A Brickthink team just returned from Mandaluyong City, Philippines for rebuilding and medical assistance. Here’s a snapshot into their journey:

Today is our last day for this trip. We have no activities planned for the day. We met with our host, Pastor Mike and went to visit the city.  We are all thankful to God for making this mission possible and for his protection throughout the trip.

We work together on the mission as a team with all the local brothers and we were able to impact them by our communion and the love we share between all the members of our team. God has given us a good friendship, fellowship and strength for the great thing He has set for us here in the Philippines.

We also wanted to share this experience of the earthquake on the second day of our trip. On our way back to the hotel there was a 6.1 earthquake on some part of the island and we did not feel it since at that time we were in the car. The people who live here told us about it the next morning.  Those who were inside buildings felt the building shake but it was not of a big concern since there was not damage at all to any structures and it was not anywhere close to where we were.

We just want to thank God for this trip and for everything that He did and will continue to do in this place and in our lives.  We also thank those who kept on praying for us and supporting us in this journey.

We are leaving the Philippines in a couple of hours and we are all thankful to God.

Our Sunday morning started by enjoying a wonderful breakfast at the Legend Villas Hotel where we have stayed for the time in the Philippines.  We then went to the church for the morning service. The exciting thing about Sunday morning service was that our leader Jim S. was the one to preach. It was a blessed service where Brother Jim shared the Word of God and exhorted the whole church to stay focus on Jesus Christ. At the end of the service, more than ten people responded to the utter call and recommitted their life to Jesus Christ.  Since we have been working and had activities all week long, our host let us rest for the Sunday afternoon so that we could be ready for the next morning.

On Day eight, we went back to the house church to finish the canalization that we started the weekend before.  Most of the brothers helping us had to go back to work and we paired with two neighbors and finished the whole front of the house church. This project started as a simple project and extended far beyond where we were supposed to stop since the flood did not only threaten the house church, it did affect the whole neighborhood.  The construction project was extended and we worked until it got dark. At 5: oo pm, we had more help from the brothers who came back from work. At 7:30 pm, our host asked us to stop. We had to go back since it was really dark. Leaving the site, we had to use flashlight since we could not see the uneven pavement filled with holes here and there. We thank God for that last project because we not only improve the front of the house church but the alley for the whole community who were really thankful and we change the 6 inch sewage canalization by 2 to 3 feet canalization where the water could flow without flooding any part of Block 40.

We came back at the hotel late at night and we were all exhausted and were looking forward for our day of rest.

Another great  day in the field. Once again our time got split up in two so that we could  take part in the Child Cry ministry program by feeding malnourished children and sharing the love of God to them. We, then, proceeded to the house church to finish the roof and redirect the water to the new sink. (By the way, there are so many dishes out here that every day we have been trying a different exotic dish).After lunch, we walked through the town and brought food  at the Sanctuary Center, a woman mental institution where most of the patient are abandoned by their families because of their mental disability.

Paired with the local members of the church, we finished the roof and the sink. We also finished working on the new wall of the house that will become one of the feeding house for the children in the community.  We also added a new sink and new plumbing for the shower with running water.  The help from the local members was really appreciated and it allowed our team to be split up and to work on 2 projects simultaneously.

At the end of the day,  we went to feed more children in the street in  a different community or block as called by the local. The feeding program is really interesting. it gave us the opportunity not only to bring food for the childrren but  to pray with them or their parents and interact with them.

On Day 6, we  went out to continue the last project which we started the day before in between all of our feeding program. We are improving  the sewage system next to the biggest house church in the area. We took apart the old sewage since it was really small and the street was getting flooded every time it rained and making it difficult for that community or block. Many people from this community first came to watch us work and before you know it, the men jumped in with us and started working with us.(Thanks God for that because there was a lot of digging and concrete breaking by hand with hand made tools). We worked all day long and in between the break, some of the members of our Brick Think team shared the Word and the love of God with those who live by and those who came to ask questions. The kids there are really great, we talked, shared the love of God and interacted with them while working and some of them taught us some word in their language.

The whole week was really a good experience for us especially with the kids in the community giving us hi5, people trying to interact with us even thought some speaks English and some don’t.

