On our way home

We've had several FULL days. Tuesday we wrapped up the project at the boys' dormitory completing the wash room and shower. The boys now have an enclosed shower room instead of the 50 gallon barrel out in back of their dormitory. Needless to say, they were very pleased! The women wrapped up their time in the library, teaching a lesson about foldables to the faculty and working with the food services manager in the canteen.

Tuesday night the faculty of SPMC hosted a going away party for us. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and they presented each team member with several gifts--pearl earrings for the women, wooden carvings for the men, decorative shoulder bags and a special native necklace. We were overwhelmed! We presented to the school a hand-carved (thank you, Milson) mahogany bible stand for their chapel. Thanks to the generosity of Chapelwood members, we were also able to leave funds to repair the siding and roofing of the school's chapel. We also dreamed together with Janet and the staff about the next steps of our partnership. Many tears were shared at the dinner. It was truly a time blessed by the fellowship shared in Christ.

Wednesday and Thursday we enjoyed the beaches of southern Mindanao. Absolutely beautiful! Today (Friday) we returned to Davao, shopped and flew to Manila. Tonight we are resting at a local B&B before getting on the flight Saturday morning (Friday night Houston time) and flying to Tokyo then Houston. More posts to happen once we return. Stay tuned for pictures.

For now a few reflections from me (Melissa)....
-I was reminded how inspiring it can be for other young women to meet a young female pastor. I was in college before I met my first female Methodist pastor. The female students at the college were so interested in my calling and being a pastor. It was a joy to spend time with them and develop relationships.
-I was amazed each day at the love and service of our team members--for one another, our partners in ministry and for the Lord. All of you that have journeyed with us through prayer were mentioned each day. There were moments when we each gave thanks aloud for our prayer partners and wonderful Chapelwood family. Be sure to ask one of the team members how they saw your prayers at work.

We look forward to seeing you all on Sunday as we walk into the week of Easter. The celebration of the resurrection takes on a new meaning after our experiences here!

Shalom,
Melissa

Reflections of our Team Leader

Today was an amazing day. I have begun to see God’s plan unfold for the Southern Philippines Methodist College.  When we first came here in 2008, there had not been any missionaries to the Southern Islands for over 30 years, and the Bishop of the Southern Islands was in desperate need of help for the people of Mindanao. His focus was on the development of SPMC, the only theological college in the Southern Islands.  Our first trip primarily focused on trying to figure out what each party could do. They weren’t sure what to do with a mission team, and we sure didn’t know what their plans were to develop the school and how we could best help.  At first it was the blind leading the blind, but by building relationships and opening a dialog, we learned how to work together to improve the school.  We learned about their customs and philosophy of life, and they learned about our capabilities and skills. The second year was the awakening, when we both came together to develop a realistic plan that would achieve the success of SPMC.  Together we developed a plan to grow the school and support teachers and students. Chapelwood’s part was to focus on supporting SPMC with financial aid, teacher support, medical support and, when applicable, construction projects that would aid in the school’s development.

Now, on our third trip here, we are seeing the fruition of all the efforts. Staff development for teachers, and improvements in the library, have been warmly received.  We see great progress in the school and our relationships are stronger than ever.  The construction projects are helping students and making the college more attractive to increase enrollment.  We are truly Partners in Christ, and several of our team members have seen God’s hand at work here at SPMC.    

posted by Dave Luther

Saturday & Sunday

Sun, moon and stars from the VBS activities

The children singing during VBS.

 

A UM church where many of the theology students at the college serve.

Central UMC which has three daughter churches in the rural areas.

Our team with the Methodist women's group of Central UMC.

How does your chicken travel to your table?

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Yesterday was the Vacation Bible Study extravaganza.  We began with under 100 children and ended up with over 140.  Our theme was This is the Day the Lord Has Made.  A story from Genesis 1 all about creation gave our six creative centers of animals; stars, moon and sun; plants; dark and light; birds and fish a fun experience for the children, the parents as well as the college student helpers.  Some volunteers helped us with the music by playing the piano and singing.  We felt it to be a very successful morning, although we were all very tired. The children who attended were from the surrounding neighborhoods. It was evident that many of them have tremendous creative talents! The seventh station was a free play-day in the yard. The yard around the church was filled with bubbles, sack races, parachute games and incredible laughter—by the children and the adults!

