APNTS is located near a traffic cross. Therefore there are many people who make connections with public transportation. People go through here between small towns and the mega-city, Manila. When you visit the crossing, you would notice not only the people traveling but also some sleeping on the street asking for money, and even groups of children in time when they are supposed to be in school. They cannot go to school because of poverty. As we are Christian seminarians seeing this situation just in front of our campus, we couldn’t contain our compassion to them, especially children.
APNTS Student Body Organization formed Compassionate committee and started to work for them. The following is a history of our sponsored child.
A history of a sponsored child（Interviewed on 8th June, 2015）
She had lived by the bridge near APNTS together with her family for more than six years before we started this ministry in 2013. In September 2009, typhoon Ondoy hit Taytay city. They were sleeping beside the river, when they woke up realizing they had been in flooding water. Their life without a house was not secure, she told us. Later that year, they moved and lived under the tamarind tree by the road.
While they were staying on street there were many children like them, they had lived together. APNTS SBO compassionate ministry committee started ministry for them in 2013. We gather those children and provided food, let them take a bath, taught Math, Science, English and ethics, sang worship songs together, and told them biblical message at the dining hall every other Saturday.
She started her involvement in the Compassionate Ministry earlier 2014 when she was invited by two girls, her friends. In the ministry, she has the opportunity to hear about Jesus, to receive gifts like toys, clothes, take a bath and have a meal.
She had the interest to go to school and told the former leader of the committee about it. The committee decided to support her schooling. She started attending school in 2014, though late enrolled she was able to take the first quarter exam. She started in first grade and now she is in second grade. As she started her schooling, the family moved to an apartment in Magandang Lahi because she needed an address to enroll school. Her family had stayed there for a while and moved again to another apartment in Dolores which is also located in Taytay, Rizal.
APNTS-SBO compassionate ministry financially helps her and her younger brother in their education, and her family in part of their housing. They are both attending the same school – She is in the 2nd grade, while her brother is in the 1st grade. She said that she has learned a lot from school, such as to write, read and count and dream. She wants to finish her studies and become a nurse; Finally, she told us her hope that she wants to get her family out of poverty.
As we are primarily students, what we can do is so limited in terms of holistic child care. However God is the minister of ministers.
Since this July, we started partnership with the Gintong Aral Program, one of the holistic child development programs of NCM. God is continuously working for them. We can do something as God’s co-workers even if it is small in your sight.
By Keeichi Nakao
