Great Journey

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Psalms 16:11




God takes us through a great journey called life. For most of the time we don’t know where it’s going or leading. The path itself is not important. The important part of the journey is the relationship we develop along the way with God.


In January 2007 I retired from Hospital Administration, being single and still young (relativity) and active I applied for a short term mission trip to the Philippines. I arrived October 2007 and stayed until February 2008, returning to Canada for four short months, knowing that I would return to the Philippines. I came back June 2008.
Sometimes we try to understand why God has put us here or try to discover our unique purpose or calling in life. I know that I have found that calling by giving and volunteering and working in Cuatro Cainta Rizal. There are so many opportunities that is presented each day to reach out and to be the extended hands of Christ in this community. This ministry in not confined within the walls of the children’s home to the 40 abandoned and neglected children God has placed in our trust, but through many other avenues including the squatters community and school.
God has provided me with an amazing opportunity to serve Him in the talents and gifts he has given me. I love working with children and assisting in health care. For the past five months I have had the privilege to be involved with these children, the community and the lives of those serving in ministry a His service.


As I invest my life in the lives of many children here in the Philippines, my prayer is to promote an atmosphere of trust, health, safety and love for the many children God may bring our way. Mt prayer is to invest in their young lives as they in turn give back to God their given talents and abilities to Him for the further development of their people




Philippians 4 7-9 Do whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely and admirable if anything is excellent or praise worthy –think about such things. Whatever you have learned or heard form me, put it in practice and the peace of God will be with you

Piano Lessons:

I am sitting listening to the simple sound of scales going up and down deliberately and rhythmically on a piano at the YunJin Lyso Ministry Center. Today is the first day of piano lessons for some of our kids,a huge blessing thanks to our friend Joy. Joy is probably one of the best piano players in Manila. She is the primary pianist for the University of the Philippines Chorus, one of the premiere programs around here. She plays in the worship services for Greenhills Christian Fellowship, one of the largest churches in Manila. And, she is the niece of Glenn and Grace Ayala, our friends in Mindanao that donated the land for the Malaybalay camp and children's home project.Joy is volunteering her time with the kids to teach them piano twice a week. For a young woman with so many other things going on, that's an awesome commitment, and we are grateful! I started piano lessons when I was a young boy, which led me into a lifelong love of music. Piano really opens the door for young creative minds to really understand and appreciate music. It gives such a good foundation for either continuing on with piano, or learning new instruments. Music is a huge part of Filipino culture, and consequently a great ministry tool. A lot of these kids have already shown great interest and potential in things like singing, guitar and piano at their young age. How cool is it to have a piano teacher volunteer to continue developing those skills and interests? We are thankful for Joy and her service and look forward to seeing the kids continue to learn and use music as a way to reach people. DJ

GOD works in amazing ways:

This past week we hosted a team of 24 middle school students from Hong Kong ICS.... This is the second year they have come to impact the children's home and community. My what an impact....

These pictures show community members utilizing the 'new' space that has been created by the hard working friends from HK... Yard work, concrete work, taking up old tile,putting in new tile, painting, planting , were all a part of the big week long service time.


A neighboring church/seminary approached us a few weeks ago asking if we'd be interested in buying their land and building. I was in shock as this facility, although lacking significant maintenance was a 'light' in the community. A seminary had been training dozens of future church leaders, a church was feeding the flock from the community, a youth group had been reaching out to the youth in the streets surrounding our children's home.


We graciously declined their offer and countered with, " let us help you breathe some new air into your sails" and keep your boat afloat during these stormy times. The end result was the kids from Hong Kong, some of the their donated funds, and community kids pitching in to right the ship and chart a new course. Praise God!

Today God has lifted the leadership spirits and we are looking forward to future partnership, including the building of playground equipment in their spacious well shaded yard, a couple of rooms in their building will house our community school-grades 3-6 someday, kids from the streets are coming in for Bible study basketball games,our staff will be enrolling in a course, '" how to study the Bible"and their building although far from being 100% sound is on the mend....

WHO WILL COME TO HELP US FINISH what 24 middle schoolers started?

Opportunities abound in the Philippines,

Come and help,

Jeff

Heartlyn's Story

The nursery has seen quite a few changes these past few months. The new nursery is finished, and we moved into it back in October. Also, on September 30th, we got 3 new additions to our nursery. Tyra, 2 years old, and Chris, 11 months old, are a brother and sister who came to the children's home. Also, we got a little baby girl, Heartlyn, who was 2 months old at the time.


