FIRST THOUGHTS FROM SACELE

Hi all
Thanks for all the encouraging messages via email and Facebook. We arrive here at 
8 pm on Saturday evening and are settled into our little room. Brief updates under the three F's - Familiar, Forgotten and Firsts........

Familiar

• Great to see the team again - Daniel, Ema, Liz, Avram, Alina, George, Simona and Ion - they all send their love to St Andrew's
• We visited the Roma villages Tarlungeni and Zizin on Sunday and saw many of the children we had met in the past - many of whom would be in our English classes
• The Mission House - seeing the great paint job our girls did downstairs and the plaster boarding upstairs reminded Sue of the visit in March with Jay and the youth
• Road signs warning of horses and carts

Forgotten

• How great the dual language church service is, here at FAST
• Just how beautiful the forests and mountains look as a backdrop to the journey to Sacele in the sunshine (yes it's sunny and warm, so no need of the thermals just yet!)
• Horse and carts loaded with hay and turnips
• Young boys riding bareback
• That there is now a coffee shop in the centre serving cappuccino - Stan happy :)
• How humbling it is to see how proud the families are of their new homes - two rooms and a wood burner, no electrics or loo

Firsts

• There is a team of 14 electricians and builders here from a church in Scotland - hearing testimonies from strapping Glaswegians was something else
• And because there are 15 men here and no women Sue doesn't have to queue for the loo or the showers :)
• Seeing the (one) cowman bringing all the village cattle down from the pastures on the hill - and on reaching the village he leaves them, they all start running and all find their way to their own homes. We were amazed - homing cows! 
• Taught our first English lessons today - two groups of 8 to 11 year olds  back to back - interesting, challenging, exhausting - but awesome!

Prayer please

• The new youth centre is up and running, but as a 'joint project' with City Hall Ema and Daniel are finding that dealing with the bureaucracy is a real challenge. Please pray that any problems will be easily resolved.
• Our first session of conversational English with the mothers tomorrow - without a translator!
• Our first 'self-esteem' session on Thursday with the teenagers - Stan with the boys and Sue with the girls
• Sue is speaking at the Women's Group on Thursday
• That the Lord continues to go before us every day

With love Sue and Stan xx

DIFFERENT SEASON, DIFFERENT HARVEST, WAIT ON THE LORD

Hi all
We realised recently it is more than 12 months since our last very sad blog, when we had   to leave Manila following a very dangerous situation and return to the UK.

 Since then we have gone through a range of emotions - sadness and anger that we were forced to leave and disappointment that despite being told otherwise we have had no contact from the charity since arriving back in the UK, and thus no real closure.
 We were so hurt by the experience that at the time we felt we would never get involved in any sort of mission work again.

 We are fortunate to have a support network of family, friends and our church who have loved us and given us the time to work through what has almost been a grieving period, and given us the encouragement to want to continue to do God's work.

In March Sue helped to support a group of our young people in working with the FAST charity in Romania, a charity we have both been involved in before, taking groups of our youth to help with housing and education for the Roma gypsies. It was a delight to go back. Apart from that there had been no sign from the Lord that he was ready to use us again despite numerous prayer requests from us and others!

Someone said recently that the Lord was giving us time to rest until he felt we were ready and also teaching us patience, and that was so true because now the call has come!

We will be returning to FAST on October 12th, staying until early December, to help them to establish English courses for both youngsters and adults, and also to look at self-worth and self-esteem issues with some of the teenagers. We are so excited to be involved and glad that the Lord has not finished with us yet.

And of course, he always does immeasurably more than we ask as we are now in the early stages of discussion about the possibility of our involvement in a project in Uganda - a secondary school, resource centre for local primary schools and a health centre - more on that when we return from Romania.

So - our conclusion - God is good, he is always faithful and he loves us, and no experience, however dire, is wasted by Him. 

Blessings
Sue and Stan

BACK IN THE UK

Hi everyone

We have just arrived home, glad to be here but sad at the circumstances.

Will catch up with everyone soon, but first catching up with three days of sleepless nights.

Thank you for all your prayers.

Sue and Stan

SAD NEWS

A sad update from us - we had to be escorted from the school on the dump site yesterday by our wonderful loyal staff surrounding us as they and us have been told, (by anonymous text), that if we go back there we will not come out alive.

Sounds very dramatic, but our staff are taking this as a real threat, probably linked to us looking into some practices involving the abuse of donors money.

Whilst we have had threats in the past, this time they have told us the people concerned (some of whom are possibly employees) are not to be crossed, as they have ruled things on the dump site for a long time,
They have suggested we must leave before there is the chance of retaliation, so with a heavy heart we have agreed to return to the UK.

We will continue to support the work of PCF, which continues to be a wonderful project educating and supporting the poorest of the poor, but it seems that will have to be from the UK rather than Manila.

