Howdy

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I've just returned from our fourth trip to Bacolod, Philippines. Daniel is still there and will be for the rest of this week. We went on Friday along with other members of our church most of whom had never been there or anywhere like it. We spent time visiting families in 5 of the different slums around the city then helped lead worship for a 'Celebrate Jesus' christmas crusade. Then on sunday we split up to visit and speak at 9 different slum churches.

It was an interesting trip this time for Daniel and I. Some of you may have heard (or guessed) that the Philippines and in particular Care Ministries in Negros is where Dan and I feel that God is calling us to be. We first went on a quick weekend trip almost exactly a year ago and even then had wild ideas about what if God was calling us there. It wasn't until after our week long youth trip last Easter that we really began thinking and praying seriously about it. Dan and I have always wanted to be involved in overseas missions work particularly working with the poor. Our original big idea was to stay in HK for one or two years after getting married and then head off to do missions somewhere. It seems like that might be the case afterall. The more we prayed and talked with people the more we began to feel that this might be what God has in store for us. When the Care Ministries core staff team came to HK in October we were able to spend time with them getting to know them and talking seriously about our ideas. They were positive about it and wanted us to come straight away. After much prayer, thought and discussion we now feel that this is where God is leading us. The earliest possible time to we could go is after the summer 2005 and so at the moment we are planning to move to Bacolod sometime around Sept 05.

To do what?
Care Ministries has been given a plot of land near Bacolod that has space for 100 houses. They are planning to build a self sufficient community with clean water, sewage systems, biogas power etc. They will then choose 100 poor families and teach them how to rear pigs and chickens and grow vegetables, enough to provide each family with a livelihood. One of the biggest problems of the slums is disease caused by lack of clean water, good nutrition and proper sewage systems. The idea of this community is to keep it disease free from the beginning. Due to the proper sanitation it should stay that way and providing each family with a livelihood will mean that they have enough money to buy food. However as yet all of this is a big idea and an empty plot of land. Care Ministries is looking for someone with a business degree to help them plan this project. They were pretty excited to find out that Daniel has a business degreee and is very very interested in the project.

As for me, well i'm not sure yet what part of the ministry I will be working with. There are many possibilities particularly working with the medical clinics or at the tuberculosis recovery centre. However i'm quite sure that God has put me in my present job (working with Catrin) for a reason, particuarly because it wasn't the job I would have chosen and yet i've learnt so much and loved it so much. At present there is no specific work that Care does with handicapped children or adults but there is obviously a huge need. So at the moment i'm praying that God would guide me step by step to where He wants me.

There would also be many adjustements Dan and I will have to make in order to settle in and these will take time. The first of these is language. We are still unsure whether to learn Tagalog which is the national language of the Philippines or Ilongo which is the dialect spoken in Bacolod. The 2nd big thing is going to seminary. Care Ministries has asked us to consider going to seminary while we are there as neither of us have any formal bible or missions training. There is a well known seminary based in Manila which has a satellite campus in Bacolod but we have yet to find out what courses they offer.

So... there are still a lot of questions and uncertainties. But we are excited about what might happen over the next year! We'll try and keep updating the website to let you know whats happening.

Going to the Philippines...

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