All of the babies have amazing stories, but I am going to share Heartlyn's with you. Her story is such a clear picture of God working miracles, I still get chills thinking about it. We got Heartlyn late in the afternoon on September 30, 2008. She seemed to be drinking fine, though it was obvious that she was not used to being fed the right kind of milk. The very next day all the new children were taken to a newborn screening, just to see if they had anything extremely wrong with them. Heartlyn did not come back from the screening. She was so sick that she was taken to the hospital right away. She has green feces and green goop coming out of her eyes: the doctor said that she had an infection, but they were not yet sure of how bad it was. It turns out that her white blood cell count was so high that she could not even survive normally. As well as the infection, Heartlyn also had Pneumonia and at least 3 other sicknesses. The doctors said that she probably would not be coming home for months.


That night two volunteers went and stayed overnight at the hospital with Heartlyn. They felt led to pray over Heartlyn, the whole night! So they did, they prayed over Heartlyn's little body nearly the whole night. The next morning, the doctor came in to check on her as usual, and the doctor was amazed by the changes in Heartlyn. The infection was gone! She was eating normally and the fever had gone away. Heartlyn came home that very day. Everyone was just blown away by God's grace and His miracles! Praise God for his love!

Alex

Meet Alexandra. She is one of the newest arrivals at New Faith Family Children's Home, having come on the last day of September with her two younger siblings Tyra (2) and Chris John (1). The other two have plenty to say about them as well, but this is about the big sister - a picture of the kind of children we often care for. She is not orphaned or abandoned. But she comes from a very difficult home life. Maybe she is 7 or 8 years old, we are not sure. She is surprisingly big though; maybe it's survival of the fittest - her siblings are undersized with far more health issues.

Alex cried and cried when she first arrived, a fish out of water in this large, nice home with so many kids and staff. But her new reality slowly sunk in when she was given clean clothes to wear, was shown her own soft bed to sleep on, then sat down with the other kids for a good meal at dinner. After a month to adjust to her new life, she was able to start school for the first time yesterday, beaming in her uniform as she left with the other kids. She has been loved-on immediately by the staff, which had an instant effect in her awakening. Alex still has a very fiery attitude and temper that understandably emerges at times and she can really get into it with the other girls. But she is learning to abandon that as she settles in at New Faith and as we as staff keep pouring into her. She smiles a lot now and says she is happy. We are happy to see the changes in Alex; pray she continues to grow into the girl God wants her to be.

East Coast Fun!

I bet you have never seen a blog from the east coast well, since I am the only one from "the team" from the east coast and this is the first time I have written one from here. Lots has been going on. I have been able to go to one fair already and will go to another one this weekend. But at the last fair was able to meet up with a girl who is really interested in coming for a summer to work at the Children's home. I have also received donations for the Home as well as being able to see some of the cards that Megan has made that highlight some of our kids. I was also able to host two open houses for people to come over and see videos, pictures, artifacts, and taste some food from the Philippines. those that came loved it. From that I have four of my friends that are praying about coming over to work at the Home for a couple weeks or for the whole summer. I have visited my alma mater and have made good contact with them in setting up trips and internships to the Philippines with us. SO lots of great things are happening here.

I am continuing to work while I am here in the states and enjoying being with family and friends. It has been a great time for me to be with my family as my brother is now training to be a corpsmen (medic) with the US Navy (hope to see him for Christmas), my other brother, in his senior year, won the conference with a strong possibility to go to Nationals with his college, my sister will take her Athletic Training Exam this weekend, and my dad having had several surgeries. My mom and I have been hold down the fort. Taking care of our chickens 2 dogs (that just had surgery), and our duck. As you can see never a dull moment.

Kim Courtright

Looking Back and Moving Forward

A year ago six foreigners were standing on the side of the road with luggage. Colene stopped, offered help and dropped them off at their designated spot. An hour late I got a phone call wondering if i could house these same people and 'oh by the way they are looking for ministry opportunities". A year later three ministry teams have come in separate months and done amazing things for the children's home in Manila, Malaybalay as well as the communities we reach out to... Over fifty workers and ministers of the gospel joined our efforts and many other groups around Manila this past month.

A year ago over twenty middle school kids were stranded at the Manila airport. They had just arrived and were suppose to head up north to minister however a typhoon shut down all travel and thus the call came to our children's home wondering if we could put these young adventurers to work. We did and a year later this same school has sent over administrators , two other work teams, and countless blessings for the homes in Manila and Malaybalay.. The middle school teams from their school arrive again next Monday!

