We need YOUR help.

(a blog I started sometime ago and got the chance to finish tonight)

Sometimes the amount of need in the communities we serve can only be summed up as overwhelming. On the way home today in the car we both had tears in our eyes. Every time we are there we are confronted with people who just need hope and practical help. It's as simple as that.

The residents living in the rubbish dump and cemetery are brave, strong and resilient in spite of the horrendous living conditions.. They just need support to better develop their community and provide for their families

To say "that's sad" or,"i wish we could do something" honestly doesn't cut it when you feel the heavy burden of people that are suffering more than most of us could imagine.

It pains my heart to the core when I hear individuals express how "bad" they think Tondo is. Educated  people who in fact are so uneducated allow lies to trip off their tounges without having ever been there. Recently I met a very misinformed Doctor who spoke out her stereotypes and fears and ended by saying;
"..never mind trying to help them. If you really want to do something they like just give them food. They like that!"
Her tone was sarcastic, full of judgment and lack of knowledge.
I wonder if she has ever experienced days of hunger?
I don't think so.

Oh how God loves this precious community with a burning unending love. 
He has called each one of us to DO something about the injustices caused through such extreme poverty.

True compassion moves us to action.

 

You don't have to look far to find need, in fact sometimes we feel we are falling over it... But God.....

Every family there has a story. In every family we have known we have found urgent needs.
 I will try to create a little bit of a picture of the kinds of situations our team are confronted with on daily basis.

 

- A mother bringing her children to the feeding programme because they hadn't eaten anything in days and the hunger pangs had become so unbearable they tried to fill the emptiness with mud and insects.

 

- Children who rattle our gate needing festering wounds cleaned because they are playing naked in trash where there is glass, sharp objects and syringes. Sometimes their mothers can't wash the clothes  because they are forced to make the decision that they will buy drinking water instead of water to wash their clothes in.

 

- A baby who just can not stop crying because he is just too hungry. The mother cant breast feed because she is undernourished and so has only been able to give rice water  to her son. He has no tears because he is dehydrated, just the sound of a weak cry.

 

-Parents asking for medicine because they cannot afford the transportation to the pharmacy or clinic and having to make the choice for their children to either stay sick or eat that day.

 

- Hard working fathers in need simply of rubber gloves because there hands are being cut to shreds as they clear the sewers to try and stop the stagnant, human waste filled water flooding their homes.

 

 

- A woman in need of money after giving birth because she is losing too much blood. She is  unable to afford to pay for the bags of blood to stop her bleeding to death.

These are just a few examples at random. There are thousands of situations like these.

 

Overwhelming.



Playing on our church roof in the middle of the rubbish dump. pic taken by KCM visitor Gerard Jean-Claude Clarey

 

 

The good news is, everyone I just wrote about can be helped and has been helped by Kalayaan Community Ministries. But we can only help as much as we are financially able to. We constantly have to pray for wisdom to priorities where the needs are most critical. 

The harsh reality is we cannot always meet the needs.
We are located in the middle of what statistics say is the largest and densely populated slum in the whole country.
The most recent stat puts the figure in Tondo at half a million people.

We cannot reach them all, but we do believe God puts certain individuals and families very obviously in our path. He is a caring Jesus who stopped for one blind man, one begger, one child.......

 Daily we are faced with people who need extra help and that's why we respond to each family on an individual basis. It's not a one solution fits all environment. If only it were that easy. We have to access the needs and then meet them. How can you turn people away who at times have no where else to go for help?

As they need our help. We need your help.

We do need you to be a voice and raise awareness for the children we love here.

We do need more people to commit to giving on a monthly basis so we can use it for the areas of most need.

We do need people to organize fundraisers throughout the year.

Above all we do need you to pray for this work, the team and communities.

The more partners we have the more people can be relieved of some of their burdens..  At times the needs are life or death. This is reality.

Thank you to everyone who already partners with us. Without exaggerating, you are helping save lives and spread good news in a place looked on as the outcast of the nation. We are so grateful for your financial support. We appreciate every person and group who gave in 2013. Thank you to those of you who organized fundraisers, took offerings, funders that have committed long term and people who have made a monthly financial commitment.
We are a small ministry with very little administration costs. We function completely through donations. There is no CEO getting a salary, no fancy office. All staff who are paid are from the dump site or cemetery community.
We know that God is the source for everything. We are continually amazed at how he provides to sustain and develop KCM through the kindness of people. Over the past 6 years He has provided in the most amazing ways- time and time and time again He is faithful. Never early. Never late.


If you feel you would like to know more about what Kalayaan Community Ministries are doing or  to commit to monthly financial giving in 2014, please contact us through kalayaancommunityministries@hotmail.com

KCM are committed to being good stewards of the funds entrusted to us and we have set up an online transparency page where everyone who donates is added and can view incoming funds and what the purpose of these funds are for.

Thank you so much to everyone that continues to partner with us in prayer, giving and volunteering (local and overseas). Real compassion moves hearts to DO something and there is so very much more to do here.

We are so grateful too to the friends who support us personally to do this work. Maybe someone reading this feels they are called somewhere as a missionary, but are worried about how they could possibly manage. If God has truly called you to be somewhere - he WILL provide for you. He will do it in the most unexpected ways in which you will have no doubt he has heard your voice in prayer!. He will test your trust and faith in Him and then do things that will just blow your mind and heart!

We often still wonder why we are doing this when we know there are people much more qualified, more experienced, more Christ like than us.
All I know is we still feel so out of our depth in our selves and I hope that means that anything good that comes of the ministry or us being here is because of God.

I thank God for the many faithful organizations that are working around Tondo and other slum areas in Manila.I thank God for the dedicated missionaries who have gone before us who we can learn from and I thank God for those He will call here after He decides our season is over.

Whatever country we are all in. Whatever work/ministry, we are there for a reason and God can use each one of us (weaknesses and all) to be a blessing to those he has planted us around.


You can catch up with updates through our FB page

https://www.facebook.com/KalayaanMinistries?ref=br_rs

 

 

Toddlers do not SEE POOR.

The other day our 2 year old Josiah suddenly asked;
"Mummy, where my friends Tondo?"

He was asking where his friends from Tondo were. As soon as it came out his mouth I got to thinking. He has no concept yet of poverty. No idea that some people live in wealth while other scavenge through trash to find food. He has no awareness whatsoever that Tondo is looked on as one of the most disadvantaged and impoverished areas in the country. He has no idea that many people fear the place and  label the community with stereotypes.

All he knows are His friends are there and he loves them. He gets so excited when we do weekly leadership and volunteer training from our home for members of the community. He watches from the window with excitement waiting to see them appear at our gate and shouts " yeh friends".
 When we take him to our church in Tondo he claps when we turn off at the main road and drive through the narrow pathway leading to where Kalayaan Community Ministries is based. He doesn't see the mounds of black bin bags piled high or the swarms of flies.  He has never reacted to the smell, the lack, the dirt and so on.. He does not feel sorry for anyone there. He has no idea there is much sadness there.When he peers through the window of our car he says "my friends Tondo". He has no awareness of the place yet- only the people. he knows when we get inside the church that his "mga Kuya at mga Ate" (big brothers and sisters) will come inside to play with him, sing, laugh and love him. He does not have a clue yet that the church that he sometimes gets to come to is actually situated in the middle of a rubbish dump.

I thought this was so beautiful and a reminder to me about how I look at people.

How different would our communities be if we only got to know people? What if we never knew their past, where they lived or gossip surrounding them?.Would we be less judgmental?  Would we treat them differently? How many times have we formed an opinion about someone because of what we have heard about them?

JESUS SAW PEOPLE.

So many times in the bible it says " When Jesus SAW..."
" when he saw him"
"when he saw her"
"when he saw them"

It's more than seeing with the physical eye. He stopped for people that others would walk past. He listened to their stories. Imagine God - who already knew everything about them and still listened to their stories! He saw their hearts. He saw them as they would be - what they could be.

I remember when we first set foot in Tondo, of course we saw the awfulness of the place, but it was the people that gripped our hearts and changed the course of our lives. There was one child walking towards us through the trash. Everything seemed grey- apart from her. She smiled and Ron described her as a "ray of sunlight".
I think if we had only seen the heartbreaking sights of the place we would not have returned. But we had the privilege of seeing the people- they are why we went back again and again. From seeing- to knowing - to loving them.

Obviously you have to tell and show people the poverty and the sadness so that they are moved with compassion to help. No matter how many smiley faces and joyful spirits there are , not one of them should be living in a place we heard once described as"the edge of hell". Our friend who said these words in a cry for justice has been in around 80 countries and been to many of the most impoverished areas. He says he has never been anywhere like the community in Tondo dump site area.

If only we had the eyes of Jesus for just a moment....to really see. I know we would be moved with compassion in a new way.
The little touches of compassion that so grips our hearts is more than wanting to help- it's a burning, passionate, heart cry and motivation to do all we can to make wrong things right for people who were created by the very fingers of God. A life mission to see justice where injustice cripples souls, bodies and minds through poverty. A determination to do the hard work and let God do the heart work.

My desire is that you would not forget the places we describe in hope that you feel a stirring up to pray and act, but more than the place, I desire that you know the people. I want you to hear their stories. I am not a writer by any means but I pray the rambling of my heart would describe their lives in a true and balanced way, honoring who they are and in some way, place in us all a burden to do something.
Whether in Manilas slums or in a well to do estate somewhere in the world, none of us have to look  very far to find hurting people or someone that needs help.

Oh that we could really see.

THE YEAR OF METAMORPHOSIS

"I beseech you therefor brethren , by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God"
Romans 12:1-2

Felt these verses being impressed upon my heart at the beginning of a new year.
A new year. A new beginning. The potential for God to plant new dreams in our hearts for us as individuals and the communities we serve. New visions for the future. New opportunities to worship. A new chance to watch Jesus transform my life and the lives of others.

I recently read that word "transformed" in the greek is" metamorphosis" I got blessed by this because the concept that Ron had for our ministry logo was a butterfly- the metamorphosis process. God wants to do this process in each one of us. He wants to renew our minds, change our thought patterns, transform our hearts and lives in the way only he can. Changing us from the inside out to bring beauty to the lives of the people we come into contact with.

Change must start in us. In me.
.
As we spend time with Jesus and get into the cocoon of the word of God our thought patterns and behaviors change. As we get soaked by His love, the love for others increases and we get a stirred up passion to make wrong things right and help the hurting. As we experience His total grace we can never be the same.

Jesus transforms lives. No mater the back ground. No matter the past. No matter what stereotypes society would tag a person with- the saving and transforming power of the cross can cause the old "us" to disappear and in that place be birthed into something NEW.

Jesus can destroy the POVERTY MINDSET. Lies such as
"I will only ever be a scavenger"
"I will always live amongst the tombs"
"It's impossible to graduate from college"
"I am just poor"
...and so on

This is beautiful Ate Nora.
When we met her she was what you would describe as painfully shy. Living amongst trash day in and day out the enemy had planted lies that she should remain unseen, unheard. As she lived daily on a rubbish dump her self worth had been crushed like the junk her feet walked over.
Ate Nora met Jesus and I can testify to the beautiful change of mindset and transformation of life. As she studied the word  of God  at the bible studies and her home she renounced the lies that poverty and the enemy had bound her in. Ate Nhoras recently told us how the Holy Spirit filled her with confidence and boldness.

Here she is being "MC" at the end of year celebration in church. Last year we (Kalayaan Community Ministries) gave her capital to help her in business. She had the confidence to start a cooked food stall. She buys, cooks and sell hot food and has been able to financially support her eldest daughter through college and the younger ones through high school. She stands up regularly in church to speak out the goodness of God and share his word.
Like a beautiful butterfly she has been transformed by Jesus and now bringing beauty to the lives of others. She is full of compassion and I have seen her give food from her store to others on the rubbish dump who cannot afford to pay her for it.

She is just once example of the hundreds how God makes things new. No matter the circumstances- the past, present or depth of poverty- Jesus can make brokenness into beauty.



youth camp 2013

At our recent youth camp the theme was "RECYCLED"
It's an awesome thing to see young people who were once gang members stand up and lift high the transforming power of Jesus Christ. Teenagers who have changed lives crying out to their piers not to remain slaves to the bondage of drugs.
Just one of the metamorphosis moments  was when a young teen who had become addicted to sniffing solvents, had recently sold all his personal belongings to join in with the vices of his "barkada" (gang) , his shaky hands asked for the microphone to pray. Among his stuttering and mixed up words he meaningfully  uttered the words
"I want change in my life"

"THEREFORE, IF ANYONE IS IN CHRIST, HE IS A NEW CREATION; OLD THINGS HAVE PASSED AWAY; BEHOLD, ALL THINGS HAVE BECOME NEW." 2Corinth 5:17 

Oh lord, let change begin in our hearts and affect the lives of those you have placed around us. May it be a year of metamorphosis.