Celebrating 81 years of God's faithfulness

Today (March 11th) is Dad's 81st Birthday.  It was a year ago when the kids and I (Mark couldn't get off work and also had arm surgery during that time) enjoyed celebrating his 80th with family and friends in Ayungon.  Here's a quick look back at that amazing day....

Dad's party was on March 19th, the day after we arrived.  The morning started with a worship service in the sanctuary (the building that collapsed in the earthquake).  The Bible verse for the month was appropriate for the occasion.  By the way all of those letters and balloons were painstakingly drawn and cut by hand - as is most of all the decorations they put up in the church.

You only turn 80 once - so they went all out and had a huge feast (a couple of pigs and a cow were slaughtered) - and had over 200 guests.  Everyone had a blast celebrating dad, feasting on all the food, and laughing and listening to all the stories and songs shared about him.  He loved it all.

 

 

Happy 81st Birthday to a man full of passion and purpose, who loves his Lord God with all his heart, soul and strength - and who shares Jesus'  love, hope wisdom to all he knows.  May God continue to bless mom and dad as they faithfully love and serve Him in Ayungon.  

Salvaging the Sanctuary

The sanctuary part of ABC (where main services were held) was where the roof completely collapsed (see earlier post for more pics and see the photo on the sidebar for how the front of the sanctuary looked like from the road.)

 ABC has a large youth group population - here are some of the teen boys who have volunteered with clean up efforts.

 Mom and other ladies in the church managed to salvage and wash the hand sewn curtains from the sanctuary, and here they are drying out on some of the recovered bench pews (a lot of them were damaged from the roof collapsing).

One of mom's "treasures on earth" were all the Bibles and Christian books she collected over the years and also what friends from churches have donated to ABC - she was distraught when the rains came and ruined most of them. They are drying them out here, but some of them are beyond repair - which some of my friends have already suggested that a book drive would be fun to organize and replace those books with many newer copies.

Recovery Efforts

It's been 3 1/2 weeks since the "big one" hit Negros Island - according to some reports I have read - there have been hundreds if not a thousand aftershocks since then.  I even read somewhere that a group of scientists in the Philippines wanted to change the 2/6/12 earthquake - from a 6.9 on the Richter scale - up to an 8.0. 

I have been so encouraged to read stories after stories of locals, nationals and even ex-pat Ayunganons all over the world rallying to help out their hometown with donations and coming out to volunteer and help with distributing food or cleaning up or re-building homes.  I wish I could recount each story and photo on this blog.

Mom and Dad continue to help where they can.  They have targeted 32 families in their church who badly need help with re-building their homes.  So far - friends in Dallas and here in Colorado Springs have sent in a little over $2,000 to help them!  Wow!   We are grateful for people's hearts and generosity during these hard financial times.  This past week I received a check from a couple who don't even know me or my parents - they heard about the earthquake through good friends of mine and Mark's - and they felt led to reach out and help out ABC.  Thank You Lord!!

Here are some photos mom sent me recently. These are just a glimpse of the terrible damage many have to deal with.  The photos below are of church members or families of church members. 

Special thanks to my cousin RJ (who commented on one of my earlier posts) - for helping her with the technical tasks of uploading pictures.