New Year!!! New Dreams!!!

My heart has been heavy with vision...

1. We really want to open a girls home. There are so many girls and new ones every day. We just can't take in any more girls in the one house, we really need a separate house for girls. Which means a separate staff for the girls. It takes 7 people to run one house. We are planning to open the Girl's Shelter House by February 2010.
2. We also want to re-open the drop-in center NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We need 5 people to run that.
   
3. We are also dreaming of an alternative school for all the street kids not just the ones living in our shelters. So for that we would need a whole teaching staff M-F. And this would include feeding breakfast and lunch.
   
4. We also have thought about the possibility of starting a business here where the kids could work...thought is a coffee shop where live bands would come and play and board games would be on the tables sort of a family place but definitely a place where street-people could walk in and be welcomed and ministered to.
   
5. We want to start "Frontline"; this ministry would be strictly to the streets and those who are still in and on the streets. The Frontline team would go out nightly and witness, pray for, bring food and medical help to those on the streets.
   
6. We dream of one day having a YWAM Children At Risk School here in Project Destiny Kids, where people form around the world will come and learn how to do street kid ministry.
   
7. Teresa will be asking one of the local Bible Colleges to partner with us. She would teach a course in the college on street kids then the 5th year Bible College students would intern by working in either the drop-in center or one of the Shelter houses or be part of the Frontline team

All of these dreams will happen in God's timing, it's just that they are burning in our hearts now. And kids are literally dieing in the streets now. So we are praying and belieiving for more staff, buildings, and increased financial support.

more more CHRISTmas 2009

and more CHRISTmas 2009

more CHRISTmas 2009

We all had the best Christmas ever! Just want to say thank you to the so many of you who gave and made it possible....The Lowry family, The Hawkins family,The Santos family, Sierra Pines Church, Double Blessings Plus Ministries, Calvary Chapel Fremont Church, Grace Community Church, Laura Rohwedder, Greg May and so so so many more....THANK YOU!!!!!

CHRISTmas 2009

Christmas Party Feeding behind our Shelter House

Please continue to pray for these rugby boys. There boys are high on drugs literally ALL of the time. Please pray that God will reach down and open the eyes of their understanding that they might know how long, how high, how deep, and how wide is HIS love for them.

Deceived, Damaged, Disallusioned

Frightened, alone, in pain...kids are drawn to the streets only to find themselves frightened, alone, and in pain all over again. No education, to hope, to future. The only thing in sight is how to escape the current pain and fear. With no self respect, self esteem, self worth...kids willingly cling to whoever or whatever accepts them, "loves" them, and is there even just for the moment.

"J****" and "K*****" are 2 girls who fit this scenario. "J****" we have known for a couple of years now, "K*****" we have just come to know. They are confused on every level. They claim to be "partners" yet the one has a one month old baby and the other is 7 months pregnant by her "regular customer". Clearly at age 16 she is under age but still she is "working" the streets. They are living in a brothel some of the time, the streets the rest of the time.

The two girls have come to us looking for a home, for help, for love. What can we do? I cannot say NO, yet I don't clearly know what YES will look like. We are meeting with them now and decisions are being made as to whether they will come live with us or not. We are laying down very strict rules and guidelines for the girls to follow for their best good. They could start school tomorrow if they choose. They could start a new life now ....if they choose. Please pray for these 4 lives and for us.

Pray that God will send us more staff, a home for street girls, a school building for rugby kids on the streets..........the harvest is so plentiful but the workers are few.....pray that God will see and hear and answer.

Love Revolution

To repay evil with good...to love enemies.... LOVE REVOLUTION....

There is a group of rugby boys (rugby is the glue solvent the kids sniff to get high) that are staying in the neighborhood near our Shelter House. These rugby boys get high and then come to our house and throw stones and break our lights outside and steal clothes on the line. We have done everything humanly possible to stop them...called the police, put up barbed wire, put up a live-wire, moved the clothes to the interior...nothing has helped. So........ after coming to our wits end we prayed....we felt that either the Word is true or it's not and we choose to take God at His Word and do good to these boys....so.....the next night when the stoning started I went out there introduced myself and told them I wanted to be friends with them and I wanted them to come to our house for lunch the next day. They were all so high but agreed. The next day little by little they started coming around the corner. They were very hesitant and told us they felt ashamed. We told them to come on over we wanted to eat with them. At first they did not want to eat because they thought we were trying to poison them. But when we started eating, they joined. Our landlord came over and burst into a rage, the kids ran, the landlord shouted that he was going to kill them. We had to go mobile and take the lunch to the kids over on the next street away from our crazy out of control landlord. The boys were so happy with us; we talked and shared and learned their names. We are planning to feed them every week now. They came back the next night and shouted. The staff were afraid at first but when the staff went to the window to ask what they wanted and why they wanted to continue doing this....the kids simply asked for us to feed them again. We told them next time. and the boys shouted back, "ok, thank you." and they left...no harm no foul. God is really working in the hearts of these rugby boys. It is His kindness that leads us to repentance. We will no extend our table to these 25-30 boys weekly and by the next time we will also extend the Word of the Lord to them in a Bible study.

