Our House is Open!

Today, we celebrated the completion and opening of our new Refuge House!

We had to compete with Mother's Day, a typhoon, and a Manny Pacquio fight (which, when they play, always shut down the entire city, and gangs usually call truces so that the police can watch the fight).  But we still had a great turn out including most of our partner agencies, local government officials, and newly appointed Vice Governor of Cebu and Director of the Provincial Women's Commission, Agnes Magpale.

Everyone wearing yellow is a staff, volunteer or Board member of MRH.

Here a couple of pictures from the day. For more pictures check out: http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/16154995/1/2011-05-08%20Open%20House%202011?h=eb5c80

Family

I don't think I've ever talked about my family here, but you should know mine means the world to me.

I have four younger siblings... Kyle, Maralee, Karlee and Tyler. The age gap from me to Tyler, the youngest, is 14 years. Because of my often wandering ways, I've missed a good portion of the growing up of Maralee, Karlee and Tyler. I left the house almost 12 years ago, when Tyler was 3, Karlee was 6 and Maralee was 9. I went to Cambodia for 5 months, over to the Philippines for two years, then down to Texas for 5 years where I picked up a couple of degrees, and finally back to the Philippines were I am now.

I've missed many birthday parties, many sporting events, many choir concerts and plays, many memories, many life altering moments. And every time, I grieve a little.

Karlee is turning 18 in a few days. She's been the president of her choir for two years, and she having her final choir concert in the first week of June. She'll put on a weird hat and graduate from high school in the second week of June. And I won't to be there for any of it.

Karlee is one of the most amazing people I've ever met. She smart, witty, coordinated and athletic, so much fun to be around, and has amazing amounts of wisdom, truly beyond her years. She one of the hardest workers I know. She bought a car and has been working multiple jobs for the past two years in order to pay it off before college. She's been faced with challenges most people her age don't ever have to deal with, but she's strong and capable and  become more so with each challenge.

Last year, before I applied to MRH, I was talking to Karlee about what I should do next. I thought maybe I should get a job close to home so that I could be more actively part of my family's life. Her words to me were something along the lines of "We love you and of course we would love to have you close by again, but you should be where you can influence the most people, and right now, that's in the Philippines."

Karlee, I love you. I'll be celebrating with you from across the sea and counting down the days until August when we can celebrate in person.

Finished and Beautiful

When the crew told me they would be done early, what they meant was "almost on time." (If they would have said they'd be done on time, it would have been late). I always forget these nuances in Filipino time. But, I have to hand it to them, most of the crew has been working 15 hour days for the past 3 months in order to get this building done. AND, I keep adding projects for them to complete, so their attention has been diverted at times by the septic tank, water tank pillar, drainage line, parking area, and final wall of the fence. So, all in all, a project that typically takes 6 months to finish, has been completed in 15 weeks. It's finished, and it's beautiful. Take a look at some of the pictures below:

The blocks of cement in front will become an area for parking by the end of next week. 

Front Door

Dining Room looking onto balcony... currently storing a lot of our things!

Cabinet in Living Room

Living Room

Living Room

Staff  Bedroom

Counseling Room

Kitchen

Kitchen

Office

Top of Stairs and hallway

Stairs... a bit dusty 

top of Stairs

Night View

Excitement is in the Air

We are officially gearing up to open our new facility!  (More pictures to come soon.)

A brief look at our timeline:

1. Completion of the first House (April 18, 2011)

2. Completion of Phase one of Construction-- including parking, guard house, drainage, water tank, fence and other small projects (April 30, 2011)

3. Staff Training (April 25-May 6)

4. Stakeholder Open House (May 8, 2011)

5. Community Open House (May 9, 2011)

6. Officially Open for New Participants (May 10, 2011)

7. Completion of landscaping (June 30, 2011)

Everyone in the office is very busy as we prepare to open our new facility. But there is excitement there also as we begin to see all of our hard work paying off. It's been pretty amazing to see the miraculous ways God has provided for this ministry in the past few months. Can I highlight a few of those ways? (If not... stop reading now, because I'm going to anyway!)

1. We began building our facility with about 3/4's of the money we needed to complete it. As the second month of our project began nearing an end, I started to get very worried that we would have to halt the construction completely. Then, seemingly out of no where, one person donated $25,000 to finish the house! The next week, to our great surprise, one church donated another $20,000!! Which meant, not only would we have enough to finish the house, we would be able to finish Phase One of construction before we opened! I cannot express how grateful I am to that person and that church for their amazing generosity. 