We started our day by heading to two different house churches with feeding program through Child Cry ministry.  We split into two different teams and served the precious children meals.  Then we went to the House church project for kitchen extension and finished the wall block. We built  and poured a large concrete counter top for stove top burner and installed  a stainless steel sink. The other house project started today was to put hallow block  wall up and pouring small concrete floor for new sink area location. The church team member of Pastor Mike has been a blessing to us and very helpful with the projects.

The construction ended and we walked throught many streets to see next project location for the end of Friday and Saturday. We also to took part in the street feeding program as part of child Cry ministry in a location close to the next project.

We then went to take part to a  Men’s  fellowship Bible study program held at 7:00 pm at the church. We shared the Word of  God and different life testimonies about our life.

We thank God for the awesome protection that He is giving us and our Filipino friends. We are all feeling well and no injuries in the midst of some hard terrain.  We are also thankful for every one prayer and concern for us.   We can sense that God

We started our day earlier since we had to go  finish the bathroom from the previous day.   we finished up the bathroom walls and installed a new door in the morning. After that project, we proceeded to a new location still in Welfare Ville where the family who lives there feeds children through the Child Cry Ministry. The construction of the project is to provide more space in the kitchen area  so that the family would be able to have more space to feed more children in need in the neighbourhood. We removed the whole exterior wooden wall which was filled with many little surprise inside the plywood; large roaches and spiders who were running all over the place since we destroyed their habitat. they did not bother us at all but some of them got squashed. We then proceeded to dig out earth for the footing for the new external concrete wall. We worked for the whole day there and almost completed the full wall with “concreto”   (as the Filipino calls it) and hollow Block. Their name for concrete block which we all have fun and laugh together with the way we say our names and other things.

We are having a great experience working side by side with all these families in the Lord.  We will be returning to the house to finish two courses of hollow blocks and to build and finish the roof. We could also use prayer for the first project we started to be able to be  continued by having inspection by local officials. We enjoyed a great Filipino treat called “Hallo Hallo” after work with our hosts. It was cold and refreshing for the end of a hot day.

Our day started by going to help with the medical ministry for the senior citizen by sharing the word and encouraging them for the first half of the day. The senior citizen really touched our heart by allowing them to share their life with us and talking to them about Jesus and being able to pray for them even at time there was a language barrier between us and some of them who didn’t speak English. The language did not stop us from communicating with them and they were all joyful people regardless of their pain and sufferings.  It was really amazing to see God’s hand in the  loving care and attention that the doctor and her team presented to the senior citizen patients.

After sharing a meal with our hosts, we went back in the afternoon in the house to finish up the bathroom we started yesterday.  At the site, we faced some technicalities with the local government. While waiting for the job to get started, we sung and interacted with the kids and praised the Lord. Finally we decided to get started with a project on a different location. we helped build and finishing up with a bathroom  for a family with 5 children who were extremely happy and grateful with our help.  We also help build a new roof for another family in the neighbourhood. This particular house was leaking from all over the place in the ceiling and the roof was filled with bucket holding raindrop water. It was a joy for the family to finally have us replaced their old roof to a brand new one. While working, we had to try this new recipe of bananas stick. We were reluctant to eat it at first but when we tried it, we enjoyed it and went for second with the local families and team. We finished up late and went to visit the house for our next project in the dark, guided by our local leader trough Welfare Ville.

We thankGod for making this day possible especially for us ministering to the senior citizen and working on two different projects regardless of the opposition we had on the initial and scheduled project for the day which we will have to finish tomorrow.

We arrived late Sunday night on March 20 2011 after 11:30 pm because of a delay while connecting in Tokyo, Japan.  We spent more than the one hour scheduled for our connection and in the midst of what is happening in Japan, we noticed all the people at the airport were calm especially the few Japanese coming back home or going away. That situation made us realized that God is still in control in Japan and all throughout the world.

We started our day in the afternoon on Monday March 21, 2011 because of the late arrival on Sunday and the 12 hour time change. After  a quick stop at the church to drop the medical supplies and the children items, we went straight to the first house to start our project. We got introduced to the families living there and there was a joy for them to have us among them and to work together with them. We started working together with the men remodeling the bathroom which was made of decaying wood walls and rotten metal roof.

The first day went fine despite the challenge of the low ceiling structure in the house with us bumping our head at times. At the end of the day, we had the block wall half way up and tomorrow we re looking forward to finish it up by the grace of God.