Today we attended the Southern Methodist Philippine College’s chapel where the District Superintendent Rev Joshana Aben gave a lovely sermon based on John 12. Her words about Jesus proclaiming how to find life were inspiring for these last days of Lent as we move towards the cross. She challenged the cultural understanding of protecting our life. Instead Jesus calls us to lay down our lives.  The dancing and singing were rousing and beautiful.  After lunch, we took a ride through Kidipawan around the countryside visiting five United Methodist Churches.  Each church usually has a kindergarten or preschool attached to the church. Each has a full-time pastor (most of them were women!) and a strong lay leadership team. The last church we visited was built by an Illinois congregation in a barrio surrounded by rice fields and the farmers who are tenant farmers.  Another church was located on the campus of the University of Southern Mindanao.  It was lovely as well.  A congregation filled with the deans and professors of the largest university in the southern islands. All of these churches were distinctive with hard working pastors and deaconesses.  We are now hurrying off to visit with Janet McCarty to have popcorn and a visit in her home.  Signing off for now.  With love and blessings, Marian.

Today is Bob Lassalle's birthday!! (March 26)

Church at SPMC

Our team joined the chapel service on the college campus this morning. It was an inspiring message from John 12 delivered by the District Superintendant...Rev Aben. The service was in English and Tagalog. Our team sends greetings with the college students...

SPMC pics continued...

Susan and Nadine cooking over the open fire--preparing lunch for the students.

Anna Lee and her son receiving the books from Chapelwood

 for her kindergarten class.

The happy graduates!!

Kathie escorts Joy whose parents weren't able to attend graduation.

Marsha also escorts a student whose mother couldn't travel for graduation.

Melissa and President Janet McCarty leaving the ceremonies.

Quotes from the team

"The students who dance as part of the chapel programs truly seemed to be dancing "for Jesus" as the song I Can Only Imagine says. It was a real ah-ha moment for me!"   Susan Patterson

"In the afternoon, we visited Emmilynn's choir practice. The singing was awesome brought tears to my eyes. A banner in the room said that "music is the angels speaking." True!  Marsha Haas

"I enjoyed hearing about the emphasis on the confirmation program throughout the UMC in the Southern Philippines. Rev Ladia has created confirmation program materials in their own language (Tagalak) as most resources are only in English."  Melissa Maher

"Amazing how things turn out! The morning project seemed to be going slow but the roof was finished just as the rains came." Bob Lassalle

"My heart is so full from seeing my friends here at the SPMC!" Kathie Luther

"I have enjoyed talking with my friend Milson who I have come to know over the last four years. His commitment to the church, SPMC and missions teams is incredible. The plan the SPMC has put together seems to be coming to a realization as I have seen much progress in the SPMC since my first trip in 2008." Dave Luther

The Philippines on Thursday

Thursday, March 22, 2012

We started the day off with a wonderful breakfast then walked to the college.  Pastor Roberto led us in a devotional about planning and goals.  We read from Proverbs and Luke.  Today Susan and I sorted library books. We cleaned off all the shelves containing the theological books and returned those with spine labels back to the shelves in Dewey Decimal order.  Then we toured the Primary classroom which consists of Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten.  The summer has started here so the students are no longer in school.  Deaconess Ana Lee does the best she can with very limited resources.  She is full of the joy of the Lord and is a delightful person to be with.  We talked with Deaconess Emylin for a while in her music room.  She is working towards her Master’s degree in music.  Susan worked with Jason in the Cantina again today.  He said he looked forward to using the interesting cooking material she presented to him.  Kathie continued to catalog books as well as tutor one of the second year college  students in English.  We, the library ladies, decided to visit the construction workers, Dave, Bob, Marsha and Melissa at the work site.  Very shortly we were put to work hauling big bricks to the site.  It was better than a gym work out, we all concluded.  The walls are going up and the roof is on.  They have accomplished quite a lot so far.  What is amazing is watching the Filipinos at work using these materials.  Without the kind of level we use in the states, they are able to keep the bricks straight as they add them using a string stretched from wall to wall.  God bless all of you!  Marian

A few pics from SPMC (in no particular order!)

Our team in amazement of the beautiful singing!

Our arrival at Davao airport. Janet McCarty greets us with a sign.

The girls from the college dance group lead us in worship.

