A Safe Home

Wisma was the first Badjao Duncan and Sara met when they arrived on Palawan – begging, borrowing (and who knows what else) with her group of street urchins.

Nearly ten years on, she has been married twice, abandoned and divorced and most recently widowed. All by the tender age of 22. So being able to provide a good home within the new housing block to Wisma and her two small children is awesome.

You might be interested in this extract from Duncan’s old diary about that first meeting...

SEPT 14 2008: It was very moving. I’d read the phrase “I was naked and you clothed me” but never seen it happen before. In town today Sara had stopped to give a beggar some fruit, when she became surrounded by street children, encircling her like cats around a fish bowl. One of them was the tough looking girl we’d noticed begging a couple of weeks back. Rather than a quick dole out and rushing on, we sat on a low wall and started to engage the girl in conversation, finding out she is a ten year old called Wisma and has four siblings.

As Sara gave her time, Wisma’s face softened like a fruit ripening in the warmth of the sun... then looking up, Sara whispered “Dunc, that boy is naked!” sure enough a lad of maybe seven years had sat before us on the street, a tatty T-shirt riding up to reveal... well you know... the poor little chap’s all and sundry. Without missing a beat, Sara squatted beside him asking Wisma, who seems to lead the little street pack, to help. They explained that Sara wanted to buy the little fellah some shorts. So off strode Sara like a Mother Goose followed by a motley train of bemused but intrigued goslings. Soon the lad trotted away to show off his new combat shorts and Wisma herself was rewarded for helping with a bright new pair of her own.

It was one of those moments, when God did something deep in our hearts, and I believe, gave us another “first” – for now we think no longer of “Street Children”, but of a little girl with a name, an ability to help us bless others and, we pray, a different future to that looming towards her. For when street girls reach puberty the slip from begging to falling into an abusive relationship or worse might be just one false step away.

Handing over the keys

The block of innovative new housing we designed for the Badjao – and built alongside some of their men (see Model Homes below) – is now finished at the new Badjao village. We have just had a dedication (house blessing) and invited the whole community.

Most excited of all were the 18 young families that now each live in a brand new home. Part of the dedication included officially handing over the keys to these families, who were carefully chosen as those most in need. They are predominantly young families with young children who are unable to build there own homes.

After the prayer blessing and a short time of sharing, everyone enjoyed some special party food. It was a joyful time for the whole community, most of all for those who had no hope of building their own houses, but are now enjoying a new home!

A place in the village

The new ministry centre in the Badjao village is ready for action. It is built in the native style, up above the sea on posts like the rest of the village, located at the end of the new bridge and the furthest out to sea.

Our KNA safe home kids put on a puppet show for the Badjao kids at the centre's opening... as you can see in the pictures everyone enjoyed it!

I have been busy with the chainsaw again cutting the posts that it is built on. The centre is not yet 100% complete, although the shell of the building (floor, roof and outer walls) are in place. The last finishing touches such as toilet, cooking area and windows are being added a bit at a time each week.

The centre was built by local Badjao people working with KNA team members. The locals brought the necessary experience to build a house in this style, as building a house up above the sea has its difficulties! We are very excited to now have a centre in their village. We have started a new phase of outreach and community help with a weekly education plus bible teaching for a group of the Badjao kids. 

We have many more plans for the centre and how it can help the community in the near future. Plans include family planning training, adult learning, and education for the out-of-school kids (most of the Badjao kids don’t go to school) – plus medical outreaches and livelihood training.

  

The bridge is finished!

Our six-month project to build a new 120 metres long walkway through the Badjao stilt village is complete!

The new passageway has been named Tulay Ng Buhay – 'Bridge of Life' – by the grateful local community.

There's a T-section at the end of the walkway, on which will be built our new outreach centre. This will help us become even more effective with the Badjao sea gypsies.

To see lots of pictures, click here

To celebrate we had a party on the bridge and held a special dedication. The finished bridge is four feet wide and contains over 1000 planks and 120 posts. It is sturdy strong and safe. It is the main walkway though the village and will benefit the entire population of 660 people for access to their boats and homes. And there are about 220 people living directly along the new bridge. 

The celebration included dancing with performance from the Badjao people as well as KNA team. Speeches from our team, Badjao leaders and the local government official thanked all involved in the project. It was a great chance to share the gospel to the community, and food and fun followed. 

The Bridge project has been a great way to build relationships within the community, and have a positive effect on their everyday lives. At the end of the new bridge we have made a small jetty area for the boats with a ladder leading down to the sea. This is to make it easier for the coming and going boats – and it's become a favourite swimming area for the kids. 

