Orphan Girl, Mindano Ministry, Children Feeding

Orphan Girl, molested, abandoned, will ask her to stay here

There’s a young girl, 14, whose father, Lando, was molesting her and her sister. We know them all a few years. He’s a bad drunk and very insolent, mocks the gospel and was wanted for murder in Cebu, so he fled to Bohol. He stayed here a bit with Pastor Samuel often, but he moves around a lot, and just moved back to Cebu we heard. His older daughter, the 14-year-old, was taken from him but ran away from the place they put her. But Lando took his younger daughter with him when he left, and got her pregnant, but got her an abortion, which is also very rare here.

Anyway, the 14 year old has been seen a few times selling vegetables in the market in rural Sikatuna by Pastor Samuel and he told Ann, suggesting maybe she take her in. Ann’s been thinking it over a few weeks and told me only today that yes, wants to offer her to stay here if she wants to. — Now, there is so much to deal with concerning her situation and I have no word on it yet, but I’ve wanted to take care of her a few years already. We are not registered as an orphanage and so need to take her in on personal terms, like as a relative we are helping or as a ‘working student.’ We appreciate your prayer for her now, and our long term goals, such as raising enough money and prayer to register an orphanage!

Travel to Mindano: family and ministry

Also, we may be going for a week to Mindano, to deal with some family property issues. The troublesome family of Ann’s deceased husband is fighting to take their family house away by fraud. You can do a lot of damage by corruption in the Philippines! But God said he will protect their land. Ann and her former spouse were given that house as a wedding gift a long time ago, but since he died some of his cousins are trying to seize the property away from her. Ann’s eldest son lives there now, but her family and kids have lived there for about two decades.

Ann also wants to visit to both of her eldest sons, to see her sister and other close relatives, including one who is Melcher, a pastor who is very large, very tall, and lived in US a long time. He looks like a linebacker, but he’s an ex-NPA (guerrilla insurgent movement) who nearly died in a ferry sinking disaster and then got saved and became a pastor! I haven’t seen him in many years!

But I am most excited to meet up with other friends in ministry we know from Hong Kong who will be nearby right now, most who we haven’t seen in over 10 years! We will discuss what ministry functions we can plan and do maybe in a month or two when we go back. We may find a place to preach on Sunday itself, but what God has given us to share is far more than most people expect on a regular service, and it may just go over their heads, we’ll see! Its better to plan a seminar for those who want the deeper gold.

So will explore setting up a seminar over there — finally! Either in Iligan City, Cagayan de Oro or a further town Gingoog (pronounced gey-ho-og). These ladies are all prophetic, a few are pastors, several were my neighbors for a time in Hong Kong, and they also knew Ann, but we lost touch over the last few years plus due to the pandemic, etc. One ran a church in rural Hong Kong (Mui Wo/Silvermine Bay) with her sister, that I later took over, and my first visit there, there was an enormous angel standing at the altar! It was a little scary! Those sisters pray all the time!! Amazing.

Ferry Travel from Bohol to Mindano was banned for so long it’s the first visit home for Ann in a few years. But it’s also elections right now and very chaotic … So Ann wants to GO and BE BACK here before the actual election day on May 9, and we heard they may re-lock down the country after the election, so travel will be harder afterwards.

It’s going to be an expensive trip … but I think it’s a good plan. She’s been talking about it for a while but it seemed unrealistic, but fasting has loosed so many draining influences on us that it suddenly seems so easy and doable. Still praying for God’s spoken direction but we feel peace to move forward and plan to leave Wednesday, April 25. God willing.

Children’s Feeding Program

Also fasting last week Ann suddenly said she wants to do a simple childrens feeding program in Sikatuna, which is a rural town we’ve ministered in a lot and where Pastor Samuel lives. We have a basic admin plan, but want prayer to know God’s feedback. I’ll share more later when we have more confirmation.

But we will target to invite 10 children, will take 20 but I expect 30 to show up. We will be seeking monthly sponsorships of US$30 per child per month to give money for food and some for admin costs. We will go to several government departments to see what food assistance they have on hand we can distribute, which is common, and will which will help to make our cash budget stretch!

Before distributing food we will ask the mothers to attend a one-hour life skills class taught by Ann to share knowledge on hygiene, nutrition, first aid, money management, etc. She used to work with social services and is a trained nurse. Meanwhile we will spend an hour with the kids in an entertaining time preaching the gospel to them through song and games. Ann’s second daughter is perfect for this part and is already preparing herself. We will ask the recipients to attend such a session once a month or maybe if we can handle it, once a week, depending on how it goes.

We will ask Pastor Samuel and his wife Alie to visit each family each week to make sure they are ok, and pray for any of their personal needs. We will not distribute cash or food during these home visits normally, but may in some unusual circumstances. But this is a key to building real relationships with the families we choose to help sow into.

We will start in Sikatuna, which is about 40 minutes away by motorbike, and once its rolling we also can expand to a second location a little further away to reach some of the native Ati tribe we know in Loay. This can be more complicated but if it goes well, we can expand to a third location in Jetafe, where there are more kids who are in more need, if we can handle it! Jetafe is three hours away and last year I had a vision of a small boat waiting there to take me to the small islands nearby, but I got so sick for many months and then the big typhoon hit.

Please pray if you can about these things. We are already here in the mission field and ready to move forward with whatever door God opens and empowers us to go through. We really value your prayer and support! Amen.