THE CHILDREN'S HOME

    We are very grateful to those of you who keep us in your prayers.  As you may imagine, it has been a hard summer vacation for the everyone.  Caring for 25 girls, 23 boys, and 8 toddlers in one home during a pandemic where children are restricted from going anywhere (even church) has been challenging to say the very least.  Praise God the new school year has now started and they are all back to home schooling and a whole new set of challenges present themselves.

    The houseparents struggle a lot when it comes to home schooling, some of our houseparents barely even graduated high school themselves but I’m very proud of how they have been working together as a team and helping the kids as much as possible, and the modules are keeping the kids busy.

     One child in particular, Daryl has only been with us a few months, he came to us covered in scabies. He is 6 years old but has no experience of any form of schooling; he couldn’t identify colours, shapes, letters or numbers. At first it took a lot of patience to get him to sit and learn, he insisted that he doesn’t like school. But after 2 months we saw some improvements, he now knows his letters, numbers and can even identify sophisticated shapes like “octagon” “hexagon” etc. This school year was his first time of any school experience. So, to make it feel more authentic, the houseparents took initiative to make sure the kids wore their school uniforms for the very first time, even though school was just at home. 

It is amazing to see the difference 2 months makes, because now Daryl loves school and enjoys learning with the other kids.

   Small victories like these make a huge impact in the lives of these children, that is why I am very grateful that God has given us workers who also have an amazing heart for the kids and for God. Also, we are most grateful to you who continue to support this ministry, we cannot do what we do without your support. So, if you think of it, You helped Daryl learn to love school. We’ve made a difference!

We would like to thank FCM, who has been a tremendous blessing to us through many years before the pandemic we would receive volunteers who would come and help us out for 6 months to a year. They have so generously provided for the children’s school supplies. We were able to purchase a years worth of school supplies for the all our kids. God bless you FCM!

- Monique Sagal

click here for a downloadable version and for the previous issues

The SCHOOL

    School has officially started! After a couple of months of rest from completing their modules, its now time to get started again. Unfortunately, here in the Philippines ‘face-to-face’ classes are still in the beta stage in only a few schools and has not yet been permitted by the Department of Education for the whole country. That being the case, the parents and guardians are making the best of what we have and the children seem to be excited to start learning again as they are the most ‘locked-up’ of this whole COVID situation and so they have nothing to do at home. School break has come and gone, yet children were not even allowed to go anywhere the whole time! The teachers are also excited and ready to start the new school year after a well-deserved rest, which is something we cannot say about our printers. 

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     At the start of last school year we were able to fund raise for a couple of heavy duty printers and they worked like a dream. They were printing very good quality images for the kids and did it very quickly so we were all very impressed as were used to slow printers with low quality output. Unfortunately the sheer volume of printed materials we had to do overworked the printers and now are both out for repairs. We were able to buy one new printer while the others are out and are having to do with non-coloured images using our monochrome printers. It will do for now but we are praying that the repairs will be done sooner rather than later as the repair shops are filled with printers from other schools too. 

     From the parents, the students, and the teachers, we are all doing our best with what we’ve got and are all praying for things to go back to normal where it would be a hundred times better.

- Aaron Perillo

prayer requests

We would appreciate your continued prayers for the Lord to provide all that we need for the start of the new school year 2021-2022 which has already began on September 13, 2021, and for face-to- face classes to soon resume.

THE PRISONS

Sadly, due to the ongoing pandemic we are no closer to being able to resume our weekly visits to Olongapo, Angeles District Jails, San Fernando and Iba Provincial Jails.  We do however, continue to reach out to the inmates as best we can through video recordings.

Through some kind donations, we were able to send some toiletries for the inmates also, just to let them know they are still very much in our thoughts and prayers even though we cannot visit them in person.

It is difficult for us, because we have no means of communicating with the inmates who used to attend our bible studies regularly.  We don’t even know if they are still in jail or not.  But we continue to pray for them and trust the Lord that we will soon be able to resume our ministry.  It must be very difficult for the inmates as they are still not allowed to have any face-to-face visits with any of their families or loved ones.

More updates

POCF (church) Subic is currently holding 3 Sunday morning services in order to give members the opportunity to attend while maintaining the strict Covid  requirements.  Each of the 3 services are well attended, and people are more determined to support the work of the ministry despite restrictions.  This month will be our first October Prayer Fest Celebration.

    Thank you all so much for your prayers and financial support for Dondie’s surgery.  The surgery itself was a great success but due to excessive bleeding, he did need to be rushed to emergency and spent a few extra days confined for careful observation.  But praise God, he as recovered well, and his biopsy results were ‘benign’.  So we praise God that all is well and every financial need was met.

    I would currently value your prayers for healing as I have been struggling with Covid symptoms for the past 2 weeks. I have not had a swab test, as those with positive swab tests are immediately sent away to hospital in Iba and we want to avoid that.  It is has been a very tough week for me physically.  Thankfully I have not had any difficulty in breathing, so I do praise God for that. 

    I would greatly value your prayers for my mum, Mary Hailes, who undergoes knee replacement surgery on October 02.
Thank you all again for your faithful, love, prayers and support. God Bless!

Chrissy, Dondie & your POCM Family