Please pray for the loyal staff remaining, some of whom are in fear for their life. We are fortunate that we can walk away, they live the danger every day.

If we had been in any doubt that leaving was the right thing to do (and we had considered very carefully if there was any way we could return), today one of our men was shot for refusing to give someone a cigarette, and is in a serious condition in hospital.
We have spent the day, and most of the night, putting some things in place which we hope will help the remaining staff.

We leave tomorrow, so will be seeing some of you sooner than we thought.
Sue and Stan

17 DAYS AND COUNTING

Hi all
Just a brief update. Can't believe we have only been back for 17 days, it seems so much longer. We certainly seemed to have fitted a lot in!


Just looking at the prayer requests from the last blog, feedback as follows on those four items:

• School principal - we have interviewed a wonderful lady who came out of the blue just after this prayer request. She seems ideal - waiting for her to sign a contract, so keep praying on that one. This also marks a first for us - never interviewed a school principal before!

• The meetings with the staff, teachers etc took 6 hours (with a 20 minute break for a bowl of rice!). Despite the length, they were positive and productive - God is good.

• The tropical storm came - torrential rain and flooded roads. Couldn't go anywhere.........

• .......Which is why the meeting with the accountant was cancelled - result! 

For the coming weeks we have to focus on financial planning for the next 12 months. Not easy when the only regular income is for child sponsorship, which only covers a small portion of our costs, and the rest is reliant on generous donors.

So prayers please that God will continue to provide and that we will be wise with the income he is entrusting us with.

Thanks to some very generous donations from members of St Andrew's congregation - you know who you are - we are already looking at ID for the staff and employing professionally qualified security guards as one of our priorities is to address security at the school. (So important for  the safety of the children and the staff because of the area in which we work).

We have mentioned before that one of the things we struggled to get used to was the fact that all police and security guards (and pretty much everyone employs them), carry guns. It is a fact of life here that we have to accept.

 What has made us both roar with mirth this week is that the firm of guards we are about to employ are called 'SHOOTERS'!

With love and prayers

Sue and Stan

HELLO PCF SCHOOL!

Hi everyone
This will be very short and sweet as we have very much hit the ground running since we arrived, so here are some very brief bullet points:

• arrived in Manila on the evening of the 21st
• moved into apartment
• now got internet access
• been to the school today
• term has started 
• the children are delightful
• sights and smells and smiles same as when we left
• painting almost finished - looking good
• staff delighted with their 'pasalubong' (in Filipino culture, one way of showing thoughtfulness is by giving pasalubong - travel gift when you return from far away),  of diamond jubilee key rings and lots of English biscuits!
• received update on the UN funded project to raise awareness amongst our young people on birth control 
• secured school books order for 2012/2013 with 'Stan discount' (he is getting so good at securing these!)
• books are paid for! 
• three meetings tomorrow - managers, teachers and rest of staff!
•  following day meeting with an accountant to learn about the Filipino tax system (don't really understand the English one!)
• next week - trying to hire a school principal following a resignation.
• Tropical storm due Friday!

Prayers for the last four in particular please!

Love Sue and Stan

TWO WEEKS TO HOME TIME!

Just realised that two weeks today we will be home. Panic has now set in as such a lot to finish, to hand over, to put in place, reports to write etc etc

Can't believe how quickly these months have gone. It has been an enormous learning curve, frustrating, irritating, wonderful, amazing time.
 We have no idea why we agreed to come, and can't imagine how we could have said no.

Even though we have known Asia, we have known nowhere like the Philippines, in particular Manila and in particular the dump site people. they are in equal measure delightful and dangerous and it has been a pleasure to get to know them and particularly their children.

Too many high points and low points to mention - every day has been different.

The support from the board and the CEO here has been amazing, as has the support from the local schools, in particular the British, International and Chinese Schools in Manila.

The staff at PCF have been amazingly supportive, hard working and with such a heart for the work of the foundation.

Would we come back?

 Hope to catch up with everyone in the next few weeks and we'll let you know!

Prayers of thanks:

• For your messages of support and your prayers

• For the generosity of so many

• For the staff and children at PCF

• For the CEO and board - for everything they do to support PCF whilst doing 'proper' jobs as well

• That the financial situation is turning round - and God is providing

• For the friendships we have made and the support we have received here

Prayer requests:

• For the PCF staff and families of our beneficiaries still trying to rebuild their shanties after typhoon Pendring - every effort is now being made to get them strengthened before the start of the 2012 typhoon season

• For the shanty dwellers in Tondo, Navotas and Baguio for protection when the typhoons come  - there are around 20 a year

• That the amazing work here continues 

• For empowerment of the staff here - that they will realise they can do anything in God's power

With love
Sue and Stan