Here are some of the scholars I live with at the Oikos Mission. This happened to be at a farewell party for some visitors to Oikos. All of these kids are so sweet and work very hard. It is a pleasure to know them and to be a part of their lives!!!
Here we are preparing for the immersion in Conception and the surrounding barrios. We prepared food, clothes, school supplies, water filters, shoes, toys, blankets, rosaries and homemade diapers!!
And here we are in Conception at the Immersion, working hard but having fun!
Our Immersion Team:
Here is the Oikos Livelihood team led by Sister Clarissa. They run the FAITH program and the Piglet Recycling and Fattening programs. They do an awesome job from presenting the programs to helping the people begin to monitoring the beneficiaries progress throughout the program. The pictures of the pigs are from the Oikos Pig Farm.
The following pictures are from when I went to Tacla-on and Sta. Cruz to see the progress of the Piglet Recycling Program that I helped to start off the last time I was here. Now, the sows that we gave out last November are grown and have had their piglets!! How fulfilling it was for me to see the completion of a program that I had a hand in starting!! Not every beneficiary had a successful liter of piglets, but most did. On this day, we collected our payment from the beneficiaries: either 2 piglets or php3,000. It was totally awesome!
These pictures are taken from the launching of the FAITH Program (Food Always In The Home) in a town called Sabong. The pastor of the parish in Sabong, Msgr. Pepe, invited the Oikos Livelihood Team to teach people in his parish to begin the FAITH program. Currently, the Livelihood Team has running FAITH programs in 3 barrios, and 5 have completed the one-year program and are still going strong. Awesome!!!!!
Also in November, I went with Sister Ethel and one of the mothers, Nanay Bebe , pictured below, to cook meals for retired priests on their retreat. It was at a beautiful place in the mountains, Suiginon, and it was sssooooo quiet and peaceful there! When we weren't cooking, I read a book, sat outside in the cool air (yes, it was cool on the mountain!), and took some naps! It was like a mini retreat for me. From our house, we could see the ocean on one side and higher mountains on the other. Simply beautiful!!!
So, that is my past two months in a nutshell...now, onto December!! Our new project is the Good Wish Tree. We painted these branches and cut out 200 stars!! On each star is a name of a child in a new barrio we have never been to! The Oikos scholars, co-workers and people in the community are invited to choose a star or two and buy a gift for that child. Then, we will go to this barrio on a day close to Christmas and bring games for the kids, food for the families and the gifts for the kids. We will bring Christmas to the barrio!!!
Always doing something new for the poor!! Never a dull day!!! God bless the Oikos Sisters!!
Here is a picture of me and some of the kids celebrating my 2 months here in Borongan:
So happy to be here!!
Thank you for the prayers these past few months!! Keep 'em coming!! I'll be praying for you too!!
xxooxxoo
