Note - This is being written almost two weeks later due to how busy we became on the trip, the server the blog is hosted on went down, then we were non-stop with prepping for Mum's funeral once returning back home.
Today felt like the first "real" day of the formal program of the trip because we were heading off to the first church centre, meeting some of our sponsored children, and starting the home visits. From this point our days were pretty full-on!
It didn't take too long before the city streets started to look a bit more "rural", but we weren't actually in a rural area. It was purely due to the higher levels of people living in poverty there. We pulled up to the church in our minibus and straight away all the children began singing and dancing to welcome us. One by one as we disembarked we were handed a handmade flower, and a child took us by the hand into the church hall to our seat for the days program. I spotted one of our sponsored children (Cassandra) at the door as soon as we got off the bus which was nice, I was quietly relieved that I was able to recognise her without having to ask anyone to point her out!
Once we all took our seats, they began a series of performances. There was a group of the children playing instruments, a group dancing with silks, then all the children along with their parents and the centres staff gathered to sing us a song. I could see Cassandra, was 90% sure I could see Ieiazel, but couldn't see anyone who looked like Lance. There was one little girl, Krystal, who around this time somewhat latched onto me and stuck by me most of our visit though, she was probably about 8 or 9 years old and super cute.
After the performances there was a time for interacting with the children and their parents. We were able to look at the photos on the walls of activities they had been doing, and also could have our hands painted by one of the children then press them onto a canvas bag. I had mine done twice - one bag by Krystal and one bag by Cassandra.
The next part of the day was to be lunch with the kids. The others in our group got settled in for their lunches but for Bert and I, this next bit was a bit different. When mum passed away (exactly two weeks prior to our visit to this church) we had contacted Tearfund to have Ieiazel's sponsorship transferred into our names. We wanted to ensure that the support for her and her family continued without interruption, and to also keep it within our family. Ieiazel wasn't going to be coming to the fun day at Ocean Park so this was the only time we'd be able to meet her. I wasn't sure how much her family had been told (Ieiazel is only 3 years old), but it was believed that they'd been told that mum had passed and that we were her new sponsors. So, during the lunch period we were ushered into a little room at the back (I believe it was the Pastors office) to await Ieiazel and her mum. It turns out though that her entire family had made the trip to come meet us - her parents and her three siblings. We also had a child development worker in the room with us to help with translating when needed.
It turned out they had been told one of their sponsors had passed, but they didn't know whether it was mum or dad as both names were on the sponsorship. I was able to clarify that for them, and they had some questions (the ages of my parents, dad's health etc). We asked them what they do in a day (it's best not to ask what they do for work in case they're unemployed or otherwise unable to work). Jhon, the father, drives tricycles for work. These are essentially motorbikes with sidecars and work in a similar theory to uber - I realised later that I didn't see any in the main city areas and only saw them in the "suburbs". Nobilen, the mother, makes pancakes with margarine and sugar, and sells them from the front of their home. The four kids either go to school or the centre as required. They had also taken a photo of the family ahead of our visit, printed it on card, and wrote us a letter on the back.
We had a bag of items to gift to the family, including a photo album we had put together with photos of us, our family, and some of the places we like to visit. We showed them some of the photos and then all lined up to get a photo together... we had purposely taken an instax printer with us so we could quickly print off a copy and pop it in the album for them.
It was incredibly special to be able to meet them - and that they were all able to attend. Often it is only one parent who comes due to the need to keep working. I've been thinking about this a lot since meeting them - they gave up a full day wage each just to see us. It takes a fair bit of time for the family to travel to the centre and back home again, plus the time spent with us. I can't imagine how much of a sacrifice that would be.
Bert and I then rejoined everyone else in the main auditorium and had some lunch before heading out to home visits. Lance had arrived while we were in the other room so we were able to get a photo with him now, and one with Cassandra too.
Because there were so many of us on this trip we were split into three groups for the home visits and accompanied by a child development worker from the centre. Bert and I piled into a tricycle and headed off with the others in our group to visit the home of Kate's sponsored child. This was my first ever home visit but was Bert's fourth as he had been to the Philippines before. The road started out relatively typical for the area but soon got a tad bumpy, sort of like a long gravel driveway - except it wasn't a driveway. I think the ride must have only been 10 minutes but honestly I was so distracted by everything going on that it was hard to tell!
Wayne's home was three tiny rooms for seven people. In the photo below we're all standing in the main room.... what isn't super clear though is that we're standing up against a wall, and the photographer was up against the other wall. The two side rooms were smaller than the one we were standing in, and the ceiling was very low. One of the side rooms was for Wayne's sister and her family, the other was for his parents and possibly others. I recall that Wayne slept in that main room we were standing in though.
We then headed back to the church to wait for the other groups to arrive. We did have to get off our tricycle at one point because it couldn't get up over a ledge where the road intersected but one side was sealed and the other side was gravel, and that was apparently just a bit much for the bike to cope with!
Once everyone was back, we had a dessert of halo-halo (shaved ice with either evaporated milk or condensed milk, various fruits, jellies, and other additions depending on where you get it. These ones had corn, ice cream, and cheese). Some of those who were on the first trip remembered there was a satellite church planted nearby, so the decision was made to all pile into our bus and head over to see the progress that had been made to it. It was a bit further away than I expected, but it was nice because it meant we got to see a bit more of the area.
I've been told that since the first trip the roof had now been finished and the walls had received their inside-cladding. This made it a lot more comfortable to be in temperature-wise!
While we were walking down the driveway from the road to the new church I kept hearing kids shouting "Lance! Lance". I asked one of the child development workers about it and she started laughing, saying that Lance lived just around the corner, so they were telling us it was the area of Lance. Turns out that Cassandra also lived in the area. It was quite nice to see the general area that they lived in.
I spent a bit of time talking to the project director while we were at this other church and asked about dental treatment as there had been some discussion about teeth earlier. She told me that they do struggle with dental there as there's not enough education on it for the children, not enough toothbrushes or toothpaste, and the mothers tend to also have weak teeth due to back-to-back pregnancies. The sponsorship program does include dental care though so the children in the program see the dentist and have the required treatments. She was pretty shocked when I told her that Bert is missing his upper teeth, she had no idea!
We then piled back in the bus to take them all back to the original church... although, to be honest, I actually don't know where we left them. We definitely didn't take them all the way back to the church though. The bus just randomly pulled over on the side of a road and they announced they were getting out so I guess we must have been relatively nearby something.
After this we headed back to the hotel to rest up before dinner, debrief, and bed. All in all, a very busy first day!
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