how you can help

Our ministry team here has hit a new stride.  We have recommitted to making lasting change here on Boracay.  So of course we have the devil's attention.  We need your prayers to keep us safe, and to protect us from discouragement.  Thanking you in advance!

I have written before about a boy at our Laguna outreach with a cleft palate.  Man and I have talked about him many times to our group.  So in the way of the telephone game, one person to another, then another, etc.... It looks like he is getting the surgery he needs to change his life!

This is what we hope will happen: Man will go along with the little boy, his mom, and our Pastor's wife, Teresa,  to the Aklan Baptist Hospital on the island of Panay.  He will have a consult with a visiting medical missions team surgeon; then he will be scheduled for surgery sometime between Feb. 4 and the 7th.  This little guy can't talk, he can only eat some things.  Can you imagine the change?  The surgery is free, we just have to pay for medication. 

Please pray for his courage.  Pray for the wisdom of the doctors.  Pray for supernatural God speed recovery.  I will keep you posted.

In other news is our kickin' construction team!  Only man is actually a construction guy, and I think the big C is a bit as well - but the rest of us do have hands.  There are 18 outreach sites on our little 1x6 mile island.  Some sites have shelters under which we can feed and love on the kids, but many sites have no shelter so when it rains we have to cancel.  Some shelters are in need of repair so our first job as a construction dream team was to fix the Alta Vista shelter - I think we'll now call them community centers!

Many of the kids pitched in to help with rock or pipe hammers.

Bis checking out the roof.  

Girl Power

Boy Power - and Man's hammer

The ice-cream bicycle showed up.  

Rock and hammer in the hands of a babe.  Love his concentration and drippy nose.

Man attempting to fix the nipa roof.  

Babe again.  So bold, so hardworking, so nakedish...

This man stepped in and climbed up to teach us how to fix the nipa roof.  He did that hole, we did most of the others, leaving one hole for the community to fix with supplies we left.

Considering all of the things we do and plan to do on Boracay, we are a small group of missionaries: 11 adults and 8 tweens and teens.  So when you read about all that we are doing, be sure to think of our little team and know that you can do big things too!

Next weekend we will begin work on a site called the Helicopter Outreach - it has a heli pad there.  This community center will be from the ground up.  To build a shelter from scratch costs about $400 US dollars.  If you'd like to help let us know.  Man will go out this week with our Pastor to all of the sites, take notes and pictures, and then we'll work with our group to set up a build schedule.

In May the Kropp family will go to Mindoro Island to do a job with YWAM.  We are going to build a house for a family, in honor of my missed and beloved Mom. 

There are more kids with cleft lips and palates who need surgery.  We hope to work all out in these next months.  Join us?

stick me with a needle, please

I love tattoos.  I have three now and will likely have four when I head home to the States.

Man is at this moment getting his first.  Boys and I are at home, waiting; wish I were there to see how he's handling the pain. And of course for support.  Man is getting a big tattoo, his first and he's going all out.  I'll post a picture once it's healed but will tell you that it's on his upper arm and chest, has the African continent on it, and some of our boys' names in ancient Filipino script.  There, aren't you curious?

This is my latest tattoo:

Not my body, and my tattoo has 5 birds, one for each of my kids, but this is what my tattoo guy, Chuckie, used as a guide.  I really like it.  I have always loved dandelions, bright yellow flowers, tough as nails - Seth and Ethan called them 'whishes' when they were little.  My tattoo represents our raising our five boys and sending them off to be planted where the Good Lord wills.

Finally I am posting the last of our vacation pictures.
The sun was setting as we hurried down the road in our hired van, trying to get to our destination before dark - we had been told that there would not be electricity at our next stopover.  

Pulling into the town of Tibiao, it was dark.  Our driver was flagged down at the road turnoff and told that due to heavy rains the road was closed to all but motorbikes.  What a coincidence that there were about a dozen bikers waiting for us?  So we piled on bikes, no helmets, hugging strange men, backs loaded down with packs and food for the next three days....and screamed up the mountain.  I was not happy thinking of my kiddos clinging to these guys as we sped through the dark, up a dirt track made slick with rain.  But again I found myself going along with insanity.

In the morning this is the view we woke up to. 
Amazing!

And this, rice terraces across the river.  I wish you could all see this place.

Snug a bug on the deck of a nipa hut.

This was our hut.  And that big wok - what is that!  Well it is a big wok and you get in it and the guys light a fire under it.  Lovely.

Here is man helping the staff cook our breakfast.  

While man cooked and I oggled the view, the kids found puppies.  This is Yo with his little puppy I nicknamed Roo.  

Breakfast compliments of Man and men.  

Boys floating bamboo poles down the river.

This is a tree house Filipino style!

The first full day at Tibiao we headed through the village to hire a guide to take us into the mountains in search of water falls.

This beautiful girl had very good English.  She spent the next few days chatting with us, especially enjoying Shan and her girls.  

The way to the falls.  

The hike took us out the back side of the village, through rice terraces, past carrabao, along narrow paths, up....

Past the piggy in a harness.  

Right at the pineapple.

To this place!

The water was cold, too cold for this wimp.  

 Then back down the mountain, to the hot woktubs!

 

My man and Shan's man.  They crack us up.  In a land where every family has at least one gay man, they are most assuredly assumed to be gay around here.  That would not be funny any place except here.  

Boil boil toil and trouble, cauldron boil and cauldron bubble!  Yum

Oh that Ethan. 

The guys head out to buy more bottled water and snacks. 

The rest of us headed down to the river to play with the kids.

A local kayak guide had taken gear to the river and let the kids play with it.

Shan with a crowd.  I envy her natural draw with people.  

The boys wanted one last go in the woktub.

By moonlight.

Man has been at the tattoo studio for about 4 hours now....hoping he's not bled out or something!