The bridge is extended beyond the current line of houses to allow room for the Badjao outreach centre we will build there. We are planning activities such as adult and out-of-school learning, medical outreach and teaching of new skills, plus Bible study and worship times. 

Visiting the Badjao is no longer a scary, dangerous balancing act along a shaky old bridge, so patched up with whatever they can find that  it no longer looks like a bridge. It’s now an easy walk down a wide safe walkway that doesn’t move. Now this project is complete it has opened the door to be able to work within the community itself, an exciting time.

The bridge: nearly finished

Our building project – a safe walkway through the over-water Badjao village on stilts – is nearly finished!

Badjao men are doing most of the work, with help from our team, under the leadership of Kuya Dong from KNA as project leader. The Badjao guys all live in the village with houses along the bridge. They are incredibly hard-working and want to see the bridge made safe for their community and their families. 

One of guys helping Kuya Joali told me how happy he is it see the bridge replaced, and he is happy to help because he knows it will make life for his son easier and safer. He says when the bridge is complete, it will make it easier to improve his own house and living standard as there will be a safe path to the house. 

The upright posts are stood in the water then sledge-hammered though the layer of mud to rest on the layer of rock bellow. Then they are sawn to the correct length, support braces attached and walk-boards fixed on top. The posts and braces are hidden from above. 

Walking on the new bridge, all you see is a flat platform of walk-boards – much wider than the old bridge and safer as it has no gaps like the old one! We are extending the bridge beyond the length of the old bridge; this is to make space for the KNA centre that we will build there. This however makes it much harder as there is no longer an old bridge that can be used as scaffolding. Instead we are using small boats or floating scaffolding to stand on while putting new posts in place in the deep water. 

It is great working in the village, and all the people are so friendly and grateful. Especially those with children, who were most at risk of falling off the old bridge. It is hard but happy and rewarding work for everyone.

To see more pictures, click here

The bridge... building begins

Building the new bridge has begun. The exciting work has finally started. I am very happy to see the wood which has taken months of preparation, being put in place and forming a strong, sturdy, wide bridge though the village over the sea. 

During our frequent storms, waves come over the old bridge which was built lower than the houses. We are building the new bridge higher, so that the waves won’t reach it. It also makes it easier for the people that often had to climb up into their houses; the new bridge is now level with most of the houses. 

You'll see in the pictures, We use the old bridge as scaffolding to build the new. This can be done because the new bridge is wider than the old. Then the old bridge is removed from underneath and many supporting braces are fix in place to make the new bridge strong and steady. It will not move from the traffic of people moving on the bridge, but also must flexible enough to withstand tropical storms. 

Progress is pretty quick at the moment as we are still in the shallow area, but each day as we progress along the bridge it becomes deeper, so the posts become larger and longer and the distance to carry becomes further. But it’s going well and great to be in the Badjao village... working with local people and seeing the difference it's making in their lives. To see more pictures, click here...

Load the trucks

Phase one of our project to replace the Badjao village walkway (bridge) is finished... all the wood we have cut down is complete, treated and ready to go. Everything that can be done at the farm is over and we're ready to start phase two, the actual building of the bridge! 

Three huge trucks came here to the farm where the safe home is based, and with the help of a group of Badjao men we have loaded everything on to the trucks. It was a huge task and heavy work loading everything on the three trucks. The trucks then transported all the wood to the Badjao village where it was all unloaded and the local government provided a guard for all the wood. 

It was great to see the wood arriving at the village after months of work. Everyone was excited to see it, knowing that work on their bridge would soon begin. Many of the locals helped with the unloading of the trucks at their village – it was good to see the teamwork and joy on everyone’s faces. I was given the

task of counting and checking all the wood was loaded and unloaded safely and that it all made it to its destination.

Back soon with the start of the construction work! To see more pics, click here

Working Together

We're getting closer to rebuilding a safe main walkway through the village of the Badjao people, built on stilts over the sea at nearby Puerto Princessa. 

A group of Badjao regularly come to the farm to help with the huge amount of work in turning trees into cut planks and posts. Dong and I are busy everyday felling, chopping and slicing trees into planks and posts, but it is a lot of work. Things speed up when the Badjao come and help with the heavy work and I enjoy seeing how everyone works together and the area becoming a hive of activity.

Leftover posts and offcut slabs are very useful to use here on the farm, as well as smaller branches which we can use as cooking wood. Leaves go to the compost. We also collect up the sawdust which will be used for growing edible mushrooms. Larger logs that cannot be used are kept to one side and can be used to make charcoal... none of the wood is wasted!