Marian with librarian Mariann

SPMC Library

Wednesday the 21st of March

The day started with a wonderful devotion by Pastor Roberto Ladia.  Later, we had a morning chapel time where the graduating seniors shared how they were able to survive their four years at Southern Philippine Methodist College after Melissa inspired us all with her sermon.  We were in tears at the testimonies they gave.  Our team member, Marsha, is going for a degree in Master of the Circular Saw.  Tomorrow she will be working on mixing cement.  She is a real trooper.  Bob and Dave are working hard with Milson on completing the boys room.  Susan cooked on the wood fire making adobo pork with noodles.  She was asked if she would like to cook lunch for 50 and she did a fine job.  Pictures will be forthcoming.  Kathie continued cataloging as well as helping a student with her English skills.  The afternoon was spent in the Library by the ladies cataloging or shelving books in the correct Dewey Decimal way.  God bless everybody!

First full day at SPMC

Tuesday, March 20.  Dates and times are a bit awkward for us.  We will adjust, but the time differences as always, keep us a bit slower than usual.  Except for Dave.  Dave gave us all assignments first thing in the morning.  Dave, Bob and Marsha worked on cementing and sawing wood for the boy's dorm.  Susan had a good discussion with the cook at the Cantina that feeds the 83 students everyday.  Susan is a nutritionist and a good observer.  Kathie and I worked with the very professional librarian, Marianne.  She is working towards her Master's degree in Library Science.  We will be helping her catalog the donated books.  Melissa was invited to an Environmental Conference for the students and neighborhood churches.  She spoke on the Church's response to environmental tragedies.  The highlight of this day was the choir of girls led Maam Emilyn whose voices were the sound of angels.  The first song they sang to us in the morning was "This is the Day the Lord has Made."  That was decided to be our theme song for VBS while in Houston!  Y'all have a great day!

The Journey here to SPMC

The plan trip was a real excursion.  Claustrophobia set in after about the 10th hour of the plane ride from Houston to Japan.  But, we were fed well.  The next plane ride from Japan to Manila was about five hours.  We spent the night in Manila in a nice bed and breakfast.  The taxi ride was a bit daunting as the driver could not find the place.  Sleep was a blessing.  The morning brought us to the Manila airport where Dave had our group pass through in a special area with all our bags passing inspection quickly.  We met Janet and the driver Alfred and piled in to two vans.  We arrived safely in Kidapawan after driving about three hours. 

Signing out for now.  Marian

Philippines: March 17-31, 2012

Kathie & Susan

The Philippines Team

Ed, Dave, Marsha & Melissa

Susan and Marian

Dave giving instructions to the team.

Bob and Billy Don

Sunday, March 11, was the team dinner at Susan and Ed Patterson's lovely house on the bayou.  This was the planning event that will propel us across the world to a beautiful island in the Pacific Ocean.  Getting there will be half the fun with this crew.  We packed up the Vacation Bible School supplies and determined the weight of the luggage.  We are semi-ready!   God bless all blog readers and keep us in your prayers.  Our names are Dave, Kathie, Melissa, Bob, Marsha, Susan and the blog writer, Marian.  Pray especially for the family members we are leaving behind.

A SIFAT devotion to send us into the mission field of Houston and beyond

Our last evening at SIFAT included a beautiful devotional service  -- it filled us with love, a feeling of connectedness, and the power to be mission workers in the field of Houston and beyond.

Addison told us the story from Matthew 22 of the farmer who had prepared a feast, and couldn't find those willing to come to his banquet.  This reminded us that we need to make time to receive God's love - to keep our eyes and ears open to His open invitation -- he wants us to join in!

Low Smoke - Low Wood Burning Cook Stoves are ap-tech

Another appropriate technology for developing countries is creating ways to cook food with the least amount of wood and smoke.  Women and children in developing countries spend 90 minutes a day gathering wood, and as communities experience deforestation, the time increases, as they have to go further and further from home to find wood.  Cooking over an open wood burning fire generates a lot of smoke and women and children who do this regularly experience lung disease - it is like smoking 4-5 packs of cigarettes a day.  In developing countries this is a huge threat to the health of children and their mothers.

SIFAT taught  our Family Mission trip children how to combat the above through ap-tech that creates adobe bricks, to be used to build low-smoke, low-wood burning rocket stoves -- and through ap-tech that uses wood chips (found in areas of deforestation) to generate fire instead of wood logs.

We made adobe bricks from the indigenous red clay and straw (hay), using an inexpensive and easy to build frame.  Once dry, these bricks can be used to build houses or rocket stoves.  We used the rocket stoe to cook in the Global Village - Uganda had one - and it was an efficient way to boil water, and did require just a small amount of fire wood (which was great because it was pouring and dry wood was hard to find!).