2. A few weeks ago a Visitor shared a verse with us. The verse was Proverbs 24:3-4 and it reads "By wisdom a house is built and through understanding it is established, through knowledge it's rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures." Her encouragement was that as we continue to built our house, both literally and figuratively, to keep using the knowledge, wisdom and understanding of best practices. And as we do, God will fill our rooms, with those rare and beautiful treasures: Girls and young women who are survivors of terrible circumstances. 

3. The other day we were in a meeting with the office staff, and the CR (bathroom) overflowed into the rest of the office. As I watched each of the staff members (even the one who is 8 months pregnant!) kick off their shoes, laughing,  roll up their pants and grab tupperware, buckets, rugs, brooms and anything else they could find to move the water back into the CR (bathroom), I was so thankful for each one of them. We've truly been blessed with some incredible people to work along side in this ministry. I wish you could meet each of them!

These are just a couple of examples. I could fill pages with all the great things that are happening... Unfortunately, I have two weeks of training to prepare for, so I'd better get back to work! 

To all those I haven't mentioned, please know that your efforts have not been overlooked. We appreciate all our partners so much, and couldn't be doing this ministry without you!

Crystal 

Week 13... Almost finished!

Almost finished!

First Bedroom

Second Bedroom

Looking out the front door

Living Room Area with built in cabinets

Other end of living room, facing the front door

Kitchen

Balcony and Office Space

Staircase going down to bedrooms

Upstairs terrace

upstairs terrace

dining room, facing outside terrace upstairs

dining room, facing CR and staircase

downstairs terrace attached to bedrooms

Week 12--- Inside and out!

For a sneak preview on the house, and to show how much can be accomplished in a small amount of time, I've taken a bunch of pictures of the inside workings of the house. One week left to go before this house is completed! There will still be a bit of work to do on the drainage lines, guard house, landscaping and parking area, but everything will be completed by the end of April. Thanks again to all the amazing supporters who are making this ministry a reality.

Only one week left to go before this building is completed!

This is one of the bedrooms downstairs

The second bedroom downstairs

The dining room upstairs, facing the porch

Shelves in the living room/Foyer

Dining room with hole where the stairs will go. 

stairs and one of the downstairs bedrooms

After we put up some walls this will be a small staff bedroom and a counseling room

Front door and dining room

Back of the house, where we will put a utility area. 

Side of the house, with the water tower tank.

Water tower tank

Week 11

Week 11... Just a couple more to go!

Stay tuned next week for pictures of the inside.

Currently, our staff training and orientation is scheduled for April 25- May 6.
Our Open House for our new building is scheduled for May 8. If you are in the area, let me know, we will send you in invitation.

A huge thank you to everyone who has made this become a reality-- you know who you are. We are so close to opening those doors!

GPG

International Justice Mission (IJM) has graciously offered to feature MRH at their annual conference called the "Global Prayer Gathering" (GPG) To represent us on this day, Bethany Williams (Communications Fellow at IJM) assisted our MRH staff with the ideas and materials necessary to make a miniature landscape of what our new property will look like after construction is completed.

It's pretty amazing what plaster of paris and some creativity can produce. Can you see the miniature cars in the parking lot? We had a great time putting this together... although, I'll be honest, as the least creative person on the team I mostly just painted things that other people made. Thanks again Bethany and IJM!

If you have a chance to go to the GPG in Washington D.C. at the end of April, pay a visit to the MRH booth and say a prayer for us.

Good Morning

Language is the heart of a culture, any culture. As my awareness and understanding of Cebuano culture grows, I have the privilege of observing behaviors that, at times, delight me. Other times the things I observe astound me, but whichever reaction is elicited I'm consistently learning.

I began to observe that if I greeted someone without wishing them a Good Morning (or afternoon, or evening, depending on the time of day) they would find a way to stick the phrase into the conversation, either at the end or beginning. No matter how short the conversation or how trivial the topic, there was usually a Good Morning it is somewhere-- even over text message! At first I thought this was funny. Then I began to realize I was offending people by not starting off the conversation that way.

From what I can tell, Good Morning or "Maayong Buntag" is almost like a wish or a prayer for someone's day and life. And if you don't say it, it is almost disrespectful. If you don't like someone, you talk to them without letting them hear that you wish well for them. It's the same when you leave someone. You say Take Care or "Ayow Ayow" as you are leaving, as a genuine wish and prayer for them as they leave.

But my favorite part of this tradition is when people pray. Many times, they will begin the prayer by saying "Lord... Good Morning Lord." And it has such an intimate quality about it that I often smile when I hear someone pray that way. It's like saying "Lord, I love you and respect you and want you to know that I would never come to you or ask anything from you if you didn't already know that."

It makes me think I should tell God "Good Morning" more often.

Early Morning in Pasil, Cebu
Photo Credit: Amy Collins