Note from James August 31, 2013

God has been so good to us in beginning the mission work in The Philippines. I arrived in Malay on August 21^st after traveling three days from Texas. The trip was great despite arriving in Manila in the middle of a typhoon. God protected me through the entire trip. After one full week I feel that God has allowed me to adjust to the change in time and I am fully engulfed in His work here.

Each day we start at the mission school with the children having prayer and devotion time with them (this has been such a blessed time for me). Many of the children regularly come to me and want nothing more than a simple hug and someone to tell them good morning. They are such precious children. Many of them are undersized due to early childhood malnutrition and sickness that went untreated. To battle this Kim Holden has begun a medical mission which I have participated heavily in in the last week or so. Most of the medical issues are related to things that we take for granted on a daily basis. There are a large number of cases of severe infections due to poor personal hygiene and little to no basic first aid training. One thing that is done daily is the treatment of minor cuts and scrapes by cleaning, application of an antibiotic ointment, and bandaging. This simple thing can and does prevent more serious infections which then require oral antibiotics and sometimes hospitalization. Other things that are encountered regularly are worms and fever. The children are given medication to treat these as needed.

The next thing that we do each day is to check with the locals to see if anyone needs to go to the hospital in town for a checkup. The hospital is about a 20 minute truck ride from the school and is too far of a trip to take on foot if you are ill and too costly to take a motor trike for many of the locals. At the hospital there is a clinic which works on a first come first serve basis. This means that if they are busy it may take hours to be seen. In addition to the checkups the medical mission also is on call for emergencies. On Thursday night we got word from a local pastor that one of their church members had been severely burned in a house fire. We went that night to check on her and found that she had been to one of the local “hospitals” but was not properly treated. We took her to the main hospital where they admitted her and began treatment for her severe burns. Had she not go to the hospital infection would have set in and she may have lost her life. God was with her that night when He sent the pastor to talk to us about her burns. She is now being treated and will have a normal recovery.

There is also a feeding ministry that operates at 13 locations (mostly on Saturday) each week. At each of the feeding sites the children come and have a devotion time where the good message of God’s grace is poured into them. These kids have as much of a spiritual hunger as a physical one. After the devotion time they are fed a meal that is high in protein to help with their nutritional needs. While the children are being fed the adult that are there have a devotion time. This is a time to show the adults the path to salvation and to show them the power of God’s word.

We hope to begin working very soon on the children’s home and look forward to what God has planned for our mission here. Thank you for your prayers and support.