The children of the Family Mission trip also cooked our lunch using wood-chip cylinders.  This required just a small amount of wood to get burning - - in fact, we used pine needles and pine cones.  Once we got a flame going, the cylinder of wood chips caught fire and generated the heat to boil our water (which cooked our rice, beans and onion  - -and thank goodness, some salt!).

Addison told us that currently people from 87 countries scrape together enough funds to send a delegate from their community to SIFAT -- and this delegate spends 5-10 weeks at SIFAT, learning ap-tech, and then can bring it back to their home-land.  This is truly life-saving, life-changing technology for the delegates and their communities.

Appropriate Technology - why it is important to us all

Addison, one of the amazing SIFAT staff, promised that during our time at SIFAT we would learn how to feel more connected to the world - and that we would live SIFAT with a better understanding of how those outside of our communities live.  He was right and I encourage you to ask one of the ten children who participated in the CUMC Family Mission trip about Ap-Tech, why it is important, how we learn from it, and how we can spread the word and spread the solutions.

A hint about why ap-tech is important; we learned at SIFAT that 15% of the world lives about the way we do, 35% live pretty much on the verge of having enough, but struggling, and 50% of the world is truly struggling everyday to meet basic needs of food, shelter and water.  The world in fact cannot support more than 15% living the way we do - there aren't enough resources to do that - however, there are plenty of resources to go around if we spread them more evenly, and use them more efficiently.

During our Ap-Tech work sessions, our ten children became experts in leaf-for-life and adobe brick making.

Leaf-for-life is a way to use indigenous plants, (like for example, Kudzu), to add nutrition to food.  For example, in Central America, mesa (corn flour) is used frequently to create tortillas because it stretches a long way and tortillas are filling.  However - mesa is lacking in important nutrients that children in particular need to thrive and be healthy.  Adding leaf powder, picked, dried and ground in the very easy and inexpensive leaf-for-life ap-tech, will boost the nutrition value and significantly improve health.

Stay-tuned for an entry about the importance of adobe brick making...

Living in a rural village

Yesterday afternoon, our five families hiked into a rural village -  crossing a raging (creek) rapid with just a slippery log for a bridge, and passing through a very tight border control customs office.  Once in the village, we got a tour of Liberia, the Philippines, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Uganda - - not totally realizing that we were going to be staying in the huts / houses and using the open fire or rocket stoves to cook our dinner and breakfast.

The houses that represent each country were built over the years by a combination of the respective county nationals and visiting students.  They are authentic - so much so, that when leaders from the countries come to stay at SIFAT they prefer to stay in the global village, vs. the lodge.

Around 5 (not totally sure of the time as possessions like watches were confiscated at the border when we entered the global village) - we were given a family portion of beans and rice and a potato.  Any of you who have done a rice & beans packing at CUMC -- the portion we were given was about 1/4 of a bag of rice, 1/4 a bag of beans and the potato.  We had to use the cooking technology in our respective house.  For example - Philippines had an open air fire pit, and Uganda had a low-smoke rocket stove.  We had about an hour and a half of daylight to gather wood, get our dinner cooked, eaten and get our sleeping bags laid out in our hut.  We needed all of that time to get our dinner cooked - it was dark when we were eating.  Children started out saying 'I don't like beans' -- but funnily enough, when it was dark and cold and that was the only food offered - they changed their minds.  Each family had one plate and shared a couple of spoons.

There was strength in numbers, families stayed together to offer support and community.  And this really helped keep the children busy - they played in creeks, in forests and helped where ever needed - while the rice and beans cooked.

Sun sets - and it is very dark.  And very rainy (did I mention it rained on us during all of this?) - and the mud is very red.  A couple of families slept on bamboo floor - apparently not recommended for it's sleep number properties -- and a couple of families slept on adobe floor - also not the best for a springy pillow-top feel.  I think for the most part the children all slept well and seemed to pop up ready to attack the day.  The adults may have struggled a bit more - there was no pot of coffee; enough said...

We cooked breakfast -- two apples and a small bag of oatmeal, per family - did some work around the village, moving fire wood, and heavy logs, cleaning trails, and then we left the village.

We've adjourned to the comfy lodge (bunk beds and sleeping bags - seems like a Hyatt now...), and most of us grabbed showers.

We'll be capturing the reactions of the children on video and sharing them.  What the SIFAT team told us is that the experience is a way to connect to the rest of the world.  It is one thing to read about a situation, and a totally different thing to live it.  I believe living it will change a few lives.

We'll share our video collections later in the week - we're off to collect those from the children now.