First Quarter 2008 Updates
In a nearby squatter-area – they call it Banana Island – we had another Shampoo Mission last April. We started off with 2 days children-outreach-program and then on the third day we were all set for the big shampooing. About 90 – 100 kids were shampooed, had their ears cleaned and nails clipped, and then received a brand-new set of shorts and T-Shirt and a delicious sandwich & fruit-juice topped it off.
Our team of about 20 did a wonderful job during these 3 days, even though it was extremely hot (the temperature in our house was 41 C!) They gave their best and pastor Nilo too who stayed at home and cooked their lunch.
Values Orientation in Classroom Education (VOICE) is a local organization that helps churches reaches out to public schools. They produce excellent teaching material and they also train the volunteers from the churches.
This organization is helping also here in Pasay City. Nilo and Annemarie Pableo initiated this project and introduced it to the Mayor (picture). He liked it and commented: “That’s what we need!” Right afterwards he connected us with the city administrator and then with the department of education (picture). Both offices received us warmly and agreed with our plans to introduce this curriculum to the public schools in Pasay City. Our city has approximately 55 000 students in the public schools. What an opportunity!
Last January we invited the principals of these schools (elementary and high school) for a lunch where we afterwards introduced the idea and the material. They liked it and one of them suggested to also teaching character development to the parents.
Other activities since then where contacting other churches and training volunteers. From our church we had 18 who signed up to teach in 2 nearby schools: Apello Cruz Elementary School & Pasay East High School.
The big question that remains open: how do we finance our 18 volunteers with the teaching-material, student’s give-aways and cd-player? For a complete first equipping for the first school-year (2008-2009) we need per volunteer 140 US$/100 Euro.
In our Family we had 2 graduates: Charlie (13 yrs.) graduated last March from Elementary School and Conrad (21 yrs) from College (Mass Communication, Advertising) last April. Thanks to a couple from Germany who sponsors Charlie we could enroll him in a good High School who emphasizes Basketball – Charlie's favorite sport. For Conrad the future is still open. He'd like to find a job first and then maybe go back to school after one year.
During their Ethic-Week in January of the Pasay City Police Annemarie was their speaker. She lectured on “To serve and to be served!” She was accompanied by her friend Ursula Moosmann (SEND Intl.), also from Germany.
Also in April we had our traditional Childrens Oureach called daily vacation Bible School. From Monday to Friday we had about 150 kids in our church that enjoyed activities like: crafts & arts, Bible stories, music, games etc. Every Saturday the kids now come again for a 2 hours program of tutoring (reading, writing, English & Math) by means of a Bible story.
December Updates
We had a great time celebrating Hanukkah last Dec. 9th. It was a time of reflection, worship, dramatization, eating, presentations and playing together. We enjoyed it greatly and really felt like a big family.
Reschelle Ann, one of our church-members, celebrated her 18th birthday in the church. Shortly afterwards Jane and Ray had their wedding celebration on Dec. 18th. Both events were great highlights for our church.
There were also two infant dedications on two different dates. One was included during the youth Christmas party, as the parents are our youth leaders.
Last, but not least was our teachers training seminar on Dec. 26-28. We had a lecturer who taught on self-confidence. Anne acted as the facilitator and challenger for finding new, creative ways of teaching.
Last January 3rd we had a huge fire near our house! A commercial center went up in flames. After 10 hours the fire was finally brought under control when a helicopter dropped water from above for several hours. The fire and a thick smoke cloud lingered for 30 hours after the fire started. We were thinking of evacuating, but the Lord heard our prayers and spared us. No people were hurt but the material damage is about 90Mill. Pesos/ 15 Mill. Euro.
The picture showing the helicopter was taken from the Pableo's house.
Making greeting cards from recycled materials provides a livelihood for the ladies, and is a wonderful opportunity to help them financially.
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Greetings from Kreuzlingen in Switzerland. We are members of the FEG Radolfzell (Germany), and we held a fund-raising campaign for Annemarie and Nilo Pableo of the Philippines at the beginning of December. On the advent market (Christkindlemarkt) in Radolfzell we had a market stand that distributed nearly 3000 evangelistic Christmas stories and collected nearly 1000€ for Pableos. For the project we sold waffles, homemade cookies, coffee, and tea.
A German kindergarten asked their community to share in the celebration of the installation of a beautiful mosaic at their building. The installation event included lots of cake and coffee, which was sold to benefit City Mission Manila.