Please pray for the landlord as he has promised by December 7, 2009, he will start killing these rugby boys.

Vision

Things seem to be going very very well. We have 5 kids now in the Shelter House. And we have 9 staff. All are happy and content and seem to be enjoying everything. Today we are taking in a possible 3 more new kids all the siblings of one of the boys. We have 1 staff and Susan who will be leaving soon, and another leaving end of January....so we are really praying for replacements.

We have started girls night and boys night every Sunday night. Our one girl and her baby come to the staff house will all the girl staff and the two boy staff go to the Shelter house. We do girly things like, watch girly movies, crafts, cook, and we started a Bible study on the life of Sarah. The boys on the other hand, throw colored water balloons at each other, run around like wild indians and watch funny PG action movies and eat snacks. We are working on getting the Bible study on Wild at Heart started for them.

All the kids were baptized 2 weeks ago, and continue to grow and change in their attitudes and behaviors. We are so proud of them all. We are starting a new school arrangement which everybody likes. It's called A.L.S. (Alternative Learning System). It is a modular system created and set up for out of school youth to complete a high school equivalency test. One of our board members has been a high school principal for years and is an incredible educator. She was recently promoted to Dep Ed office which allows her to have weekends off. So she is coming every Saturday to test the kids on the modules they complete during the week. We have had one week so far and everyone LOVES it. The staff are learning to be teachers now and love it! After the kids finish the A.L.S. and pass the final test they can then enter TESDA which is a vocational school where they can learn cooking, restaurant/hotel management, welding, carpentry. auto mechanics etc....

My heart has been heavy with vision...

1. I really want to open a girls home. There are so many girls and new ones every day. We just can't take in any more girls in the one house, we really need a separate house for girls. Which means a separate staff for the girls. It takes 7 people to run one house.
   
2. I also want to re-open the drop-in center NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We need 5 people to run that.
   
3. I am also dreaming of an alternative school for all the street kids not just the ones living in our shelters. So for that we would need a whole teaching staff M-F.
   
4. I also have thought about the possibility of starting a business here where the kids could work...thought is a coffee shop where live bands would come and play and board games would be on the tables sort of a family place but definitely a place where street-people could walk in and be welcomed and ministered to.
   
5. I also want to start "Frontline"; their ministry would be strictly to the streets and those who are still in and on the streets. The Frontline team would go out nightly and witness, pray for, bring food and medical help to those on the streets.
   
6. I dream of one day having a YWAM Children At Risk School here in Project Destiny Kids, where people form around the world will come and learn how to do street kid ministry.
   
7. I will be asking one of the local Bible Colleges to partner with us. I would teach a course in the college on street kids then the 5th year Bible College students would intern by working in either the drop-in center or one of the Shelter houses or be part of the Frontline team

All of these dreams will happen in God's timing, it's just that they are burning in my heart now. And kids are literally dieing in the streets now. So we are praying and belieiving for more staff, buildings, and increased financial support.

Project Destiny Kids Shelter House

Project Destiny Kids Shelter House is finally OPEN!!!! God is such a FAITHFUL FATHER!!!! We cling to the promise in Philippians 1:6 which says, "HE who started a good work in you will be faithful to complete it in you."

Big Day for Lawrence

Lawrence shared his testimony in church this morning. He was so nervous and kept telling me his heart was going to jump out of his chest. He did such a great job telling the congregation where God has brought him. He gave God all the glory for changing him from a drug user and pusher into a boy in love with Jesus. It was hard to stand beside him and not cry with joy at what God has done and continues to do in his life. After church we went to the local swimming pool for fun in the SON!!!

New Project Destiny Kids Van
(the white one)

Praise God for Mr. J.D a generous kind person who gave a very good discount to us on this wonderful van.

Sponsor a Kid

We continue to Praise God and declare His goodness!!! We have faced many giants along the road in PDK. We also have experienced the amazing goddness and faithfullness of God. We are in the last stretch before opening the Shelter and having a home for 30 street children.

