The Youngest of Nine

I think it would be pretty safe to say that nearly all of our children, when they come into our shelter, have absolutely no idea when their birthday is. That would be true for older children as well as the younger ones. And having no idea when their birthdays are, few of our children have ever celebrated their birthdays before coming to CSC.

But it doesn't take our kids long to find out what celebrating a birthday is all about. We do it about 70 -80 times a year so that each child gets their own special day to be in the spotlight. We don't do anything too fancy, but it's a very big deal for each child. The staff will join the home of the child that's having a birthday for a special meal (chicken and spaghetti are the most common menu items!), we have some cake and ice cream, and each child will receive a gift bag with some treasured gifts.

Tonight we celebrated Jashley Mae's 4th birthday. Jashley is the youngest of a group of nine siblings we have and this was a very big deal for her. The rest of Jashley's siblings had already celebrated their birthdays this year and Jashley knew her birthday was on September 29. Now, as a four-year-old, Jashley doesn't really understand that she's the last of her siblings to celebrate during a calendar year, but she knew the date and she knew it had been a long time since her last birthday. In fact, she has regularly let us know her birthday was on September 29 since early summer.Well, Jashley celebrated her birthday "outside the box" tonight. It has long been CSC tradition to wear the color red on your birthday and rarely is that "violated." But tonight Jashley was dressed like a little princess in a shiny blue dress. Cute, cute, cute. And don't let Jashley's expression from the pictures deceive you that she wasn't having a good time. That is Jashley's happy face and she was having a GREAT time!

One Step Closer

Today we finally received the occupancy permit we need to move into our new facilities! The occupancy permit is given when all of the post construction inspections are done and the Office of the Building Official concurs that the buildings have been built according to the previously approved plans and that everything meets code.

This has been somewhat of a slow process as virtually nothing moving through the city government's various offices gets done expeditiously, but here we are one step closer. The last step is for us to use the occupancy permit as one of the requirements in applying for a larger transformer to handle the bigger electricity load with our additional facilities. We will start that tomorrow, so we'll see. We should be moving in soon!

Beyond the Call

A few weeks ago, Joemar started attending a Saturday P.E. class that the physical education instructor, Teacher Al, from our own school started having for children and young adults with special needs. Joemar was so excited. Several times a day we heard how he had played volleyball the previous Saturday or he was going to play volleyball the following Saturday. Since then it has progressed into other sports and Maria, from our teen home, has also gotten involved.

Yesterday, I stopped by the local college where they were learning how to play basketball. I couldn't take the smile off of my face as I watched Teacher Al and some assistants very patiently teaching the participants the various basketball skills. They were just all having a great time and Joemar was proud to show off his skills and the new friend he has made in the class. The ante was upped a bit when I got my camera out to take a few pictures.

Maria, who was decidedly tired and had called it a day, became decidedly untired and determined to go back out on the court to take a few more shots. And Joemar became a little more animated and very light on his feet!We appreciate the effort that Teacher Al puts into his classes with all of our kids. Trained and experienced P.E. teachers are very difficult to come by and this is the first time in the 11 years of our school that we have had such a teacher. Al is very patient to teach all of the skills the kids need for the different sports they play and he is very methodical about getting them warmed up and cooled down after. But the truest side of Teacher Al comes out when he is with our kids with special needs. He wants everyone to have a chance to play sports and be phyically fit. And he wants everyone to have a fun time doing it!

Great Friends

Last night our whole staff gathered at our house for a potluck dinner with two of our great friends (and CSC's great friends). It is a pretty regular occurrence that all, many, or some of our staff are together for lunch or dinner meals. We work together and we often socialize together. It's been that way for my 25 years here. But we always enjoy it just a little bit more when we have good friends with us.

With us last night were Howard and Marilynn Plucar who are with the leadership of Reach Global, the international missions wing of the Evangelical Free Church of America. We have known Howie and Marilynn for many years now and they have been not only good friends personally, but wonderful friends to the ministry of Children's Shelter of Cebu. We have been in their home many times, and they in ours. But they have always had a keen interest in the work we do with children in the Philippines. They have helped to support our children and ministry as a whole. And Howie has even gone to the great lengths of being Santa Claus for Christmas with the children here (a very hot, but not thankless job!). If I recall correctly, Howie even got to spend a little time in the therapy room jacuzzi as a part of our annual Santa Claus hijinks with the kids.

