MAKATI CITY, PHILIPPINES - It’s 2 a.m. Car and truck horns echo along the neon-lit streets. A moped zips through the hot night carrying a man, a woman and three or four bare-footed children. The mother’s skirt flies in every direction. Five boys huddle in a shadowy corner of the Makati City squatter area sniffing Rugby, an addictive contact cement.
In the Bangong Pook garbage dump in nearby Cavite City, the local mafia, passing themselves off as a legitimate child care organization, email photos of malnourished children to sponsors in the US and pocket the money. They keep the children lean and hungry through intimidation and even death threats. Bribes ensure government child services workers and the local mayor look the other way.
These dank alleys and immense garbage dumps are home to thousands of overlooked people of the Philippines and is the chosen workplace of Greg and Sarah Seiling and Melissa Martin, ITCanada missionaries.
Greg (26) and Sarah (26) address these overwhelming needs with feeding programs and discipleship classes they arrange for 7-23 year-old street kids through a partner organization called Mercy Ministry. This ministry rents a three bedroom apartment that serves as a 24-hour drop-in centre. Here street youth come for a hot meal, a shower, discipleship, tutorials, guitar lessons and basic literacy training. Greg would like to arrange for a qualified teacher to tutor the kids.
In the future, Greg hopes to become more involved with the “Rugby Boys” (those addicted to sniffing solvents) by starting a rehabilitation camp. He’s looking forward to going to language school 3 times/week beginning in June so that he can work more closely with them.
Last year, Christopher (22), a gang leader and one of the Rugby Boys gave up sniffing solvents and is being mentored one-on-one by a Filipino team member. Now married, Christopher has a 3 year-old daughter and attends a tech school to learn cell phone repair. He wants to earn money so that he can go to university to learn auto mechanics. Two weeks ago Sarah noticed a scab on the back of his hand. He had been trying to scrape off his gang tattoo “SDB”.
“This is an example of how I see God at work here,” Sarah said. “It’s exciting to see how God is using him. He has a huge influence over his gang.”
Sarah, an RPN and Outreach Director for Youth Mobilization, coordinates “Hygiene Days” several times throughout the year in the squatter community. On those days they offer hygiene seminars for parents and free healthy snacks, a haircut, shower, and tooth brushing. Once a year they organize checkups by doctors, dentists and optometrists at a medical mission. With more funding they would like to hold medical missions more frequently.
An hour and a half from Makati, Melissa Martin (20) works with severely malnourished children in the Bangong Pook dumpsite. Two churches planted on either end of this 10 hectare garbage dump serve the one thousand families who live here. Melissa helps run a free church-sponsored daycare program called “Giggles” that provides the children with clothing and medical care as well as a hot meal that consists of meat and vegetables or formula. They serve no rice because rice is usually all these children are fed at home.
Without a doubt, Greg and Sarah and Melissa are the hands and feet of God to the overlooked people of the Philippines: feeding the poor, providing medical care for the sick and loving the lost. Dank alleys and colossal dumpsites are no obstacle. BLM
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In the Bangong Pook garbage dump in nearby Cavite City, the local mafia, passing themselves off as a legitimate child care organization, email photos of malnourished children to sponsors in the US and pocket the money. They keep the children lean and hungry through intimidation and even death threats. Bribes ensure government child services workers and the local mayor look the other way.
In the future, Greg hopes to become more involved with the “Rugby Boys” (those addicted to sniffing solvents) by starting a rehabilitation camp. He’s looking forward to going to language school 3 times/week beginning in June so that he can work more closely with them.
