November 27, 2012
It is hard to believe that one semester of this school year has already gone by. This has been a season of changes for the Kingdom Message School here in the Philippines. A new school board has been formed and it now consists of 60% Filipino and 40% foreign members. Both financial and administrative processes were greatly smoothed out, which very much helps the day-to-day operation and reporting. Due to the continual threats of the People’s Army in the area (the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines), we were obliged to hire a security guard to protect the children, school employees and premises. The teachers are very thankful for this effort and the children are absolutely thrilled to see a uniformed man with a gun guarding them. Since the guard started working with us, the discipline in school has improved also. We wonder why.:-)
We currently have 116 children in 4 grades – nursery, kindergarten, and grades 1 and 2. Nursery and kindergarten run two cycles each day (morning and afternoon), which gives us an opportunity to reach out to more children. Grades 1 and 2 have their classes all day long.
Out of 79 children that are included in our sponsorship program, we have been able to find sponsors for 56 of them. The sponsors are being added one by one and more and more children can get financial coverage. We are very grateful for this progress. There are still 23 children that are awaiting their sponsor. The remaining 37 children are able to pay a small tuition to help with the general expenses and cover their own school books and uniforms.
We want to thank you once again for your kindness towards the children in the Philippines. May the Lord bless you mightily as you seek Him in these difficult times.