Often our conversation will center around something to do with the ministry or the kids, but last night we took a little detour to 1950s, 60s, and 70s television - who remembered or watched which shows, who the characters were, and how the theme songs went. Instead of talking about how the teachers' days went or which kids were up to what, we got into the Munsters, Brady Bunch, Lone Ranger, Addams Family, Gilligan's Island, Three Stooges, I Love Lucy, Fury, and so on and so on. We had a great time and a lot of laughs!

Do you remember the theme song to the Munsters?

Parent - Teacher Conferences

A few times a school year we have the chance to go to our school and hear how our kids from the shelter are doing. So perhaps it's a bit of a misnomer to call them parent - teacher conferences because our kids do not have their parents in their lives. Instead, the children's house parents from the homes at the shelter and all of our staff gather together to hear our teachers share about how the kids are doing. It can get to be a bit of a marathon at times, but that's unavoidable. We usually are hearing one-by-one how 50 of our kids are doing, so yesterday it took about 3 1/2 hours to hear about their progress! Even with that length of time, we don't get to hear about each child for very long.

Our teachers always do a great job of putting together narrative reports that really give a good picture of how each child is doing. It's hard work and they make them interesting, noting the strengths of each child and perhaps where they need improvement or extra help.

It is so encouraging to hear that each of our kids is making progress - some excelling, some faster than others, but at least they are all moving in the right direction. It is just amazing to hear about their progress when you are aware of the situations the kids have come out of. Many of the kids did not start school on time and missed several years. Others started, then stopped, started, then stopped, started, then stopped do to their unstable home situations. Because of this, most of the kids end up playing catch-up for the rest of their academic careers. And even after many of these children get to our shelter and get enrolled in school, it may take them two or three years before they really start to get any "traction" and start to make steady progress.

It is hard, hard work being a good teacher in our school and seeing that the needs of each individual child are being met because the needs are so many and so varied. I think our teachers are heroes and great role models for our kids. And it's also hard, hard work being a child who is behind in school or with some learning difficulties to be able to cope up and catch up. In our school it takes a lot of hard work all around!

Joemar Has a Lot to Say

Anyone who has been to visit CSC for any length of time knows Joemar. CSC is Joe's home. It has been now for 24 years. If you don't know Joe, he came to CSC when he was just short of his 9th birthday. Joemar, who has special needs, was clearly traumatized when he came to CSC and didn't really talk. We weren't sure if it was because of the trauma he had gone through or if he had some speech impediment. All these year's later, Joemar still isn't able to speak clearly. But it doesn't keep him from trying. Touch on a subject close to Joemar's heart and he can ramble on for quite a long time including demonstrative hand gestures, creative sound effects, and entertaining facial expressions. In fact, Joemar has a lot to say. Those who are wise will listen closely.

Joemar starts each day with the same enthusiasm he has had every other day in his life. His cognitive limitations have never limited his desire to live each day to the fullest and to be happy doing whatever he is doing at the moment. Every single day is a happy day for Joemar. Any visitor worth their salt can tell you about Joemar's smile, his laugh, and his willingness to help out with anything he is asked to do. Nothing is work for Joemar if he's doing it elbow to elbow with someone else. I don't think he has ever felt limited by what other's may see as his limitations.

Joemar is also a very kind and caring young man. If you know Joe, you also know he works three short shifts a week at McDonald's. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he is in his uniform early and ready to be taken down the hill to catch a ride on a jeepney to work. Joemar takes his work at McDonald's (clearing trays, cleaning tables, and pouring extra gravy for those customers with fried chicken) very seriously. He takes a lot of pride in wearing the uniform and doing his best to serve others every minute he's at his job. It's important work Joemar does.

And each day before he leaves his work, Joemar gets to bring home lunch: McDonald's spaghetti and a Coke. This is very important to him as it should be - part of a man's pay for doing a good day's work. But more often than not, Joemar won't eat that spaghetti himself. He saves it to give to his good buddy, Wilmar, a young boy with special needs that Joemar has kept under his wing since he came to CSC eight years ago.

If you don't know Joemar well, you might just notice he doesn't really talk too clearly. But Joemar's got a lot to say about enthusiasm, happiness, helpfulness, a good work ethic, and kindness for his fellow man.

Confidence in God

I have been with CSC for more than 25 years now and I have seen God meet the needs of our ministry in so many ways. Some have been routine and some have been quite miraculous. Some have been in ways that we wanted or expected and some were met in much different ways than we could have imagined. Some met the needs of the whole ministry, others met the needs of groups of kids, and countless have met the needs of an individual child. If we gathered our whole staff around and reminisced about the way God has provided for CSC through the years, we'd have a many-volume set if we put it to paper. The dozens and dozens of visitors we have each year would be enthusiastic witnesses to it all and maybe could add a few volumes of their own.

