SUMMER 2004



Home from the Philippines!

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May
June
July
August

Since returning home after completing my Junior year of college I've been spending my time in a variety of functions including but in no way limited to:



From June 2 to July 13 I went AROUND THE WORLD to the Philippines!! There I volunteered with the Missionaries of Charity sisters who run a home for children in Tondo, Manila called HOUSE OF JOY.
It was such a positive experience I cannot put it into words just yet. I was living in a totally different culture and right in the middle of a society that is incredibly poorer then everything I've ever seen in the United States. Yet there was an outpooring of love and generousity. The people were friendly and helped eachother.
Working with the children was absolutely a joy. They mostly had Tuberculosis and were either orphens or the children of parent(s) who could not afford to take care of the child anymore. When I arrived there were 48 children but when I left they had moved two houses together so construction could fix the other and there was more then 70 children running around and crying for attention in the small complex. I was instantly loved and accepted by them and they called me "Kuya" which means "Big Brother".
Leaving the children definitly was not easy and I've left some of me back there in the Philippines as I was a little father of so many of them. But it is also very good to be back home with my family and friends in Virginia. Hope you'lls summers are going excellent and are filled with blessings like mine has been thus far.





And now the summer's over!