Relief Feeding

Our original plan was to give relief food, uncooked which could last them a few days, but we didn’t have to funds to supply that much food. Instead we are making chicken adobo! Which is simple to prepare but quite delicious! We began last evening after dinner cooking rice, till about one in the morning, then we awoke at 5:50am and continued cooking rice. We ran into a small problem along the way, the gas man couldn’t be reached and we ran out of gas! It slowed our process a bit but not horribly. (They use gas stoves that use a gas tank like the one you would use on your grill.)

We finally finished cooking around 2:30pm. After cleaning up we took a little rest and decided to do the feeding for dinner instead of lunch. We headed out around 4pm with 450 bags of the rice and chicken to the slum, our neighbor decided to come with too. She is a student in high school, Fatima who is 15 years old. She lives with her grandma, who is the landlord of our apartment.

At Arellano (the slum) we gathered the families of the students that YWAM sponsors and also the young mothers who attend our Bible study. We first gave to them, then the children started to line up, which were so many, now and then an widow would come and we would give to them too.

We ran out of food before all the kids were able to get a bag, it made my heart hurt to see people being turned away. There were more kids then normal because often times when we go to the slum we just visit one part of it, it’s kind of divided into two. Which both sides are rivals to each other in a sense, they don’t get along. But this day, all of the kids in the slum showed up, even from the other part.

Like always there was a lot of pushing and shoving. But unlike the other times this time there was help from more of the adults. Which was encouraging to see. They helped the kids form the line and pull out the kids trying to exit where the beginning of the line was. Another encouraging thing to see was the kids would get their rice and bring it home or share it with a nearby friend, brother or sister.

For many of the people this was their first and only meal today also for some they did not have a full meal yesterday either. It was hard for me to see people being turned away, but, today I was reminded that I am not God, and can’t provide for everyone in need, He is the only one that can provide. Here at the base we lift up praises that we were able to conduct this feeding.

If you are interested in donating money to help us feed different slums contact me by commenting on this post saying you want to. Or by clicking the “Contact Me” which will send me an email. There are four other places we would like to do a feeding in.

I will soon post a picture blog.

Interesting Facts:

Bangus or otherwise known as milkfish is largely grown here, then shipped out to other places. It is cultivated in the many ponds and rivers here. Because the water rose so high the fish ponds overflowed, and fish were everywhere. People went fishing in the streets and bangus was sold very cheaply. Normally priced at 120 Pesos per Kilo it was being sold at 20 Pesos a Kilo, which is like $.40 a kilo. We were eating it breakfast, lunch and dinner! YUM! YIKES!