Two years ago a team of aspiring workers showed up from Minnesota with a young couple named DJ and Rachel Langefels leading the team. A year ago this couple had enough of short term experiences and came to give their lives to God while working with our Manila children's home. This past couple of weeks the core group of the Minnesota team from 06 arrived again. After finishing their time one person wrote about the amazing change that had occurred in the lives of the kids and how impressed they were with DJ and Rachel's role and how they were being used by God!

God has indeed blessed our small group in 2008. We are pumped and excited to see what stories will be told a year from now as we see some of our first kids being adopted into forever homes all around the world!! First up are our twins, Daniel and Jacob who will be traveling to live with their parents in Elgin, Ill. sometime later this year or early next. Oh yeah, it was a little over a year ago that a group of short term medical missionaries were involved in saving the lives of the twin's mom, Daniel and Jacob....

What has your year been like? What will the next year hold? Keep looking for those God given opportunities to be about HIS work and have fun looking back at what God has done in your life in the coming year....

Thanks for allowing us this privilege...

Jeff for the Longs

World Racers in Malaybalay

For the last week and a half the world racers have been here in Malaybalay doing amazing work with the children's home. Between construction, working with the kids, and getting involved in the community they will definitely leave a mark on this town. The team helped with two big pours at the new children's home including the main stairs of the home. It was a messy job but they were more than willing to jump right in to the work, even the afternoon after they got off the plane!

The kids are also enjoying having the team around, new friends to play with who have an immeasurable amount of energy for them. There are basketball games every day, card games, puzzles to play with, they are definitely enjoying their new companions. It is easy to fall in love with the children here and the world race team has experienced that first hand.

Besides those two things, this world race team has taken initiative when it comes to working with the community. They are getting involved with the local church, visiting people in the hospital, helping the youth group, getting to know students at the schools, and even singing in the church choir. Their love for these people and excitement about getting involved has encouraged everyone. It has been incredible to watch what they are doing here.

Class Trip

On Wednesday I was able to go with the grade school class and we went and visited a Filipino school. We wanted to have our students see what it was like in a public school. It is so different from our school. The class sizes are above 65 in a classroom. The students are very well behaved to be in that setting. The teaching style is so different as well. It was very interesting to see.

Below are some pictures of our kids sitting in on a Filipino class.

Cuatro's Got Talent

On Friday was the first ever Cuatro Christian School Talent show! The students have been looking forward to this night for over a month and there was definitely excitement hanging in the air. At the children's home the kids were all getting ready, boys put in hair gel and girls got a little lip gloss for the special occasion, so much fun!

The second floor of the school was decorated with bright parachutes making a beautiful stage for the students to perform. With a very laid back feel, we invited parents and family members of CCS to simply come and enjoy the entertainment. When it was all set and done we had about 30-35 community members watching the students perform. The even began with the singing of the Philippine national anthem. The night was full of singing and dancing and what a great job done by all the kids. We had some soloists, some hand motions to popular worship songs, and of course a rendition of one of the songs from the famous High School Musical. It was fun to see all the students to use some of the gifts they have but don't get to use on a regular basis at school.

Over all the night was enjoyed by all and hopefully the students were encouraged to use their gifts for others in the future.

Kaitlyn

Simple Fun

I think the bottom line is that kids love puppies. It's so simple. Rachel's parent's have two dogs, and when a new litter of puppies comes along, they graciously let groups of the kids go up to their place to play with them. The kids absolutely love this. For some of them, it's playing with a puppy that gets them out of their shell, making them more excited and expressive than usual. This is a favorite activity and a great chance to get out and do something fun with a handful of the kids at a time. Here's pictures from the most recent puppy adventure:

DJ and Rachel

This and That

We have a great staff that are interested in taking great care with our kids. Today we were able to go through a refresher Red Cross CPR course at our newly acquired YMC building. Ate Laling's cinnamon rolls were a big hit as was lunch, the youth group from our local church provided back up at the children's home watching and caring for the kids.

Nurse Marilyn and her visiting Nurse sister Patsy also supervised and made sure all the little and not so little bundles of joy were well cared for..

The 'BIG" kids got to go to Faith Academy in the afternoon to watch Kuya Kyle play soccer and then they had a big swim in the Faith pool... Compliments of Uncle Ted and Aunt Rhonda McMillin who are paving the way for many cool things around the children's home already! Its been great having supporting board members surround us with lots of love. Thanks for praying for us and making ALL things possible as we seek to serve Jesus, the kids and the community around us.

Jeff for the team

Moving On Up!

At school things are going great. Our grade school kids will be going to another school tomorrow to visit and see what other students are doing and how other schools are run. Some exciting news at school is that in the last 2 weeks we have had a couple students move up.

Rene finished the third grade and now is working at the fourth grade level. He does very well in Math and Bible. Language and Science are a little tougher for him but he loves to learn and is doing great.





Angel Miles was able to move up to our Kinder A
class from the Kinder B class. She is ready to start
reading!





Jan Andre another one of our kids was able to move up to Kinder C on Monday. He is starting to put letters together to start reading simple words. And he is doing well in learning to write as well.




We look forward for more students moving up in the ranks soon. Thanks for all your support for Cuatro Christian School.

Kim Courtright

Farewell Tour

Last weekend the Children's Home staff got to spend a quick weekend away in Baguio, the "summer capital of the Philippines" to say goodbye to Jhett, one of our social workers. Jhett is heading to Vietnam to spend 13 months volunteering in program development for children with HIV/AIDS. For the better part of this year Jhett has already contributed so much to the home with her expertise and experience. With her leadership we received a key accreditation needed from the Department of Social Welfare and Development and she also helped pave the way for the first adoptions to happen in the near future. While we will miss Jhett, we are thankful for her months of service here and wish her blessings on her work in Vietnam. Plus, what we lose in Jhett we gain in our two new social workers Richelle and Sci. Along with Mae, we now have a dynamic team of three working hard every day for the kids.

Baguio was a great bonding time with the staff in a beautiful setting (and much cooler temperatures than Manila). We had fun seeing the sites in the city and also going out to spend an overnight at Jhett's family home, a 1920's traditional stilt house in the middle of mountains and rice terraces. We picked and ate plenty of fresh fruit, planted a rice terrace, and enjoyed each other's company out in the boondocks - literally. That expression actually comes from the Tagalog word for mountain, bundok. That's exactly where we were. Goodbye Jhett and thanks for all your hard work. And hurry back to Manila!

DJ and Rachel

God's blessings flow from KIM to OMF

Two days prior to OMF's appointed day for us to pay off the building we invited OMF leader Theo Jansen over to receive the check for the payment in FULL. The 11.5 million pesos(about 260,000 usd) allows us a building to use for decades to come. Another million or so pesos will be given to the government in taxes and fees and the remaining funds will be used to help spruce up the place and put a new roof on our garage/storage area. The twenty plus bedroom facility was built in 1983 and was utilized as dorm for the first two and half decades. We are glad we have a home for short term missionaries, the Jeepney Magazine, future older children home kids, our Filipino staff as well as missionary staff. The wonderful blessing will be well utilized for the growing ministry of helping kids know Jesus.

Read about this more on our 'location' section Yunjin Lyso Ministry Center page of the website..

To God be the GLory Great Things HE HAS DONE!
Jeff

When Things Go Right...

For anyone who has spent even a day in Manila you would agree that it is chaotic- efficiency and speed are not strengths of this city. Being fully prepared to spend the ENTIRE day in the city, 5 of us KIM staff ventured out to get our drivers licences, so we could legally be able to drive in the chaos! As it usually goes we spend hours filling out paperwork and being transferred from room to room getting hysterical medical and eye exams (which is a whole blog entry on its own) Today was my third attempt to get my licence because of what I mentioned earlier- the efficiency and speed are not the strong points of how things run here.

Today, however, today was different; a minor miracle! We arrived at the Land Transportation Office at 9am and by 12 in the afternoon all five of us had our licences in hand and were on our way home! We are very grateful and realize that it was a rare occurrence. In fact, so rare that is just had to be posted in a blog!

Almost Finished, With This Project

Friends,

As you can see by these pictures we are getting close! God has been so faithful to add funds at just the right time! We have walls, ceilings, a roof, inside walls.... Its been incredible to see teams arrive at the right time to do what they were gifted to do. Recently a team of six painters came from the KC area and really did heaps of work inside and out to get things 'rolling' in the paint area. Colors were chosen by friends in the know that had just arrived to serve and have a gifting in that area. Its really neat how God works.

