|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
Footprints in the Mud
Footprints in the Mud
© 2006 Called and Sent Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
Footprints in the MudTrail between villages tells tale of need
By Called and Sent Staff PHOTO GALLERY
Local workers’ names have been changed
MALITAM, Philippines—A footpath here tells a story.
The path wears the muddy prints of children’s bare feet walking from a nameless squatter village about 800 meters away. They follow the Calumpang River through fields where cows graze and farmers plow the wet earth behind grimly silent carabao (water buffaloes).
The prints lead to a little courtyard in this farming village of 5,200 people south of Batangas City (click here for map), a ministry center where kids are fed rice and soup that their parents can’t give them and knowledge that the schools can’t or won’t.
These kids are Badjao, the lowest caste of 14 tribes native to the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. They are the “sea gypsies” of the Philippines—historically animist, living mainly in coastal villages throughout the country, social outcasts among the strongly Catholic community here.
A month ago, these Badjao kids didn’t bother with the path. The ministry center—where 86 kids ate breakfast and lunch and 24 of them attended preschool and kindergarten — stood in the middle of their village. But Typhoon Glenda forced them out on July 25, eroding 75 percent of the land underneath it.
The village’s 50 families rebuilt their stilted bamboo houses just across the river on the mainland in a swampy field. Unlike Malitam just down the path, the village has no running water and no sanitation. Children play in ankle-deep water beneath the huts. Young mothers coming from the river wade past them with fresh laundry, smiling through the smoke of cooking fires.
By Called and Sent Staff PHOTO GALLERY
Local workers’ names have been changed
MALITAM, Philippines—A footpath here tells a story.
The path wears the muddy prints of children’s bare feet walking from a nameless squatter village about 800 meters away. They follow the Calumpang River through fields where cows graze and farmers plow the wet earth behind grimly silent carabao (water buffaloes).
 | |
|
A litle girl plays with a spare tire underneath a bamboo hut in a Badjao village near Batangas, Philippines.
|
These kids are Badjao, the lowest caste of 14 tribes native to the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. They are the “sea gypsies” of the Philippines—historically animist, living mainly in coastal villages throughout the country, social outcasts among the strongly Catholic community here.
A month ago, these Badjao kids didn’t bother with the path. The ministry center—where 86 kids ate breakfast and lunch and 24 of them attended preschool and kindergarten — stood in the middle of their village. But Typhoon Glenda forced them out on July 25, eroding 75 percent of the land underneath it.
The village’s 50 families rebuilt their stilted bamboo houses just across the river on the mainland in a swampy field. Unlike Malitam just down the path, the village has no running water and no sanitation. Children play in ankle-deep water beneath the huts. Young mothers coming from the river wade past them with fresh laundry, smiling through the smoke of cooking fires.
But the new ministry center, expected to be done by November, has yet to be built.
For now, the kids tromp the path.
Glenda knocked down the old ministry center, reducing it to a roof on a heap. Rose, the program director, and her coworkers now live and run the ministry in four small rented houses here. Rose, 46, has run the program here for seven years. After the storm, the staff decided to move the program into their compound. “We asked permission from the owner to use this compound, and praise God, the owner has allowed us to,” Rose says.
Rose and three other single women run the ministry center with three volunteers. They are supported by two agencies, each with more than 20 years of service in the Philippines.
Rose’s father came from one of the top three tribes in social standing on Mindanao. Her father wasn’t a follower of Christ, but her mother was. Through her mother’s influence Rose grew up following Christ. Despite her high social standing on Mindanao, when she saw how badly the Badjao around her got treated, she began praying that God would allow her to serve them someday.
That day came in 1984, when she began teaching Badjao children to read and write in Zamboanga, on Mindanao (see map here). She came to Malitam in 1999.
A fire, a miracle and a co-worker
In 2001, a kerosene lamp exploded while Rose was lighting it. The explosion scalded a large portion of her torso and neck. Doctors at her hospital in Manila expected her to spend up to a year there. She got out in three months.
“The doctors all said, ‘It’s a miracle, because you stayed in the hospital only three months,’” Rose recalls. “Many people were praying.”
Though she can’t handle the rigors of teaching anymore, Rose, 46, still helps serve meals and tutor others to teach the children.
