WELLOFLIFE August Report
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings from Davao City, Mindanao the southern Island of the Philippines!
Glory to the Righteous LORD our God and King!
It's seems like it's been a long while since I email you all last...I've been wanting to update you sooner but have been working every night past dark and just collapsing to sleep after eating dinner. Thank you for your unselfish giving that allows for us to have food to eat!
God Provides:
I am amazed at how good God is at keeping His end of the deal and living up to His promises, when we surrender our life to Him and trust Him completely. He never leaves us nor forsakes us and this alone proves our God is the Living and all powerful Creator God!
Special thank you to those who gave us your love gift offerings this month and we obedient to the leading of the Holy Spirit to provide for our urgent needs! Sometimes I don't know how we're going to make it through the month with all the unaccounted for expenses but somehow God continues to surprise us in a most unique and reassuring way! Thank you Jesus and thank you partners! May God add riches both here on earth and in heaven unto you!
The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few...Pray for labourers!
So in answer to much prayer we had a man named David Martin join us to help with our farming projects. David is from Ireland and lived in Canada for 3 years, he's a dual citizen. David came to the Philippines for 6 months to work with Hope for the Nations and stayed there for 3 months working on their clinic. David was very interested to learn organic farming methods from me so he moved here in July and plans to stay here until October 22, 2009. This guy has been a tremendous blessing to us as his hard work and "let's get it done" attitude has allowed us to accomplish so much in a short time.
Organic Farming Workshop for Pastors:
On July, 24 I was invited to give a full day lecture and hands on demo of organic farming to a group of pastors during their annual "Pastoral Care Meeting". This was encouraging to see their leader teaching the pastors to not be consumers only but to be producers of food to supplement their ministries as most of their churches are in agricultural lands. We had a great time and it was fast paced as time was limited but I left them a manual to help them figure things out later. They blessed me with a nice framed certificate of appreciation and 2,000 pesos ($50) as a love offering. This was in perfect timing as I needed that money to buy food for our NGO's 1 year anniversary.
WELLOFLIFE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT 1ST Year Anniversary:
It's our pleasure to announce our NGO's 1 year anniversary, we are truly grateful for all the connections, relationships, support etc. that has made this first year fruitful. We had a celebration at our house the traditional Pinoy style with a whole roasted pig snout and all sitting on our table, fried lumpia, spaghetti, chicken etc. One of our board members was here and our volunteers from New Life Assemblies of God our home church here. We had a special time together and the place was decorated it was nice to have had this celebration of our humble beginnings and we pray God will use us for His glory in this new year to come! The rain started to come and our Pastor rebuked the rain and it was nothing less than a miracle as the rain immediately went away as he commanded in Jesus' name!
Progress On Our Compound Projects:
It's so wonderful to have a helping hand here with our garden and compound projects. We planted some cucumbers, eggplant, okra, tomatoes, Chinese lettuce, pechay, ampalaya (bitter gourd), upo, cauliflower, zucchini, broccoli, lettuce, basil, other herbs, watermelon, honey dew melon etc. now we patiently wait for the harvest! David has took the initiative to convert the multi-purpose training center/staff house into a fully functional garden and seedling nursery, while cultivating mushrooms out of banana leaves. We also set up our vermiculture area where we will make our own fertilizer, David mixed the cement and layed the hallow which he paid for to bless us.
David bought a pair of Muscovy ducks and made a fenced off area for them which is beautiful to see them in the morning perched up on their water pond area. David ordered 100 chickens which we'll get at 21 days old so we can practice raising them organically. Sadly we had to bury 3 of our puppies who died of a disease common in puppies. We have one puppy and the mother left. Always much to do here to get this place ready for a training center and demo site for the community.