But to have that many needs met and to have been blessed in so many ways means that there originally had to be several hundred thousand or more needs over the past thirty years that needed to be met in the first place. Where would we have been without God?

Now as I sit and write this, my head is beginning to spin. I can think of need after need after need God has met with a blessing in some way. I think of one need God has met and 20 more come to mind. I wonder if we take it for granted sometimes or if we also have an extraordinary amount of confidence that God will continue to provide. I think of the hundreds of children who have come through our doors, eaten at our tables, slept in our homes, called our homes home, been taught in our school, gotten hugs from our staff, discovered they are important, been taken to our doctors, had their first birthday party, kicked a ball on our playground, worshiped with us in church, called our God Father, learned what Christmas and Easter are really about, and left out those same doors with a family. The number of times that God has met the needs of even just one child who has experience all that and so much more, and blessed the ministry of CSC to make all of that possible for just that one child, makes my head spin even more.

The needs of CSC are very significant working in a country where there is poverty beyond description, a great chasm of spiritual and ethical depravity, and thousands of children who pay the price and face terrible neglect, abuse, abandonment, and homelessness each day. Our confidence comes in the fact that God is infinitely greater than all of those needs.

During the past few months the donations to CSC have been down very significantly, resulting in less money coming to Cebu for our operations than we need and have budgeted. The global economic crisis has affected so many people and surely many of CSC's donors are among them. This causes us to worry and be concerned when we consider how many children are counting on us. We wonder if things could possibly get even worse before they hopefully get better.

We need to keep our confidence in God that He knows all of our needs and that He will provide according to His will. He has blessed us so much in the past three decades. If we remain faithful I think we can expect God to do even greater things as we look ahead!

Kids Need Trees

Sometimes just the simplest things, things that we often take for granted, bring such joy and pleasure to our kids. Today was a fairly quiet afternoon and I took a trip up to the shelter to see what the kids were up to and to do a little work on the computer at school. As I was walking down to the shelter from the school, I heard this raucous laughter from the large empty lot between the two compounds. Some kids were yelling "hi" and I just assumed they were kids from the community as they will sometimes take a short cut through that area. I was surprised when I looked up and saw about 10 of our kids up in a big tree. Boy, was I glad to see that!

Our kids are quite sheltered most of the time. We have a lot of kids to keep track of and it just isn't possible to have them going outside the compound unsupervised in just any direction. There is far too much trouble to get in to without going too far from our compound. And if our kids didn't manage to find trouble, trouble would almost surely find them. Lawlessness is not unheard of in our neck of the woods.

And kids need trees.

A couple of months ago I had some of the kids and Uncle Patrick come over to the empty lot to watch some men finishing cutting down a tree that had had a huge branch fall into our compound onto a couple of our employees. What kids wouldn't like to see guys slicing through a tree with a big, noisy chainsaw. Anyway, there was another big tree in the area so I encouraged the kids to go play in the tree for a while. They had a great time so I told Uncle Patrick to bring them back over sometime. Today they did, even bringing along a big rope to make a swing. Everyone got a chance to play Tarzan or Jane and even Uncle Patrick and Auntie Lourdes climbed up in the tree with the kids. Hence, raucous laughter today.

Kids need trees.

Gratitude

On two different occasions today I was very pleasantly encouraged by expressions of gratitude by two of our former CSC kids (now adults). One former kid started a chat on the Internet this morning and just expressed how grateful she was to her adoptive family and CSC for being there for her when she needed it most. This young woman has experienced many challenging and painful times in her young life and was just very appreciative of what CSC and her adoptive family had done for her. Now she has a beautiful family of her own and is a terrific wife and mother.

The other young woman made a post on a networking site on the Internet about the anniversary of her adoption. She went on to publicly express her love for and gratitude to her family for giving her and her siblings a family and for sticking it out with them through some challenging times.

It is so encouraging to hear these expressions of gratitude from these wonderful young Christian women! We on the staff at CSC appreciate knowing and hearing that our kids are grateful for what has been done for them.

Talents

Earlier today most of the students from our school had the chance to watch a cultural presentation at Bethany Christian School, a local Chinese school. Bethany was having their culminating program for Buwan ng Wika, the Philippines' celebration of language and culture. The Bethany students did an awesome job of portraying many different dances from the different areas of the Philippines and around the world. It was obvious that they had spent many hours over many weeks and months practicing for this event. There were many dozens of students performing beautifully orchestrated dances one right after another. Each one came off without a hitch (except for a few ankles getting caught in the Tinikling sticks) and the dances followed each other with no intermissions. It was also obvious that the whole production was very much a team effort of students, teachers and parents. Not only were the dances superb, but the stage sets and costumes were elaborate. There's no doubt many thousands of dollars were spent on costumes alone. It all came together for a great show. I'm sure that all of the parents in attendance were very proud of their kids.

