Day 21, Thursday 22nd June

So we are now a week to go before leaving and time seems to have flown by. And now being here for so long we are attached to the Philippines and the people and don't really want to leave them all. But our own little island is also very much on our hearts and we do look forward to returning also!

By now for what we did on Thursday. One of the social workers decided to take us on a visit to see one of the families of the CCM girls. The girl was a 14 year old called Angela, who was taken into care on account of her being one of 10 children and her parents could not afford to keep her. However she still visits them regularly. The family live in a squatter area which is located very near to a large dump. And it is at this dump that the father tries to find work savaging. Everything has to be sifted through to get out all plastics, metals etc and then try and get some money for them. The only problem is that wages are low and work comes one day and not another. The father told us he made about 1.60 the previous day but today there was no work for him. The dump has been named Smokey Mountain and we were taken then to see it. Its not exactly a pleasant sight and even more disturbing to see the people practically living next to it. An amusing thing however was that they didn't want visitors to see it without a special permit from the major of the city. Then should we get that we would get a special orientation regarding the rubbish pile and get a guided tour round it. On top of that when we eventually found a side route in, they didn't want us taking photos of it. Bizzare I know! The homes were strewn with litter and there were flies everywhere. Disease is more prevalent here.

After we finished viewing this mountain as they call it we headed back to the office. From there Becci & I went over to Faith House where I did my second devotion to the older girls. They seemed to understand what I was getting at. After that we headed over to the church for our last drop in centre. This is something we really have enjoyed helping with as most other things the church does, we can't really participate because of language barriers. Prayers were answered when around 100 people showed up again (despite the fact that the law I mentioned last week is still in place). The street people simply move in a circle when the police hassle them and are in the area. Becci did some filming of some of the street children that CCM is putting through school. There are 10 of them and so far they have lasted 3 weeks. Its a really big deal for these kids because they live on the streets (unlike the other sponsered children who at least have a roof over them in a slum). Therefore the parents have to be educated about the concepts of washing, uniforms, timetables and assignments and this is all made extra difficult as they are on the streets. A lot of their stuff such as uniforms often goes missing or is stolen and so these children require more money to replace items. They will eventually all get sponsors. Please pray they will remain in school and not drop out.

Once the drop in centre was done, we had a meal together and then we got a jeepney home again.