Letter from Compostela
Omaha Church of Christ Toy Drive for the Compostela United Church of Christ Philippines
read the attached word file here: photo-compilation-from-toy-event-5-08
LEFT: The Balik-Bayan box made it! It was pretty beat up, but it had been strapped and shrink-wrapped so everything was fine inside.
RIGHT: Pastor Sharon (left) and Jaila, the Sunday School coordinator, came over to our apartment to check out the shipment. Wow!!!
Another couple from church picked up the toys from our apartment later that day and took them to the church for sorting. The church decided to distribute most of the toys to the 60 or so kids who had participated in our Vacation Bible School in April. These kids live in an area in Compostela called “Seaside”, which is composed of squatters’ shacks with no running water or electricity. Since most of the kids have several siblings, the Christian education team from our church put 3-4 smaller items in plastic bags to hand out to each child. They made bags for preschool (boys or girls) or elementary (boys or girls). The larger toys were “raffled” – each child drew a number and got the toy marked with that number. Finally, a few of the toys were reserved for the Sunday School at church.
LEFT: The kids started by singing a few songs from VBS…
RIGHT: Kids with younger brothers and sisters were lined up first to receive the baby and toddler clothes.
BELOW: One of the recipients of the clothing.
RIGHT: Then the plastic bags with the smaller items were handed out. The kids had been organized by age and sex, which was an interesting operation to watch…
LEFT: Kids who have received their bags but not
opened them yet.
LOWER RIGHT: Peeking inside.
More pictures and notes inside the attached Word document.
Our small church is happy to send what we can. We look forward to giving again this year. Thank you for the kind letter.
