Healthy Emotions for Children Seminar Hosted by the little children's home and conducted at Shiphrah Bahay Paanakan seminar area.

Our welcome team. Aubrey was so happy to hand out bullitins to the new arrivals with the help of his friend Alex Bucher.






Everyone getting to know one another

Helen serving coffee,tea, and bread to the early morning attendants. Serving with a smile. Thank you to those who donated the morning merienda.




Leny leading praise and worship.

Latecomers getting registered.














Our social worker Joy welcoming everyone to a day of fun learning.

Darren sharing the heart of the little children's home and Shiphrah Bahay Paanakan. He told the story of the midwives Shiphrah and Puah in the book of Exodus. He said it is no mistake that the room he was standing in now is full of women and few men. Women bring about change.


Helen stirring a big pot of pancit for our second snack of the day. I just love her beautiful smile. It never turns off.
















Volunteers Bible School students serve with a joyful heart. Washing all the dishes.

















Everyone is helping. Jorge the mission driver is making the punch.














Sharing a story about a first memory of her mother.














Our guest speaker Jessica Friedman introduces a ice breaker called the spiderweb.







A spiderweb is formed through the telling of where one works, struggles, and joys.







Feedback time. What have I learned about children who have experienced crisis.












Jessica continues to share about the emotional needs of children in crisis.













Shiphrah midwife Lornie, Home manager Helen and husband of a midwife Matt get the dessert plates ready for lunch. Thank you for the donations of sweets and fruit.










Midwife Lydia carefully prepares the lunch plates for 68 participants. Thank you Las Brisas for loaning plates to us for the day.












Look at all that yummy food. Belen makes the best banana heart coconut milk topping for rice ever. Thank you Belen.












Aubrey with a servants heart. I am so proud of him.















Look at that lovely smile.












Lornie Shiphrah Midwife serves the little children's home staff lunch. It is great seeing God's servant heart through our midwifes at Shiphrah.















Want more rice???













Look at all of those clean plates. Thank you for all the hard work and teamwork that was put into the seminar day to make is successful.














Teachers Jessica Friedman and Deborah Gustafson. We had a great time.

A very happy group of people. We learned a lot today and everyone said " When can we do this again?"

The Joy of Knitting

One never knows what a simple skill, developed into an art, might do in the hands of a woman who not only loves beauty, but cares passionately for others and desires to walk in obedience to God. Taking knitting needles in hand when she was only 8, Darlene Pridmore has since used this simple ability to draw forth creativity in women whose daily struggle to survive has buried their amazing giftings while at the same time using that creative skill to help them fully live rather than just survive.

She is now in Manila doing her work among the women in this country. We welcome her at HELP as she works first with the midwives teaching them not only the art of knitting but also leadership skills to manage this as a livelihood program. Along with the midwives as the program begins here will be tlc caregivers and women from Creekside Liwayway.

The midwives had a wonderful afternoon with Darlene and the high fashion scarves and shawls she and soon they will create.

In the process of discovering hidden creativity and using it to help sustain the family, Darlene has found that there is often healing that emerges as women gather to knit and share their stories. Nelle Morton wrote, years ago that we must "hear one another into speech". Perhaps that hearing will happen as women gather to create beauty.

tlc's littlest one is now safely home. Thank you for your prayers and financial gifts to help with hospital costs.

We also say thank you to Marrisa, Sonia, Shirly, and Antonette tlc staff who lovingly cared for him in the hospital.

Hip Hip Hooray for healing.

Our youngest in the little children's home is now in hospital with respiratory distress. He is only 2 months old and a tiny baby's lungs are very fragile. A tlc nurse volunteer visited him today and feels he might need to stay in hospital for another week. He is still working very hard to breath. Please pray for his quick recovery.
We also request your help with the cost of the hospital, and medication. Thank you.