Glenda knocked down the old ministry center, reducing it to a roof on a heap. Rose, the program director, and her coworkers now live and run the ministry in four small rented houses here. Rose, 46, has run the program here for seven years. After the storm, the staff decided to move the program into their compound. “We asked permission from the owner to use this compound, and praise God, the owner has allowed us to,” Rose says.
 |
| Two kids at the Malitam ministry center bow their heads in prayer before eating lunch. |
Rose’s father came from one of the top three tribes in social standing on Mindanao. Her father wasn’t a follower of Christ, but her mother was. Through her mother’s influence Rose grew up following Christ. Despite her high social standing on Mindanao, when she saw how badly the Badjao around her got treated, she began praying that God would allow her to serve them someday.
That day came in 1984, when she began teaching Badjao children to read and write in Zamboanga, on Mindanao (see map here). She came to Malitam in 1999.
A fire, a miracle and a co-worker
In 2001, a kerosene lamp exploded while Rose was lighting it. The explosion scalded a large portion of her torso and neck. Doctors at her hospital in Manila expected her to spend up to a year there. She got out in three months.
“The doctors all said, ‘It’s a miracle, because you stayed in the hospital only three months,’” Rose recalls. “Many people were praying.”
Though she can’t handle the rigors of teaching anymore, Rose, 46, still helps serve meals and tutor others to teach the children.
 |
|
A group of Badjao women gathers for lunch on the outskirts of their village recently. |
“I asked the Lord, ‘Lord, where will I go? If you lead me to stop, I will follow you; if to go, then I will go,’” Rose says. “So the Lord told me to go. Praise God, I cannot teach the children, but I can help them, serving them here.”
Her niece, April, a college graduate, was working at a Jollibee fast food restaurant in Zamboanga when Rose got burned. April, 26, made the 540-mile trip to Manila to help Rose and has stayed by her side.
In it for the long haul
April used to serve patrons of the Philippines’ biggest fast-food chain. Now she serves patrons with some of the Philippines’ biggest needs. For this she gets about $1 a day in support money, after rent. But she’s glad to do it.
“If I am not here for the long term, who can take care of them?” says April, 26. “I’ve been here for five years. I’ll stay. I know their tribes, I know how they speak, I know how they live. So it’s easy for me.”
April says the biggest needs among the Badjao people are food, clothing, medicine and better personal hygiene. Many of the people in the village she and Rose serve suffer from boils and diarrhea. So hygiene is one of the first things the ministry staff teaches them.
“Now they know how to take a bath every day and how to wash their hands,” April says. “That’s important to them.”
Equally important is sharing Christ with them, which the Badjao in this tribe are receptive to, Rose says. They take the children to a nearby church every Sunday morning and give them a Bible lesson every weekday before breakfast. Staff members also hold Bible studies for parents during the week.
“We can teach Christian values,” Rose says. “We cannot teach those very often, but here the Badjao are really open to say, ‘Jesus.’ We can sing praise songs mentioning Jesus’ work.
Her niece, April, a college graduate, was working at a Jollibee fast food restaurant in Zamboanga when Rose got burned. April, 26, made the 540-mile trip to Manila to help Rose and has stayed by her side.
In it for the long haul
April used to serve patrons of the Philippines’ biggest fast-food chain. Now she serves patrons with some of the Philippines’ biggest needs. For this she gets about $1 a day in support money, after rent. But she’s glad to do it.
“If I am not here for the long term, who can take care of them?” says April, 26. “I’ve been here for five years. I’ll stay. I know their tribes, I know how they speak, I know how they live. So it’s easy for me.”
April says the biggest needs among the Badjao people are food, clothing, medicine and better personal hygiene. Many of the people in the village she and Rose serve suffer from boils and diarrhea. So hygiene is one of the first things the ministry staff teaches them.
“Now they know how to take a bath every day and how to wash their hands,” April says. “That’s important to them.”
Equally important is sharing Christ with them, which the Badjao in this tribe are receptive to, Rose says. They take the children to a nearby church every Sunday morning and give them a Bible lesson every weekday before breakfast. Staff members also hold Bible studies for parents during the week.
“We can teach Christian values,” Rose says. “We cannot teach those very often, but here the Badjao are really open to say, ‘Jesus.’ We can sing praise songs mentioning Jesus’ work.
“They are animistic—that’s why when I came here I had to take it step by step, teaching them who was this Jesus in our hearts, how God saved us. They thought that Jesus was only for the Christian people, not the Badjao.”
© 2006 Called and Sent Magazine. All Rights Reserved.