Consider SPONSOR A KID.
$1 a day will provide 3 meals a day for 1 child
$1 a day will provide schooling for 1 child
$1 a day will provide electricity in The Shelter house
$1 a day will provide medical care

Please consider giving your $1 a day to Project Destiny Kids

The Shelter...garden

The first completed garden plot (30' X 3')

This is 2 of the 12 plots we will have (30' X 3')

3 more plots being prepared with a layer of water lilies to provide compost at the bottom of the bed.

International Week of Prayer for Children At Risk 1st week of June

We spent June 7th at Beautiful News Fellowship in Butuan City. Teresa shared about children at risk world wide. We all watched the video AIM LOWER then the whole church received crayons and paper and we drew and wrote our prayers for children and made a PRAYER QUILT. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much fun!!!!!!!!

The New SHELTER
The Shelter will be home for 20 street boys and 10 street girls

HOME

Where to turn? Smothered in an overcrowded squatter area with addicted, beyond-poor parents or to the streets with air to breathe and even more abuse and addiction waiting? Lawrence, only 12 years old, chose the streets and living with the nuns through elementary school had provided him with no preparation for this choice. Sniffing glue, gangs and violence quickly became his new life . . .

Shortly after Lawrence came to the drop-in center, he declared that he wanted to go to school and was tired of life on the streets. He demanded more from us. Why couldn’t we send him to school and give him a home?

A short-term missionary, knowing nothing about Lawrence, began to share that he felt God had a plan for this boy to go to school. With tears running down my face, I immediately made the arrangements for Lawrence to enroll in school. He amazed us all by finishing his first year of high school above average - this after not attending school for 4 years.
At this time, his family suddenly transferred to a city five hours away, and taking him with them, they told him it was just for summer vacation. But, at the end of the summer, he realized he was not going back to school, not back to church, not back to the drop-in center.

Hearing of his plight, we contacted the family and the parents agreed to sign over legal temporary guardianship of Lawrence to us. And so, Lawrence came home last night to live with us. He will live with us in the staff compound for now until our shelter is up and running. He can't stop smiling...and is so thankful. God is good!!!

Please continue to pray for Lawrence and the many many more Lawrence's who desperately want and need a safe place to call home.

Journey with "N..."

"N..." came to Project Destiny Kids, tough sassy and with a tantalizing smile. Her new best friends were the 13-16 year old prostituted girls of Butuan City. We soon learned that "N..." had run away from home due to the abusive treatment of her mother and stepfather. She shared with us how they would tie her in a rice sack, hang her from the ceiling and hit her with a stick while hung in the sack. Her parents even shaved her head bald in an attempt to curve her wild ways. She made the decision that she would have no more of that and off to the big city she went. When she arrived in the city "N..." was quite innocent of city life and the life of a street girl. Soon, sniffing rugby (glue), stealing, and a life of prostitution became her new found life.

"N..." quickly shared that she was not satisfied with her new life any more than her home life. She talked of going to school and having a home. She faithfully came to the center day after day. We shared the love of Jesus with her, feed her, clothed her, and offered advice. We enjoyed friendship with "N..." for several weeks, then suddenly she was gone. This is an all too familiar story for us as we work with street kids.

However, "N..."'s story does end there. Almost 9 months later, one of our staff members to a trip to visit the province, as the staff stepped down from the bus she heard a familiar voice calling her name. It was "N..."! The two ran and embraced. "N..." had decided to follow the advice given her. She returned home and talked to her parents and agreed with them that she would go to school and stop running around wild, in return her parents agreed to not tie her in a sack and hit her anymore. Her parents gladly took her back. Today "N..." is attending high school and living at home. She is so happy and so thankful for friends who encouraged her and walked a bit of life's journey with her.

Celebrating Lawrence

Lawrence by the grace of God and hard work successfully completed his 1st year of high school!!! We are all so proud of him and celebrate with him. He is one amazing terrific kid!!!!

Lawrence on his trip to the big city after finish school year

Check out this website....watch the videos
http://www.love146.org

The Last Few Months in a Glance 2

Pictures of The New Zealand DTS Outreach Team

New Zealand Outreach Team

Local Pizza Hut donated hats for our celebration

Opening Christmas Gifts

The Last Few Months in a Glance 1

Kids receiving Christmas gifts

Christmas Dinner!!!

Singing and Dancing at Christmas Party 2008

Me and one of the kids

Me and some of the kids in church