Church, chat and a chuffing good time!

This morning began at some ridiculous hour when we set off for church which started at 8:30am!!!! The church was Union Church, Manila (pictured) which Esther & Frank attend. The service was cool, but for a big church the people were incredibly welcoming. We shared greetings in the service also which was a nice thing to do.

After coffee we headed to a mall and had breakfast and more coffee, a nice time together and then headed back to Esther & Frank's apartment complex for the afternoon. Today was our day off and it was spent in near luxury. Esther & Frank were amazing hosts as we swam in the pool and spent the afternoon relaxing and chatting. It was great when some of the Kanlungan staff joined us and we were able to share with them also. Before too long Joe Wilson rang from Radio Lancs and we chatted briefly on air about our experiences which if nothing else, perhaps has raised the profile of Kanlungan in Lancashire.

Not long after this we spent the evening courtesy of Frank & Esther at a Filipino restaurant and honestly i can say i had the most fun for a long while. It was great to laugh and share with more of the staff and they have asked me to share at devotions tomorrow - something which is a priviledge but also frightening as they all seem to know and love the Lord far more than i do!! However, just to prove their normality - all the women fled at once from the restaurant to see Derek Ramsay (below) who is a famous film star in the Philippines. Apparently he was more of an attraction than Tony, Frank or i.

Its great to be with the Filipino's, they are so much fun and so compassionate - whcih i wish i could say was the case with our group. After stubbing my toe badly on getting out of the pool, what i recieved from my fellow travellers wasn't sympathy but howling laughter. They could all leanr something from our hosts me thinks!

Finally, for thos reading this at Wheatley Lane, Stella hasn't been very well for the last couple of days, nothing serious just a tummy bug. Please pray for her recovery and revitalisation.

Back to the trip proper tomorrow and feeling really refreshed and positive about the week ahead!

Kanlungan Coffee is better than starbucks

So today we took the journey to the boys farm about 50mins south east of Manila. After the now daily question of 'how far is it?' and the familiar reply 'its about an hour' we got going. It was another really hot day and the views on the drive over Lake Taal were spectacular despite the journey taking a little over 2 hours (we think!).

After  a brief stop to wait for Frank & Esther to join us we headed off to the boys home. This place houses about 18 boys aged 12-20 who go to school but live together here with a teacher and social worker. Now, as i reflect on this i've come to view the accomodation as fairly normal - its a two storey stone building but the sleeping is done on thin mattresses on the concrete floor. The mattresses are stacked upstairs in the daytime to make room for a lounge. The staff have rooms upstairs where they can work and sleep but the rest of the house is pretty basic. There is one tv, one computer which the boys gather round enthusiastically and it is from here that they are to continue their studies! I need to stress as if it hasn't been understood previously - these conditions were near luxurious compared to the way a good deal of people live here in Manila. The most shocking thing about it perhaps was the fact that we were no longer shocked.

A few minutes up the road is the boys farm. This is a working farm where the boys live and work the farm. We were treated first of all to a drink of fresh coconut juice from the coconut, prepared with incredible speed and skill by Lito, our driver. We were then given lunch after the customary introductions from the boys (which today included 2 or 3 with special needs). These were aged 14-20 - they are not at school, they attend some alternative education, vocational courses in woodwork, mechanics and discipleship stuff at the local church but whose skills extend to climbing a coconut tree and picking a bunch of coconuts. We were very impressed.

We continued our tour of the farm looking at the coffee grown, the banana and pepper plants and exploring the land that the farm occupies. From this farm, produce is exported to the other Kanlungan centres and any surplus is sold so the project can benefit. We heard about the diiferent types of coffee and the principle one grown at Kanlungan (the exact name i forget) is widley agreed to be a nicer and richer blend than the one that Starbucks use. So there it is, the Kanlungan coffee is better than Starbucks, and totally fairtrade.

The great thing about Kanlungan is that even though they are a fairly small NGO they are still looking to develop people rather than just help them. So our driver, Lito is employed as a driver after coming through the Kanlungan projects and centres. The vision for the coffee farm is to open a coffee shopm in Manila and give the boys a job selling it and running their coffee shop so that they can earn a wage, become independent and self sufficient and move on to a more stable and full life.

We continue to be overwhelmed by the dedication of the staff, not just to the project, but to the children also. the more we see, the more I am impressed with Kanlungan on a number of levels not least in their dedication and fervour in worship, again displayed today as we prayed and sang together. It was a welcome reminder that once again, those who have so little are full of gratitude and thanks to God for the little they have. It is a challenge to say the least to us who have so much and are so often lacking in such gratitude and thanks.

PS Buy Kanlugan coffee - i will bring back loads!!!!

PPS we've tried some and it actually tastes well nice!

Jose Rizal is my hero

And so today was our tourism day - a day of historical indulgence. We visited the Cathedral of Manila, very nice and cool, with beautiful stained glass, even if they do seem to love Mary just a bit too much for my theology. Following this we visited the memorial to Jose Rizal. (Pictured)

I have to confess that my knowledge of Jose Rizal before today was limited to my lonely planet guidebook's explanatory paragraph and the Kanlungan staff telling me that Rizal was a hero very passionately. I have to say i am convinced. Rizal was a peaceful revolutionary in an age when such was unusual to say the least. While others were taking up arms against the Spanish imperialists here, he was writing essays and poetry espressing his distaste for the Catholic church (or at least its Philipino expression in the 1890's) and its corruption and suppressive nature. He calls people to follow the teachings of Jesus over and above the ritual and mythology that the priests espoused (bring it on!) and wrote passionately about his love for the Philippines and his desire to see them freed and independent. His language is incredible and uses great phrasiology, no more so is this obvious in his farewell address to the Philipino people, written on a peace of paper smuggled out of his prison cell the day before he was executed in Lunetta Park. Even his academic writings are filled with poetic sentences that make it a joy to read and enables the imagination to run wild in reflecting upon his speeches when they were first delivered. In essene Rizal was the leader of the Filipino revolution and freed them from a particularly nasty brand of Catholic oppression. He is my hero too, not just the staff's!

We moved on to Jollibee's - the Filipino competitor to McDonalds for today's lunch and then to the Mall of Asia, i believe it is the third largest mall in the world and the biggest in Asia. I found starbucks fairly quickly and was then set for the afternoon.

The mall is great, very much like the Trafford Centre or Meadowhall in appearance and atmosphere but it seems to have escaped everyone's notice that within 1 mile of here there are people living in the most horrific of conditions, children selling themselves to the highest bidder in order to earn food for the family and disease as well as horrific poverty. I'm as guilty as everyone else, btw, with my very nice starbucks breakfast every day, but i guess the only way to cope with the poverty that is apparent everywhere is either to escape into another world - like the Mall of Asia, or to look the other way. I am all too aware that i am susceptible to both these options. Praise God, the staff of Kanlungan seemed to not be. Tomorrow, we're back to the proper work that we're here for, viisiting a boys home which is a working farm. Am sure there will be stories to tell.

oww.....

So today for the first time i have slept through the night a full 7 1/2 hours - woo! In fact i slept so much ironically that i held everyone up for breakfast at Starbucks - they were gracious as usual!

The day has turned out to be a fairly light one actually. It's 4:45pm here and we're finished apart from having dinner somewhere and the worse thing that i've experienced is toothache - bad and nasty toothache, but seriously if that was the worst on the other days this week i would have been dancing.

This morning we visited a child protection unit and met the director of it. They are a multi-disciplinary unit seeking to treat and rehabilitate children who have suffered from abuse. They are government funded but their annual budget is 75,000 pounds and not only do they have to work from that but pay the salaries of some 20 staff also. Once again the woman we met seemed pleased that we were here and seemed touched that someone was taking an interest in their work and encouraging her to continue. It is a mark of Kanlungan's respect here that everyone we meet from children and street families to senior politicians and government agencies all work in partnership with Kanlungan and seem to hold them in high esteem.

Return to Starbucks and then next door to flapjacks for lunch and then off this afternoon to see a detention centre for young people. Thankfully we were spared the worst of this (with a threatening prospect of returning next week) but we could see enough to notice children leaning out of small rooms enclosed by prison bars. Its hard to describe the environment but it kept reminding me of the old eastern European institutions that held orphans or mentally ill children. The place was grotty and tatty and wouldn't be fit for animals in the UK, yet here in some of these filthy rooms over a 100 children are crammed in. As we were leaving we met the Cabinet Secretary for Justice & Welfare for the local government - so we have been hob-nobbing with dignitaries!

Then on to meet a local councillor and meet some of his staff, who were very friendly to say the least, and yet again a high-ranking city official spoke warmly of Kanlungan and the work they are doing. Not much else to add really, except that between 8:30 - 9:00am UK time on Sunday i will be live on Radio Lancashire on Joe Wilson's Sunday breakfast show. They are doing a live link up and have been following some of the blogs and have given us an opportunity to share a bit more personally to the county of Lancashire. Hope you'll tune in.

Begin and end the day with...starbucks

This post is dedicated to one of the finest exiled yorkshiremen there ever has been - Geoffrey Boycot. (No really, it's frank!)

He will know from Esther that I have discovered a new found love for Starbucks. In Robinson's Mall in Manila, there is a beautiful Starbucks with beautiful coffee. And so it was with some relief that we decided not only to breakfast there today but wrap up the day their also. Once again, the experiences in between the two visits are beyond my level of vocabulary really.

We shared in devotions at the drop-in centre we visited on Monday. I spoke to the children - slightly amused that this would be my normal practice on a Wednesday morning at Wheatley Lane School. My brief message based on Philippians 4:13:"i can do all things through Christ who strengthens me..." went down seemingly well and was greeted by spontaneous applause after almost every sentence - something we should introduce at church i think...

In all honesty, i felt something as a fraud, because i have become aware time and time again in these last four days of my own spiritual poverty and have wondered at the depth of love for God some of these kids have. i can learn more from them i'm sure than they ever could from me.

What followed was once again joyous and passionate praise and worship from the children who and then the real fun began as (on the spot) Stella led us all in a few action songs. Now, normally i hate such things (unless i'm the one enforcing them on others!) but the spontaneity of the moment and the sense of laughter and enthusiasm from the children was too much to resist. I have to be honest, when a similar amount of enthusiasm and excitement was shown by the Korean Methodist Church Sunday School in our corridor at 5:20am onwards (yes 5:20am!!!!!) i wasn't so ready to respond with words of blessing.

We then headed out to lunch - a lovely spot in the week so far, good food, a lovely warm breeze and chatting for a couple of hours before heading off to visit a new born baby in hospital. For some reason, certain members of my church feel i need the practice at holding babies (why?!) so i duly took my turn at holding 7 day old Angelo who now weighs 2lb. I didn't drop him, neither did he cry. Result!

Next we went to visit a street community, this was another makeshift shanty town in the suburbs of manila, and the smell was pungent to say the least. We had been saying that each day we hit a new low in terms of the things we witness and the conditions we are viewing are getting worse not better. We moved on to two other communities in abject poverty and yet again were greeted with a warm welcome and bubbling delight from the multitudes of young children.

Finally we headed to a local park, again a home for many families where we were entertained to a wonderful display of hip-hop dancing. If you've seen Diversity on Britain's got talent, then you have an idea of the type of style we witnessed but i would dare to suggest that the Lunetta Dance Crew would be better.

So a really upbeat end to the day. Words fail me when i think of some of the things i've witnessed and though it seems unbelievable there is, for me, a real danger of not taking all this in. All i can do is wonder at the dedication of the Kanlungan staff, instant celebrities in each community we visit it seems, and trust God, for as we shared this morning, it is Him who gives us strength to endure, and unreal so it seems to say, Him who appears to be strengthening the children we meet and giving them a hope and a future.

Sweet and Sour...

