Tag: Manila

What Are Sponsored Teens Saying?

Teens at the Calvary Foursquare Student Center are grateful for their center and for the staff’s care. Especially since they live in rough communities where teen pregnancy, violent gangs and drug abuse are rampant.

Far-Reaching Prayers

As we pray, we cannot understand how far reaching and powerful our prayers may be, unless the Lord graciously allows us to see a bit further than we normally can.

Missions in Action: Episode Two

In the second episode of Missions in Action we meet Maan, a Leadership Development Program student who want to become a director of a child development center.

Living in Manila: A Day in the Life of Jessa

Nine-year-old Jessa lives in a tiny hovel situated within a crowded squatter community in metro Manila. She wakes up at 4 a.m. and it is still dark at this time of day. But inside Jessa’s home, it is always dark.

Finding Purpose Among the Dead

Vilma chose to hope that she — a woman whom others look down upon because she lives in a cemetery and dropped out of school to clean houses at age 13 — has a purpose too.

A Pocket Full of Pay

Even though I was excited that I found money in my pocket, wouldn’t it have been nice if it was more? Then I’m reminded that over 1 billion people on this planet will work all day today and not get paid what I just found in my pocket.

Christian Servant Leadership in Action

Every year, graduating Leadership Development Program (LDP) students in the Philippines go to work camp where they engage in community service. The yearly work camp usually engages students in missionary work to unreached tribal groups, but this year the students extended a helping hand to typhoon victims.

A Young Activist

The problems of the Filipino youth are real – delinquency, early pregnancy, drug addiction, prostitution and gangs. In the crammed squatter community of Escopa in metropolitan Manila, these social ills are a way of life.

Kenh is one of the young people living in Escopa, and today he has a chance to help solve these problems. Kehn, 16, was recently elected as one of his neighborhood’s youth officers, and already he has initiated the distribution of free bags, pencils and papers to little children, using local government funds.

“I believe that education is the key to helping the youth and straightening their lives,” he says. “If only they will stay in school, then they will be drawn away from youthful evils.”

Kenh’s involvement with the local Youth Council is political in nature, but poverty is not just political rhetoric for Kenh. It is reality. (more…)

A Young Missionary

Patricia lives in one of the crowded slum communities of Santa Mesa, Manila and that is known as breeding ground for thieves, criminals and prostitutes.

The winding path to her home is so narrow that only one person at a time can pass through. Children play and run along the narrow maze of alleyways, throwing rocks at houses, cursing at people and threatening other children. They are noisy, dirty and disrespectful.

Patricia had enough of them and one day decided to do something about it. She decided to teach them the Bible so that they can change their ways. She gathered these rowdy children aged 5 to 10 years old so that she can teach them about Jesus.

Patricia is only 12 years old.

“I teach them about Jesus … so that they can become better children. At first, it was just a teacher-student game but soon I realized that I could actually teach these children for real.”

For two years now, she has taught the children every Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m., with an average of 11 students at a time. (more…)

A New Beginning for Eric

Compassion seeks to register the poorest children around the world, and Eric in the Philippines is one of them. Compassion gives hope to those who need it most.

Based on its studies on poverty, Compassion in the Philippines identified Rio Tuba as one of the neediest towns in the country, and Eric’s family is the neediest of them all.

In this isolated town where only one bus line is willing to travel from the main city, Eric’s family is even cut off from the rest of the residents. They live in an unfinished, tiny bamboo hut in the middle of an open field. Although from time to time their closest neighbor gives food and offers help, he often mocks them for their predicament.

Eric’s father, Benny, is a carpenter. He used to earn a daily income of US$5.60 when there was available work. This was not enough to feed his seven children. Since his wife left them in March 2008, Benny stopped working completely to take care of his children full time. (more…)