If you were thinking of moving to the Philippines what would you want to know?

As most of you know a few months ago I went to the Philippines for two weeks. I went with two other members of my church here in Summerville SC. We went to learn about goat raising and self-sufficiency programs in 3rd world countries. A few families from our church are wanting to move to Nicaragua to start self-sufficiency programs there like the one already going on in the Philippines.
Their are many reasons for doing this but it all comes back to spreading the Gospel. We want to teach people about God. These people are so poor they may not have eaten in a few days. Kind of makes it hard for them to listen to us. We don't just want to give them food because then they are relying on us to feed them and not themselves to work. Henry Ford said, "He that chops his own fire wood will be warmed twice." That is the idea of teaching them how to make a living instead of just giving them food for the rest of their lives. But by doing this it opens up the door for them to see that the church does care about them and wants to help them and makes them more open to hearing our message.

But back to the title of this note. I have been in contact with the missionary over there since I left and have thought about moving there. He believes that my family and I would be a huge assist to them and help the ministry grow in several ways. But if you were thinking about moving there what questions would you want to have answered before you signed the dotted line?
Please help us in this assist figuring this out.

Proverbs 15:22 Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.

If you come up with a question please leave it on the comments, if you could help us in finding the answer to your question or others again that would be helpful.
And please pray that the choice becomes clear and God paves the way for our future in serving Him, doing whatever that may be, where-every that may be.

While I was in the Philippines they were well into their dry season. It was going to be about a month before they had a good rain there and this is what the wells were starting to look like.
Salvador told David and I about a cave not to far from the camp that had water in it, but there was not enough oxygen to breath down there. He had been down there multiple times and each time it became harder and harder to breath. The last time he went in he promised himself (and most likely his wife and kids) that he would not go back until he had a source of oxygen so he would not pass out.
David and I thought about this for days. He has had some experience in caves before and really wanted to go down there and find the water. I have never done anything like that before and was not sure that I wanted in, but I did want to help these people get water. This water could be used for their crops, animals, and eventually cooking. The used bottled water for drinking.
We thought about trying to map out the cave so they could drill from up above and get a good water pump going, but that would take way to much time and money.
We knew that we could rent oxygen tanks and have David and Salvador go in with a pump and hose but that only gave a little bit of time and one shot at getting it right. Then after a lengthy brain storming session, God used our ideas to come up with the solution. You see, I have been working at an Auto shop for the last four years (Gerald's Tires and Brakes:) and more importantly I have been working with air compressors everyday as well. We decided to hook up an air compressor to the hose that will eventually pump water out of the cave but first use it to put the air we need to work with in the cave.
David and Salvador went in to town and got the supplies we needed and we were off.

David loaded up a video on youtube of the cave process.
http://www.youtube.com/user/drhenniger#p/u



So off we go into the cave. Salvador had told me that nothing lived in the cave but a snake and the front end and a bunch of bats. I had learned not to believe everything he said. His favorite pass time is, "Pull tricks on the Americans" and let me tell you he is good at it. But this time was no joke. I did not see the snake, but after this photo opp. I knew he was there.
Oh and that young kid with me. That was our guide. He had been in that cave more than Salvador and the owner of the cave combined! I guess when you are that young you don't breath much, so it was nice to be working with him.



Salvador is a leader over in this community for sure. He was also helping organize this project. But he did not sit on the sidelines, he was all in with this work.




For instance, Salvador after he got out of the cave. Did I mention that there were hundreds of bats in this cave?
Yep! That is not mud on him. That is bat guano!
He has been down there before to harvest some of the guano for their crops. Now we were just slipping around on it.



They did end up harvesting a lot more of the guano so they could make a pool large enough for the water pump.
And within 24 hours of entering the cave they had water pumping out.



This is everyone that helped the first day. We had a little celebration for finding water. We were not 100% sure that water would be down there because it was so far into the dry season. But now we found it, and have the means of getting it out.

For an update on what happened after we left and better pictures than I have here, check out Salvador's website:
http://arapalchristiancamp.shutterfly.com/cave

The Philippines Part 4

Here I am starring down the 5th hottest pepper in the world. It is so small you can hardly see it in my hand, but you can see that little group of them on the table by the plate with the big dead fish. We got some of these peppers on our way out to the camp and I thought it would be a good idea to eat one. The first thing you need to know about me is that I don't go looking for extremely spicy things to eat. In the U.S. I feel I have nothing to prove. If you have hot sauce that you say will burn a hole in my tongue I have no desire to prove you wrong. But when I left for the Philippines I told myself that I would eat whatever people put in front of me (and even a few things they didn't put in front of me, but that is a different story) So when Salvador said that these peppers were the 5th hottest in the world I couldn't help but want to try. David/Goliath sitting next to me had a lot more stomach room to dissipate this piece of burn lava disguised as a harmless vegetable than I did but he was not going to be duped into ulcers on this trip. Oh, the lesson I should have learned.



The interesting thing in this picture is not the joy on David's face at my expenses, but the fact they were able to get the picture taken before my water bottle hit my mouth. I am surprised I did not splash that bottle all over my face with the speed I grabbed that thing and brought it to my scorching tongue.