And so the day begins with breakfast, Filipino style. Orange juice and toast preceded by corned beef hash and sweet and sour pork! After having felt my stomach turn at these options on Monday morning, today i took the plunge, keen to not be outdone by Tony.

In the style of excruciating tenuous links and metaphors - my cross-stitched church was a great one - the day has turned out to be a mix of sweet and sour. (Joe Knight, i thought you'd like this paragraph!)

Firstly the sweet...

We had a lovely time of praying together as a team and with Esther before setting off to view another project. Its strange that we're all here for seemingly different reasons but ultimately keen to let God shape our heart out of what we see, hear and feel.

It was Stella's birthday today, surely 12months ago she didn't expect to spend the next celebration in Manila. As you can imagine, everywhere we went children and staff members a like qued up to sing happy birthday and in the first community visit of the day she was presented with a small cutting of flowers proudly from the children of the community. This was followed up by a lovely looking chocolate cake, but by the time Esther and i had returned from the dentist, it had disappeared!

Once again i was startled by the incredible devotion of the staff. They work incredible hours and seem so full of joy and hope, unceasing in their positive attitude and servant heart, i feel humbled and privileged to be among them.

We headed next to a school of 650 pupils aged 6-15 where we were almost carried across the playground in the excitement from the pupils and had the privilege of praying with the headmistress - quite formidable woman.

Then on to what was for me, the most moving bit of the day. We went to another residential centre where the children had returned home from school. Once again we were sung to, a deeply touching moment for me and we were danced to, also great and played with and danced with and prayed for and worshipped with. There we so many stories of hope and joy here. One stood out for me. A young girl of 15 proudly dressed in her school uniform was so strong in faith and ambition. She is doing really well in high school, is almost the best in the school in English - seriously she spoke it better than me - and wants to be a computer scientist. She has so much drive and desire to achieve despite the circumstances she finds herself in. Her trust in God is unswerving despite something i will mention below.

...and the sour...

An hours journey took us to another shanty town built on an old rubbish dump. The poverty here and obvious malnourishment is astounding and probably not helped by the fact that the whole community washes in a toxic stream flowing out from a pharmaceutical factory. This stream feeds into a huge lake of stagnant, stinky water and the stream also serves as the village lavatory or 'comfort room' as the Filipino's call it. Again words fail me to paint a picture, one hopes that photos and video footage when we return home will somehow help.

Toothache was another sour point but here's trusting in anti-bio tics and God and the sleep monitor is only At 5 1/2 hours as of last night - lets see is we make any progress tonight but the appearance of a lizard may leave me a little on edge!

That's all really apart from the girl with so much ambition that i mentioned above. She wanted me to pray with her because she is trusting God. She will need to. She has an inoperable glaucoma that will leave her blind in 5years time unless God steps in with a miracle and that will most likely be the end of her dreams and ambition. Great.

Emotional rollercoaster

For those of you who read this morning's blog you will be pleased to know that i did get some sleep! Hallelujah. The problem was i slept through my alarm and suffered the humiliation of Kath knocking on my door and asking if i was OK because i was 30mins late for breakfast. After breakfast (i went for toast rather than corned beef hash - for breakfast??!!) we set off to see a drop in centre. This is run by Roel a truly inspirational guy. He is 50 but seems to have the youth of a student or twenty-something and its clear by the way the children relate to him that they are totally comfortable around him and respect and love him. The day centre is a drop in for children of all ages - most of them are not at school because they are out to work - begging or selling something on the main streets - so the drop in centre is a haven where the children can play, learn and be safe. We were treated to a dance which was great and had the privilege of chatting with Roel before praying for him and the project.

We moved swiftly on to Benitez House, the main centre for Kanlungan. This was also a lovely experience with the 20 or so boys and girls fighting over Tony's awful hat and my sunglasses! They introduced themselves one by one in English, and then we watched two dances the second of which performed by three teenage girls was profoundly moving. I'm sure the children loved performing but there was the sense of staged-ness about it which prompted some questions and reflections in our discussions later.