As I'm writing this, there is a small group of kids in the library after hours at our school learning a new song and dance for their upcoming morning meeting presentation. The best I can tell is that nearly all of them are singing in the wrong key (several wrong keys) and with different beats. But just as the Bethany students surely started off with many wrong steps and dance moves, our kids are starting from "ground zero" as well. Whether a group is very large or small, you start building with a few steps here and a few notes there. It's a lot of hard work that makes it all come together. I'm sure our small group in the library today practicing with Teacher Michelle will pull off a polished presentation in a few weeks.

And one thing is for sure, we will be just as proud of them as all of the Bethany students' parents were of their kids today at the Buwan ng Wika.

Human Touch

Following is an excerpt of an opinion piece written by Michelle P. So, Executive Editor of SunStar Cebu, a local daily newspaper. Her introduction is not included because of length, but the piece is about her and her former classmates' visit to the Missionaries of Charity malnutrition center in Cebu City:

"We were not prepared for what we saw when we entered the rooms. Babies crying like they were playing Metallica rock, toddlers running around or climbing out of the cribs, and one skin-and-bones kid lying in one corner of the room. Many of us had not seen a severely malnourished child until yesterday.

The sight broke our hearts. The skin-and-bones kid looked up at our classmate Apollo, thinking that when he grows up, he’d like to be just like him-- never hungry for long and always well-fed.

The center has 57 malnourished kids in its care. Seven of the kids are girls in their early teens and afflicted with tuberculosis. The 50 others are children below seven years old but we could not tell their biological age from their small frames. One eight-month old baby looked like he had just been delivered.

The children have been put in the center to be nursed back to health. Almost all of them come from a large family who live in a depressed area. They were brought to the center either by their mothers or by public hospital staff.

Once the babies are put in the care of the Missionaries of Charity, the mothers can visit them only every Tuesday. When the mothers do not return after the babies have been nursed back to health, the MC sisters, when they can’t find the mothers, bring the kids to the social welfare department.

We were not allowed to pick the babies up because a handwritten sign on the wall said so and the fading ink no longer allowed an explanation of why we couldn’t. Besides, the caretakers had more urgent baby matters to attend to than sit and compose an essay of why visitors couldn’t pick up the babies.

But a female helper, who was bathing one baby after another (50 babies, remember?), said the sign was for the benefit of student visitors who know very little about handling babies and might drop them.

We knew the undertones of the sign. The babies might get used to being picked up when they cry and there are not enough hands to pick up each crying baby when the visitors are gone. The babies are sick and are easily susceptible to germs.

An argument for the passage of the Reproductive Health Care bill is found at the Missionaries of Charity center in Pasil. Those who oppose the bill need only to visit it to know why."

I finished that article with a mix of emotions. I was very sad for those children and the millions of others in this country that suffer in various ways. Granted the extreme nature of deprivation described in this account does not affect the millions, but certainly this level of suffering reaches the tens of thousands.

I was happy that we are able to help many children avoid this kind of life where every basic necessity for health and happiness is lacking, including the simple need of a caring human's touch. Many of our kids have already experienced the above-described deprivation to some extent, but at CSC we get to share with them a Savior's love and the other things in life they need to be happy and healthy.

Birthday and Prayer Meeting

Last night our staff and short termers met for prayer after Weeno's birthday. Weeno's birthday is one of two this week (tonight we celebrate Christian's birthday). He had a great time and it's always fun for the staff to socialize with the kids over dinner. With around 70 birthdays in a year, we usually end up sitting next to different kids at each party. It's a great time getting to talk with them about their day and what they did in school and play.

During the prayer meetings we share many concerns, praises, and things we have to be thankful for. In this work there are always so many things to pray about for the kids, workers, our own families and CSC as a ministry. Several things that we prayed about last night were: CSC's financial situation (income has been very low during the summer), Andrew M.'s trip back to MN today, Janice (who has been struggling with her behavior in class), Warlita (who severely sprained her ankle this week, Anthony O. (who is desiring to join the Marine Corps), some of our older kids who have recently joined adoptive families, thanks for the good health of our kids over the past few months, Teacher Eunice's return to school after a long illness, and my shoulder (I've had significant pain for the last seven weeks). There were many other praises and petitions as well. We're so grateful to have a God who knows all of our needs!