Rebuilding Creekside Liwayway

It will be one year on Sept. 26 that tropical storm Ondoy ripped through the Philippines leaving massive death and destruction in it's wake. Among the many, many communities devastated was Creekside Liwayway, clinging to the steep walls of a gorge a few blocks from the Shiphrah Birthing Home. Several of our staff live there and many babies from Liwayway have entered the world at the Birthing Home so ties are close.

The Birthing Home quickly became first a refuge and then a staging center for relief efforts. When that phase of things wrapped up we turned to rebuilding.



We hosted a community meeting during which the community prioritized the order of the rebuilding march. It was quickly agreed that the most urgent need was to rebuild the retaining wall (rip-rap) that would protect the community during the sure-to-come high water of any rainy season.

When funding came in, the building commenced. The community was splendid! Providing masons, laborers, and cooks, the whole community became involved at one time or another during the two months of the project. When they were finished, a strong, safe wall stood where a few months before only remnants of the former wall had been. And, along the top of the new wall ran a real sidewalk. The first time the community had had one. Tatay Insong, shoveling sand in the picture above, was our oldest worker. He is 76. His comment? "I'm so happy. I feel useful again!"









The section shown above is the the first one finished...just a part of the long span of the whole project.

USEC Bazaar

Two times a year we have the entirely delightful opportunity to not only make a little money through the sale of Carmencita Cards and the items we've developed, but importantly, to share our passion for what we do with a whole host of people. Saturday was the bazaar.

This year, we added stick horses! We'd talked of doing them for a long time, remembering the fun the kids had with their stick horses when they were younger. Sara drew the pattern, we all shopped for fabric, and the horses were made for us by Norma and Carding, an older couple who live in the First Avenue Barrio. Norma sews the bags and aprons as well. While Norma does the horse heads, Carding peels, sands, and varnishes the bamboo used for the stick.

We had an outstanding day!

Moving Forward

Once the immediate emergency of the floodwaters had subsided, the next question was, "Where do we go from here?" The "where we went", was back into the community with whole new sets of questions. The faster families can regain some sense of normalcy, some sense of being together as a family, the better. So the question was, "Ok", what does that take. What it took was providing things to cook with (rice being already provided by World Vision). The happy fellow you see is holding a kalan a small charcoal cooker, and a bag of uling (charcoal). It also took providing woven sleeping mats called banigs and temporary beds of marine plywood and five hollow blocks. We'd given out blankets sheets and towels earlier just so people could keep warm.

Next was getting kids back to school. School uniforms and shoes, book bags and notebooks had been either washed away or ruined beyond redemption. It is just this sort of interruption that can curtail a child's education forever. The need was urgent. A number of incredible donor volunteers rose to the task. Back into the community. What school needs did you lose?" "What do you need so your kids can go back to school?" The result was more than 70 new uniforms, book bags and pairs of shoes along with countless notebooks. Each child needs at least 8 notebooks starting from pre-school on up. We're not done yet, but well on the way to getting everyone back into school.


Yesterday was witness to the fruit of a five -year partnership between Shiphrah Birthing Home and Family Planning of the Philippines (FPOP). Partnering with the UN FPOP brought out more than 200 buckets filled with very smart supplies for our pregnant moms. Each bucket contained a towel, a flashlight, personal hygiene and laundry supplies, flip-flops, several pairs of new underwear, a duster (our moms most often wear a loose garment like this when giving birth), and a tabo (dipper). We had taken names during our classes so knew exactly who needed the supplies. Yesterday was the great giveaway. It turned into an all-day event lasting into the late afternoon.

The motto for Shiphrah Birthing Home is from the story of Moses. The heroic midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, who defied the edict of the Pharaoh, 'saved the children alive' (Exodus 1:18).




Our situation is different, of course; but we've thought a lot about the story of Moses in the floodwater this week. Saving children and whole families from the river is not the typical job of a midwife, but our staff have shown a hebrewesque resilience in the face of disaster.

When the river just down the road from our birthing home

This is raw, but we'll try to get it edited throughout the day as we have time and internet.


Here's the video of a woman describing their improbable escape: