Four Years of Service

Every year 50+ high school students come from Seoul Foreign School to sweat, sweat, and SWEAT for a week full of heavy labor. Over the past four years they have played a significant role in four of our ministry sites at KIM.

Three years ago, in 2007, they helped pour the second floor of our Cuatro Community Center, which is now the main sanctuary for the Tugumpay Evangelical Baptist Church and also doubles as the location for several of our Cuatro Christian School classes.

In 2008 they returned, this time to help with our children's home extension. At maximum capacity and running out of space, the SFS Team helped with adding a new wing onto the far side of our children's home. This new wing included a sala (living room) for the children's home boys, a bigger, more spacious kitchen, a state-of-the-art nursery for our babies and toddlers, as well as a nice, large dining room for mealtimes and other special events.

Then last year, in 2009, they came back to work on the church building next door, the JCCV (Jesus Christ Church in the Valley). In the early stages of adding a fourth story to the building, SFS played a huge role in transferring hollow blocks up to the roof. The seventy-five high school students and teachers/staff made an assembly line that started on the ground level and climbed up two flights of stairs, went through the church sanctuary on the third floor, and then climbed another flight of stairs on the back side, all the way up to the roof (soon to be fourth story). For a week they passed hollow blocks, mixed cement, swung hammers, and even helped to dig the first three holes for the footings for our YMC Extension Project. They even found time to help transfer hundreds of books from our old CCS Library to the new location.

This week, May 22nd-May 29th, SFS is back and already working very hard! Despite the exhausting temperatures as of late, the SFS students and staff are up early everyday, working with shovels, axes, hammers, scrapers, paintbrushes, and a variety of other tools. They are working on a two hour rotation that includes scraping and re-painting the Cuatro Christian School (at two different locations), digging, moving dirt, and mixing cement at the back of the YMC for a new building currently being constructed, and also playing with kids at the children's home.

And somehow, despite the many hours of hard physical labor, each year, the SFS Team also finds time to hold a community carnival, do devotions at the children's home, have a community concert, and go shopping for donations for the children's home, the cuatro christian school, and the community kids.

As the famous expression goes, the SFS Team comes to Manila every year, and pours blood, sweat, and tears into Kids International Ministries. On behalf of KIM, thank you for all your help, thank you for getting dirty and working hard, thank you for the many donations and your giving heart, and thank you for the impact that you have on this organization and in the Kingdom of God.

We can't wait to see you next year!