Will this work?




Nope.



I know I will shove about 15 spoons full of rice in my mouth at once, that should do it. We didn't have bread with the meal but rice seemed to work just fine. The sad part in this shot is my desperate attempt to regain a temperature in my mouth under 210 degrees but David pointing out I only ate half the pepper, and the half I did eat didn't have many of the seeds. I felt nothing pulling me to finish that other half. After all I said I would "try" whatever people put in front of me.

The real story here is that five of us ate fresh seafood right on the coast with cokes dessert and everything for $12. The fish was unbelievable! I know some of you live near the water and say you have good seafood. But you don't have these fish. Salvador had us eating fish that doesn't have an English translation because you won't find them anywhere else. And our lunch was swimming around in the water that morning, you can not get fresher than that. The fish tank at Red Lobster just isn't the same.

The Philippines Part Three

We landed in Cebu City on the Island of Cebu. Kind of like New York, New York. Only a lot less people and I looked tall there :) We went out to the camp ground but had several stops along the way. One stop was here with John. He works with a church here, where the people make bracelets out of rolled up magazine paper and fishing line to help support themselves while they work on raising goats, worms, or
vegetables to support themselves.
The little girl in the center of the picture was 5 and she would take the beads that have already been made and put them on the fishing line to make the bracelet. Her little sister in the corner was helping too, she was around 3 years old. They family would make them and Salvador (the missionary there) would buy them, send them to the U.S. to churches to sell to help raise money for the church in the Philippines and fund raising events they have. Like raising money to visit the Philippines:) No, I'm kidding. Any church needing to raising money for any trips he would encourage them to sell these. [Okay here is my shameless plug, If you have a church event and need to raise money and looking for a good way to do that please leave a comment and I will get you in contact with him] What is interesting it that the church buys these beads even if they do not have anywhere to send them yet. They have to make sure that these people can eat. They are trying to help these people send their kids to school instead of working in the rice fields. I think he is pretty much always sitting on about 10,000 of these beads. Wow.





My memory is a little foggy on this, but if I remember correctly a Mom and Dad with 4 kids live here in this house. They may have had more kids I can't remember. But one of the children has a disability and sits in that wheel chair all day. He can stand with assistance, but walking for him is more like carrying him with his legs touching the ground. The good news is that up until maybe a year ago he did not have that wheel chair. He just laid on the ground all the time. Now he can be outside with his siblings.
The house does have electricity. The mom was watching TV while making beads. A lot of people had TV's over there, even in homes smaller than this. When this picture was taken I was inside getting the tour. That big tall white guy outside is David. They called him Goliath over there. They thought I was a lot closer to the Biblical David's size and he was closer to the O.T. Goliath. So the name stuck. He was called Goliath almost as much as David while there.
Well anyway, the reason he was standing outside is that the floor was so weak that I told him it would be best to not come in. I was a little concerned about my 5'8 self falling through the floor. I believe he is 6 foot 2-4 inches tall. Not Philippino size for sure!
The family did not own this home, they rented it for about $10 a month. With the condition of the wood the house is only going to last a few more years, then they will have to move. The landlords there are not under obligation to fix problems like that. They will just keep renting it until it falls then build something new and charge more for it. Strange.

The Philippines Part Two

These are the kids that I got to spend my morning with. We had a great time! See that little girl up front, the one with the white dress and the pink flowers on it. Yeah, the one that does not look like she is amused at all this going on. Yes, her.
This little girl was great. She was five years old and she was so small I think she was wearing 3T clothes. She was so shy that she didn't even want to come get some of the candy that I was passing out to the kids. It took every sweet tooth in her mouth to get her to finally grab that piece. She didn't want to play some of the other games that the other kids and I were playing. She would just sit there during "Bottle, Bottle, Goonsa" and you were not allowed to pick her to be the Goonsa. She was happy to just sit there....
Well if you have ever had one of the first three Mook kids in your Bible class then you know why I liked this girl so much:) She was very reserved. Polite, but would not talk if it was not necessary to life. You can imagine my amazement when two days later I see this same girl get up on stage at the goat show, (oh, did I mention we had a goat show) and sang a solo and recite about 5 Bible verses. She was the only one up there too. Maybe there is hope for my kids. Of course John Paul is looking like he will be real out going. So maybe he and I will share the Talent show and VBS stage someday.

The Philippines Part One

I will be jumping around on my two week trip in the Philippines. But I want to start with one of the most interesting days there, the medical mission. They had a doctor come in that volunteered to look at over 100 people in about 8 hours. Alise helped out by taking temperatures, blood pressure, and other vitals. David Henniger would talk and pray with the people after they saw the doctor. I did that in the afternoon. But in the morning I got to play with the kids. We played "Duck, Duck, Goose" only they called it "Bottle, Bottle, Goonsa" At least that is how I pronounced it. This first picture is of me chasing a kid... he felt no need to stay to just running around the circle. His game was, I run where ever I can and you try to catch me. Did I mention that he did this bare foot. The kids all wore flip flop sandals, but a lot of them would take them off to chase each other. Don't want to be slowed down by a shoe! Nope! Less sliding on the rocks with bare feet.

More stories to come!