Twins!

So the woman who we saw in the clinic on Saturday with toximia had twins yesterday! It's a crazy story, but here's my best summary: Rose (the mother) got pregnant and tried to abort the babies with pills for 45 days at about 4 months. She is desperate, as her and her husband simply cannot afford to keep them. They can barely feed themselves and the children they already have, and they have no options, and the husband can only find sporadic work (he's trained as a carpenter.) She came into our clinic at 7 months pregnant because she was in such pain (that was the pre-eclampsia and toximia.) We took her to the hospital, she was refused entry, and we brought her back later that night because she was getting worse. The twins were born in the hospital, Rose still doesn't want them because she can't care for them, and the orphanage we are working with will take them in 3 weeks when they get out of the incubator. They are actually as healthy as they can be (even though they are only 2 pounds each!), but Rose's health is still unknown. She's been vomiting black stuff, and she really needs God's help, through the doctors and God's people. She could never afford to stay in the hospital, but we've committed (along with Jeff Long from the orphanage) to keeping her and the twins there until they are healthy. I don't want to fundraise in the blog, so email me at jcampbell1999@verizon.net if you want to ask more about the money. We got to visit mom and twins in the hospital, here are some pics. By the way, if you click the pictures anywhere in the blog, they get full size.

325 patients!

Today we did the clinic and served approximately 325 patients. The best story was that the nurse who will run the clinic when we are gone checked a pregnant woman today with toximia, and determined that she and her baby would die without immediate hospitalization. Another team of Americans here to do a puppet show came up with the money to take her to the hospital, and she was driven there this afternoon. Please pray for her, because I just heard that she refused treatment at the last minute, and left the hospital. I have no idea why, other than she was just too scared. We'll follow up with her in the morning. The clinic went really well other wise, and I've put in a bunch of pictures. We are planning to buy over-the-counter medicine and treat the people we saw with lice, scabies, eye infections, high fevers, severe colds, and stomach problems. Please pray for us to make good decisions, and for the nurse to have enough energy to handle all this.

Medical training

we've been really busy this week preparing for the medical clinic on saturday. we spent the week visiting every house in the 4 villages around us, encouraging people to come for a checkup, and taking a census of how many adults and children there are. We are opening the clinic today, to begin checkup and treating people. We are using the computer that Ashley's dad donated to keep the medical records, as well as making a paper backup file. I put in a few pictures of our training on taking blood pressure and temperature. I'll write again today or tommorrow about how the clinic went. We are reading the example of Peter in Acts 9 in our Bible reading this week. He followed in Christ's footsteps as he healed people wherever he went. We are hoping and praying that we can play a role in people's healing today, and that they can be freed of their physical ailments. We are also hoping to play a role in their spiritual and emotional healing; it might be even more important to long-term health.

Basketball and church

This weekend we were invited to a basketball game of the top two Filipino colleges. We went with the boys from the children's home. Jeff Long, the director of the home, has a son playing for Ateneo, one the teams in the game. I've put in a few pictures.

We also went to church on Sunday in a local churchMany of the kids in the home went to this church, so we got to hang out with them more. One of our favorite young boys is Man-

man, who you can see folding his hands for the prayer. He is 4 years old, and when he was a baby, the mosquito netting above his crib caught fire, fell on him, and the burns caused two of his fingers to fuse into his hand. He has had one surgery to unfuse them. We are going to pay for his second surgery very soon, and then help him to rehab and hopefully regain use of his ring and baby fingers. If you pray, would you spend some of that time praying for Man-man? We love all your prayers of support, and want to also make sure you know that the finances you have provided for this trip are what we are going to use to pay for this surgery. Many of you reading this are having a big impact on the other side of the world, in this little kid's life.

In other news, we have begun working in earnest on the clinic. We have inventoried our supplies, set up the room, and will flyer the barangay (village) all this week. We will also interview everyone we can to get a handle on the medical needs of the village. We open this coming Saturday. So Jason, Lindsay, Dan, and Joel are spending the week in other barangay clinics to learn what to do from an established practice, and Ashley, Dan A., Jessie, Lauren and myself will do the majority of the interviewing and flyering.

Armie

This is Armie. She is 5 years old. She is a silly, fun, regular kid. One time she put on someone else's socks that were way too big and had bright colored stripes. She laughed so hard at herself! Whenever I come over to the home she takes my hand and says, "Let's go swing Tita (auntie)!" Her teeth are not perfect but her smile is so beautiful, it's easy to overlook that. They don't have flouride in the water here, so it's much harder to keep your teeth free of decay.

Armie told me her story one day as we sat on the swings. Her father had hit her and she had bruises on her legs and arms. Her mom brought he to see a doctor and he ended up in jail. She says her mom is now in Japan. I have no idea how accurate this story is and she doesn't seem to know much else. But I said I was sorry and asked her if she was sad and she said, "No! I'm happy!" Armie cannot be adopted, much like many of the kids here because they are not free of family ties. But they all seem to view this as their one and only home and don't have any wish to leave. This really is their family. Kids are not coming in and out. They are just here for the long term.

We are trying to balance loving these kids, but not being the center of their world, so when we leave they will be fine. There are full time workers here to be their contants and we hope it will just be like a kindergartener having to say goodbye to their teacher when we leave. Sad, but normal. Pray for Armie and her future!

The Community School

The children's home runs a school for the children in the home and also for some of the children in the community (it's about half and half).

I'll take you on a walk to school with us from the children's home. The children sing their national anthem and then file out the door (a small metal door in a large metal fence, with barbed wire across the top).