After a lovely lunch we headed out to the notorious smokey mountain. There i met the Pastor of Hesed Baptist church who proudly welcomed us to a building which if i called it a tin shack would have been talking it up. This was his church, one of the more stable and better of all the buildings around because his church and a shanty town of 8,000 people live on compressed rubbish, because we were standing in the middle of a rubbish dump.

Smokey mountain has been a rubbish dump for years, it is on Manila Bay next to the docks and the government have helped the community there to build and grow on the rubbish dump gradually reclaiming the land. I cannot express in words what the physical scene was like there, suffice to say we navigated our way through open sewage and rubbish everywhere, stray dogs, chickens, and children all over the place. This was still very much a rubbish dump with cardboard, tarpaulin and tin shacks built on it. The families scavenge on the garbage selling anything they can to make a living.

I contrasted my emotions with those outwardly expressed by the Pastor, our host. I felt anger and frustration at the sheer hopelessness of it all. It is said that if a child is born on smokey mountain he/she will never ever leave and die there as an adult such is the unending cycle of poverty. our host on the other hand was a man full of passion and devotion, full of godly wisdom and a love for the people. He explained to me his plans for church growth with enthusiasm and optimism and it was a deeply moving experience. Even now, hours later, i'm not sure i've processed fully the day's experiences.

Within minute we were back in Metro Manila among 5* hotels, international embassy's and huge malls that make the Trafford Centre look like the Fence Village Store. The contrast of it all is perhaps most shocking. We ate here, visited starbucks where i bought my first souvenir - a starbucks Philippines mug and headed back to the hotel so we could sleep (hopefully) and so i could blog. There will be much to ponder and reflect on if this evening is another sleepless night.

and so the eagles have landed...

And so i find my self at 5:03am in the morning after sleeping for about a total of 3 hrs in the last 36 sat at a computer because i'm jet lagged and can't sleep.

We've arrived safely at our hotel which seems quite nice on initial inspection and the air-con works so frankly what else do you need. I'm sat here in t-shirt, shorts and flip fops at 5 in the morning and am already hot!

Miraculously we managed to navigate 3 airports without getting lost, arrested or on the wrong plane and we were greeted like long lost friends by Sol, some other Kanlungan staff and Frank & Esther when we arrived at Manila Airport (pictured). Just the brief drive through Manila proved to us that this is a vibrant, cosmopolitan city with loads of culture about it. It proves to be an interesting time just being here among a totally different culture let alone having the experiences of Kanlungan's work.

The last thing to say was that it was such a joy to be greeted at the airport by Sol. She is the manager of Kanlungan and i had met her briefly a couple of years ago after a short stay in Lancashire. I had forgotten how much of Jesus radiates from Sol. She was such a bundle of love and joy as we arrived and am certain that we will end up being greatly blessed just by being around her and the team. With any luck, i will post tomorrow after having some sleep!

Fly away....

So, after weeks and months of frankly trying to ignore and forget the fact that i'm off to the Philippines, in about an hour's time a taxi will pick me up and away we shall go. For those who don't know, i'm off to Manila, Philippines to view a project that my church, Wheatley Lane Methodist Church supports financially etc. The project is called Kanlungan sa-Erma and is a charity that works with disadvantaged children in Manila, educating, rehabilitating and supporting them and their families from their standpoint as a Christian ministry. I'm going with four other people to see what the project does on a day to day basis, to see where the money we have sent is being spent and to bring greetings and encouragement from our church to the project.

As i type now, apprehension rather than excitement is the driving emotion. I've never flown this far before, the furthest i've been is Poland or Kosova, i'm with people i've never travelled with before (and am never likely to travel again with), lovely though they are all by the way, i'm leaving Laura behind, this is the longest we've been apart since we've been married and i'm expecting the trip to be quite harrowing in places, certainly deeply challenging if nothing else.

My intention is to blog each day, we'll see whether that's actually possible and it will surely be interesting to read this post in hindsight of the next two weeks! Happy fortnight everyone!