Around 1,000 planks of various sizes are need to become walkboards and braces for the bridge. Bark has been removed from more than 100 posts and finally all the finished wood is treated before it is ready for use on the bridge. It is a massive project to help the Badjao people and it is great that we can work together on it.

Lots has been completed over the last couple of months and I have finished all the felling and chopping of the trees and most of the slicing, but it will take another one or two months to get everything ready to be moved to their village in one go in several large trucks.

To see lots more pictures, click here

Timber-r-r-r-r-r-r

The felling and cutting up of trees is now in full swing to produce all the timber we need to replace the walkway that runs through the middle of the Badjao village, built on stilts over the sea.

The sound of the farm animals has been replaced by the roar of a chainsaw and crash of falling trees. You can see me here working with Dong to cut down a total of about 60 trees over about a six week period. Because we have many children and animals here on the farm, we don’t want to cut all the trees in one go leaving mountains of wood and branches – which would also make it hard to move between then to prepare the wood.

So at the start of each week I fell around ten trees and remove all the branches. I have a chainsaw licence and relevant experience, so I am doing all the chainsaw work. Then the long trunks can be measured and marked for me to cut into the correct log lengths. 

After that, the clearing team (some of us from the team with some Badjao) chops up and tidies away all the branches and moves all the wood to its correct stacks... large wood, posts, wood for cooking on and compost etc. Every part of the tree can be used and is not wasted; what is not used for the Badjao project can be used on the farm or for cooking. 

Then we slice up the large wood into slabs and planks, much of which uses the chainsaw and takes the most time. It’s then ready to be treated and used on the Badjao bridge. Once the area has been cleared, I fell the next batch of trees and the process starts again.

Much of my time here on the farm at the moment is working on this project, other than when I’m helping care for the kids. It is tiring work, but very rewarding and I am enjoying it and know it is for a good purpose.

Attitudes are changing

We’ve been welly-deep in rubbish, mud and human waste under and around the houses at the Badjao village. It’s preparation time for our bridge-building project here at the village and have been clearing several times over the last few weeks. 

Our focus is clearing around the rotting, broken bridge walkways which we will be soon replace with new wood. Removing the rubbish will make it easier to work in the area building the bridges. It is hard, smelly work cramped under the houses and walkways – because they have no toilets or sewerage systems, just holes in the floor that lead directly to the mud and sea bellow. 

Despite all the difficulties, I enjoyed my time in the rubbish. I loved the way we were there working side-by-side with the local people, helping them to clean and improve their village. We went in as a small team with all the gear and lots of the locals joined us and received the help happily – eager to improve their living conditions. 

Until now all of their waste and rubbish was thrown straight into the sea below, but we hope that way of thinking is starting to change – now that many of them helped us clean up. Already of the elders came along and said to those helping and watching that they should start to put rubbish in the bin not the sea – that others should not have to clean up their rubbish. 

For us, as preparation for the main project of rebuilding the village main walkway, it was a way to get closer to the community and give a small example of God’s love for them… and how Jesus can clean away all the rubbish from their lives.

Click here to see lots more pictures.

Bridge over troubled waters

More than 50 tall trees at our farm will soon be cut down – for an amazing purpose.

In the picture I am choosing the trees that are good straight wood in an area that will become a play area for the kids here. But that's not the main reason.

The finished wood will be used in a massive project to help the Badjao people, building a new walkway that joins all their homes built out over the sea. Theirs is currently rotting away.

The Badjao are a people group here on Palawan and found across the Philippines and Malaysia, They are a sea gypsy people that that make their living on the sea, fishing or collecting pearls. They are a very poor people living in poverty in houses built out over the sea. 

The main central bridge walkway through the middle of their village is needed for most of the community to reach their houses or boats, and is in very bad condition. The bridge (as they call it) is falling apart and is patched up with whatever they can find, but people are regularly hurt or fall through. So, we will use the timber from our farm to replace the bridge. Working side-by side with the local Badjao people, a team from KNA including myself will section-by-section replace the bridge over a couple of months. 

Currently, our ministry to the Badjao people is mostly working with a group of youth, bringing them to the farm each week for education work skills training and Bible study. However, after the bridge is finished they have said we can build a meeting area in their village. They rarely allow outsiders to build among them; it is a great honour and a massive opportunity for us. It is an exciting time and opens a door for us to do many more activities with them and help them more.

At the same time, our kids at the farm will benefit from a new climbing obstacle course that I will cut from selected trees made in to posts or cut into slabs. This will be one of my big jobs here at the farm over the coming months – as I have experience in using a chainsaw, I will be doing the cutting.