We walk them down the street and then through a path which looks like you are in the jungle.

They climb over an old stone wall and past a few more houses and arrive at the school (it's the tall building with the green roof and fenced-in upper floor). The walk takes about 3 minutes. The kids look so cute in their uniforms!!!

The school has an open-air P.E. room at the top, a large classroom on the second floor, and two classrooms, a kitchen, and the medical/dental clinic we are working on is on the bottom floor. The kids have 5 subjects: Tagalog, English, Math, Science, Bible.

The students' jobs are:
Jason: heading up the clinic (we'll all work there with him in shifts)
Lauren and Jesse: helping in kindergarten
Ashley, Lindsay, and Joel: helping in Preschool
Dan A.: helping one-on-one with a student who needs extra help
Dan K: helping the P.E. teacher

I'll be doing stories on some individual kids soon!

Cost of Living

The cost of living here is on a completely different scale. Someone who makes 20,000 US Dollars a year is very wealthy and can live a very comfortable life with a big house and a helper who cooks and cleans, a YaYa who helps with the children, maybe even a guard. If you make that much it would be insulting if you didn't hire some people to do jobs for you, because there are so many people who need those jobs. The average wage for people who work on that scale (a helper, a guard, or a jeepney driver) is (400 piso) $8 a day. But that goes much farther here than it would in the US. They are poor by our standards but they can support a whole family on that wage. Our team went out for dinner at a nice resturant (12 people) and got all the drinks we wanted, two chicken dishes and a vegetable dish to share, with all the rice we could eat. It cost (2000 piso) $40. I bought an outfit for Shane for (100 piso) $2. A small bag of chips is 8 cents. So someone who is pretty poor in the US could be very rich here if they bought local stuff! (But some things, like electronics, cheese, toys, anything imported from the US is about the same price as it would be in the US. ) Lots of people ask us what our helpers and nannies are like at home and it's hard to explain that we don't have them!

Last weekend we went to Taal Volcano, too. We rode in a boat across a lake (and got very wet) and hiked up the volcano and looked at the lake inside it. That area outside the city reminds me of pictures I've seen of Hawaii. It's beautiful!!!

Food?

Guess what? We got great news today. We are going to start visiting another medical clinic next week to learn how to start the one in the village we are in. So the whole reason we came here is real and we are really excited to get it going. Our budget is working out as planned, and we are going to start purchasing medicine to stock it soon as well.

So on to the real news. The food has been very exciting. We have eaten a lot of the same stuff we eat at home (chicken, tofu, any vegetables we want,) with a lot of rice. We had rice for breakfast for the first time yesterday. It's the brown stuff in the bowl, champerado. It's chocolate, milk, and overcooked rice. We have also eaten dried squid, pig intestines, and best of all, BALOT! We went out at night and were hanging around with some new friends in our neighborhood, and mentioned that we had seen balot on the Food Network. So they took us right away to the balot peddler on the corner and made us eat it. Basically it is a chick cooked/fermented in its egg. It is a big deal, a Filipino delicacy, and I am glad to have experienced it. But I don't recommend it. The ones we ate were two days from hatching, and there was a lot of chewy parts and down. Hmmm....

Transportation!

We are just learning to get around the city on our own. Our first adventure was Joel, Jason, Lindsay, Lauren, Dan, and Jessie riding the trike. At once. It is the first picture, basically a motorcycle with a sidecar. It is really ingenious, as everyone moves at a slower pace, it is a really efficient way to move a lot of people a short distance. For going further, you have to ride the jeepney, which are remodeled US Army jeeps. They are always custom painted, and can fit quite a few people inside. They run regular routes, but have no regular schedule. So it can be a long wait for the one you want!

We are beginning to get to know our neighbors as well. The guy next door let me take a picture of his best fighting rooster. We are doing a lot of work at the children's home, the school, and the clinic; but everyone around us is lacking something. The woman across the street has no screens in her hut, so mosquitoes are biting her children all night. That is just an example of the needs we see. Pray for us to be God's hands, feet, and mouth so that we can truly help, and not just patronize the people around us.

Our new home, neighborhood, and city

Over the weekend, we traveled through Manila a little bit, saw the nice section (Makati City), went to a huge international church, and shopped at the mall for two hours for some essentials like toothpaste, shampoo, and a basketball. We've discovered that basketball is a passion in the Philippines, and we are going to have to get better if we want any friends. We had a great reflection time on Sunday night, and one of the main things we talked about was the weirdness of living in the squatter village, where sewage runs in the street gutters, and going twenty minutes to Makati, which looks as nice as Boston. And how that relates to God's idea of justice. Sometimes I feel like you shouldn't waste breath praying for us, we're fine, but kids like Chris, Jobell, and Armie are in need of God's help, and God's people's help.

ps. the pictures are of dan unclogging the girls shower, shane and macy in our neighborhood, the girls and boys bedrooms, and Atte Bing cooking in our kitchen (it's important that we provide jobs in the community)

In Manila!

We are all here, in Manila and doing well. Jon (our host) has been really taking care of us. We did an afternoon daycare/vacation bible school for the children's home the first day we were here, and I think we were all pretty exhausted. But the kids loved us, and we learned their names, like Ruell, Jerrick, Benji, Sunshine, Anna-Rose, Desa, Mice, Angel. I think that it was a good start to our time here. Jessie and Dan, our last two team members got in safe last night. Today we played in the streets with the kids from our neighborhood, and learned some Tagalog words. I've put in some pictures of them.

Magadang umaga po! (Good morning!)