Elementary School Organic Garden Demo Project:
The garden project has started! The last two weeks we went to the San Miguel Elementary school to work on our garden project. David and I went the first day to give orientation and taught the school school children in grade 4 about the importance of composting to feed the soil, so the soil will feed the plants. The children helped us clearing the land and it was so cute to see the little girls using their mini machetes to cut the grasses and the boys were very good at chopping the long weeds. We do all by hand with our machetes no equipment, no machinery. The grasses are so strong and thick that I pulled them back with a metal rake and David hacked at them with his machete. We did this all day in the 32+c temperature and you feel the humidity like a thick winter jacket man it's hot in the open sun! David reminded me we are representing our country and this is true as we lead by example, more importantly we are representing Jesus and this is a wonderful avenue to share the Gospel with these precious developing children.
We prayed for God to send us some help and when we showed up the next week God answered our prayers and we had men from the Department of Agriculture already clearing the area! Also a friend from the community who is also a Christian and the president of the "Parent Teachers Association" and owns about a hectare of fish ponds behind the school. Boy Barnes is his name and he'll help us get the volunteers for the first farmer's training school.
We are very thankful to the Department of Agriculture Philippines for granting our request of a donation of greenhouses, not one but two units complete with drip irrigation. The units cost around 200,000.00 Pesos or ($5,000 Canadian) the units are being installed now and will be complete in a week. We will have our ground breaking ribbon cutting ceremony on September 5, 2009. Please pray for God to provide all the needs of this event...we will hire a Christian clown to share the Gospel to the kids through his magic tricks and our volunteers will do free medical check ups and eye screening etc. We're now planning for this event and hoping around 200 people to be present from the community during this event!
I met with the leading seed company here in the Philippines and they agreed to donate seeds for our project! Answered prayer and blessing from the LORD.
This is a sustainable integrated farming system which will include but not limited to vegetable growing, flowers, fish ponds, rice field, organic fertilizer production, goat, chicken, pig, duck raising for dispersal to the community members, mushroom production, herbs etc.
We secured the 2 acres of land belonging to the elementary school for 5 years through the "Adopt-A-School program of the DEPED.
Abegail Story:
Allow me to share a story with you about a little 4 year girl named Abegail Lumimbay. Abegail lives on our street in a squatter area, we noticed her as she is always in a baby stroller when we pass by going to our house. We sent our social worker to visit the family and found out that Abegail only weighs 6 kilos and cannot walk. Her mom died in June and her father abandoned her when she was young so her grandmother is taking care of her, but the family is very poor and can only feed her rice and coffee, if there is no food they just give her salt.
We were very worried about her and had our social worker take her to the hospital for check up as her grandmother said she hasn't seen a doctor in 2 years and they live just a few minutes walk from the hospital. The doctor was in tears when she checked Abegail and didn't even charge us for the check up...Abegail has cerebral palsy. We bought her medicine and have been giving her food, thanks to help from our friends in Canada we were able to buy her milk, rice and other foods which we to eat, although she only tastes some of the food and the rest spills out the side of her little mouth she is very thankful to be able to eat regularly!
There is no cure for Abegail but with your prayers and love we can be true salt and light to Abegail! We also took the grandmother Fely Llamadora to the hospital for check up because we suspected TB, but praise God the results were negative for TB but she does have emphysema. Today we bought her the inhaler prescribed by the doctor and availed of a 40% discount Praise God!
Prayer Requests:
1. Abegail to gain weight and have no complications, for God to work a miracle of healing on her behalf.
2. Healing and provision for Fely Llamadora, Abegail's grandmother.
3. More help for all of our activities and projects. David will leave on October 22, and we need someone else to come and join us!
4. The Pastor's we taught to put into practice the technology we shared with them.
5. A productive year for our ministry and more committed volunteers to help us fulfill the great commission. Our social work just left for 2 months as she got another job, she may return if she is no longer needed after her project with the government.
6. Finances and wisdom to successfully run all the projects on our compound, livestock, garden etc.
7. Funding agencies local and abroad to support our school garden project.
8. Josiah to have a wonderful 1st birthday this August 30. Provision for his party.
9. Strength for Lydia and I to continue to work hard and enjoy what the LORD has entrusted us to do here for His glory!
Have a blessed month and keep seeking God's will for your life! Draw close to Jesus!
Love,
Jeffrey, Lydia and Josiah Smith