As we go down the 'home' stretch we need a few things to see this become reality... What is reality? We will be able to feed and dine with our kids and staff over 60 in all at one time(family style) I LOVE IT. Above the dining hall is a great room for our nursery. In fact its has four bedrooms a kitchen, play room and four bathrooms. We are excited to be able to serve ten to twelve children in this area.

What do we need to finish?

Tiling the entire first and second floor? 5000.00 usd

Lights and fans? 3,000.00 usd

Table, chairs, appliances, beds, dressers? 4,000.00 usd

Remaining windows and doors? 4,000.00 usd

Thanks for helping us complete and utilize this GREAT addition for the kids,

Jeff

School Days

School is going really well. We are almost done with our first quarter. This past month some classes have been able to go on some field trips to Corrigedor and the zoo. We have were able to graduate one of our kinder classes to first grade so we are very excited for those students and they are doing well with their new curriculum. Many of our other students in the grade school will also be graduating to the next grade levels in the next month or so.
All the students love their art, PE and Library classes. I am able to interact with all the students as the Librarian. In the grade school class we are reading "Swiss Family Robinson" and in the younger kids we are reading "Treasure Island." The students love it so much that everyday someone asks me are we having "ribary" today? They can't say library very well.
As we finish this quarter we are also getting ready for a talent show that we will have in September and our tryouts for that will be August 18th. So many exciting things happening with the school.

Celebration of Life

One thing will always be true and that is time never stops. And there are so many blessing that come long with that truth. Here in the nursery we are able to enjoy many opportunities to see these precious children grow over time. Each one of our six babies continues to wow us with the changes they go through. Recently our family was able to celebrate the 1st birthday of twins, Daniel and Jacob. At the beginning of their lives they were faced with many hardships. Born premature, the boys weighed 2 pounds and needed to spend that first month in the hospital. What was truly a miracle was that they had survived several abortion attempts. In the past year, they have just continued to thrive. So on July 29th, with very delighted hearts we partied for the celebration of life! We know that the boys enjoyed their first cake. Of course frosting and chocolate cake went everywhere, but that was part of the fun. We had set up a pool outside on the grass for some fun is the sun swim time. There was lots of splashing, playing and laughing done by everyone. We are so thankful to our amazing LORD for the past year of life.

Daisy

Boys

New Faith Family Children's Home Manila is currently home to 9 boys ranging in age from 8 - 13 years old. We call them the big boys. Most families don't even have 9 kids, let alone that many boys in this age group. Therefore, as you can imagine, things can be difficult with them at times. The simple fact is that issues are bound to arise when that many boys are living together. Compounding that is the fact that most of these boys have grown up with broken families, no families, no father figure or a bad example of one, on the streets, etc, etc. We want these boys to grow up to be godly men, breaking out of the cycles of violence and neglect that they were found in, in a culture that frankly often writes off boys as trouble from birth. That is usually a self-fulfilling prophesy. But it doesn't have to be.

So, as an activity to specifically focus on the big boys, we recently did a three-day camping trip to Corregidor Island, a major World War II historical site just an hour into Manila Bay from Manila. Here on this tiny island, the devastation of the war is uniquely preserved in the ruins of barracks, gun batteries, and other buildings that still sit crumbling as they did the minute the bombs hit them all those years ago. And there are no ropes and barricades, just a free-for-all to explore these places. Plus, there are countless caves, beaches full of shells and treasures, monkeys, jungle...it's a great place for the boys to spend some time away from the Home, just them. And they had a blast. Besides exploring old ruins, dodging bats in caves, and learning a little more about their history, the boys overall just enjoyed camping on the beach and spending hours in the water. They were shocked at first to find how salty the ocean is! Now, in a nation of 7,107 islands we are surrounded by salt water, but not surprisingly, these guys hadn't really experienced that yet. They caught crabs, body-surfed, jumped off the pier into the water, had campfires and made s'mores...all with minimal fighting and a good spirit of camaraderie.

Working with the boys every day can be a challenge for the whole staff, but there is so much beneath the surface of each one of them, so much potential to be the kind of Jesus-following men that will make a difference in this world. We are happy they got to experience Corregidor and have an adventure of their own. There were some great moments there when all the other relational conflicts and dynamics were peeled away to reveal nine boys playing happily on a simple beach. Pray for Rene, Jude, Joseph, Benjie, Jomel, Fritz, Jeric, Regie, and Alvin - that wherever they end up in life, they will be quality men, serving God in their own unique way.

DJ and Rachel