children. Ten years later, there are about 430 elementary aged children attending her school. They no longer spend their whole day on the rubbish tip. They are learning to read and write. Maybe, just maybe, these kids will have a different future to their parents and grandparents before them.

What a blessing it is to partner in this ministry.

Our new friends

A week ago we wrote about our angry little kittens. Well... our angry little kittens pretty soon turned into our cute, lovable, attention seeking little kittens. We've been giving them milk every day, and one day decided just to pick them up (even though they were still hissing at us!). That pretty soon softened them up, and now it's no more hissing... just crying out for us. All the time! All they want now is attention. But we don't mind too much. They're pretty cute, and so very curious. I (Lara) think Stefan especially loves them. ;) (And these photos prove it!) So, whether we like it or not, I think we have ourselves some new pets.

Angry, angry kittens

Recently, we've been hearing kittens making a whole lot of noise - more than you think would be possible from such small things. Thinking that they were next door and there was nothing that could be done, we tried to ignore them. Out of curiosity one day, we decided to look in our back yard and look what we found!


Two little kittens, left all alone in the big bad world..... how cute!


Well, in a word, no. These kittens are not very cute at all. They are down-right mean. It seems they have adjusted all too quickly to the world, skipped the cute stage and gone straight to looking after themselves.

Life can be harsh.

The photos show us trying, in vain, to reach out to them.

No such thing as a comfort zone here.

We had our church's 34th anniversary last Sunday. And since it is quite natural for Filipinos to get up on stage and sing whenever they get a chance, someone in our church thought we might like to do the same. Let's just say that we were not exactly looking forward to our time on stage!
The day came, we had practised singing our song with each other but not our accompanist. Hmmm, this might turn out to be interesting.

We had asked the lady who would be playing the piano for us if she was going to be ok to do it. I guess we should realise by now that Filipinos really don't like to say 'no' so she say "Yes, yes, it will be fine."

Our time finally comes and we get up on stage, only to look down and see someone totally new behind the piano with our original accompanist looking on!

Lara and I glance at each other nervously, knowing there's no way to back out now. In the end, it turned out well, even though I'm pretty sure the music was being played by sight - quite impressive....

Some people there even mentioned that they want us to sing again. But maybe they were just being polite...... :)

Rev-head security guards?

This one made me laugh - so I had to stop a take a photo.

We were in Thailand, going to a bar on the roof (literally) of a 60-something floor hotel. As we drove in, I noticed this sign, accompanied by two guards:



"Hey Joe, check this one out - it's modified!"

"Gee, it's nice. That's gotta put out at least 200kW! Well, we should probably let the nice people through now."

"Yeah, good point. Thanks a lot!" says the security guard, as he drops the bonnet and we drive on by.

Needless to say, it didn't quite happen like that. They only checked the boot. Or the trunk. Whatever.

Welfareville

You might have heard us say it before, but poverty is one of the hardest things to deal with in Manila. It's literally everywhere you look. One of the most obvious outward signs of poverty are the squatter settlements. These are basically areas of land, on which people who don't have much have built a place for themselves.

One of the biggest squatter areas in Manila is called Welfareville. It is divided into 45 blocks, and thousands of people live in each block. We had the opportunity to visit Welfareville in June, and it was quite an experience.

There are narrow alleyways running between tiny, dilapidated houses, made out of wood, tin, cardboard and occasionally cement. Most houses have one room on the bottom floor and one room on the top floor. Usually a different family lives on each floor.

On the day we visited, we saw cock fights with dozens of men eagerly clustered around, women scrubbing at clothes out the front of their house, and semi naked children, sent out into the rain by their parents (I assume for a shower). Everyone greeted us with friendly smiles.

We were there to visit the Sunday School of the church which OMF has helped to establish in Welfareville. (OMF also runs various other ministries, including livelihood programs, youth educational scholarships and health programs).

It was great to meet some of the 30 or so Sunday School leaders. Young people from Welfareville themselves, who don't have very much, yet they serve the Lord joyfully and enthusiastically. Encouraging and also challenging.

I did it! I should be on 'Fear Factor'!

Balut.

There's a reason the producers of 'Fear Factor' decided to include this delicacy on the show.

I had to work very hard to detach my mind from thinking about what I was eating. And I came close to failing in that regard which would have certainly resulted in some nasty display from me. Thankfully, I managed to keep that outcome at bay and ate the whole thing!

Here's what it is, from 'Wikipedia' -

"A balut is a fertilized duck egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell."

Look up some higher resolution pictures to get a better idea of what it looks like! I'm happy to answer questions on this one, not so happy if I somehow, sometime, need to re-live the experience!