(New Year, New Opportunity)
This blog includes updates on CSC's Building Project. Haven't heard that the Children's Shelter of Cebu is building a new structure? No problem. Just:
As we pass from 2024 into 2025, our family and CSC have reached some tremendous milestones.
The new building, which will be called the Hope For Youth Transitional House (or "Hope House" for short), is almost ready! Thanks to the hard work of all of the contractors we've employed, our staff, and especially our Operations Director and Project Manager, Jerry Salgo, the new facilities should be fully constructed by the end of January, 2025! PRAISE BE TO GOD!
Hope House will have many facets and many uses, and our prayer is that, when completed, the Lord will allow us to glorify Him in even more robust, amazing, and God-honoring ways! It will be our most "public facing" structure, housing our office and accepting deliveries. It will also be the site of CSC's Independent Living Program which aims to launch young adults into happy, healthy, sustainable, and God-honoring adult lives in the Philippines, as well as our Semi-Independent Living Program which will foster independence, dignity, and self-worth for our long-term, special needs adults. It is an amazing blessing, incorporating office space, boarding-house style living for young adults, apartment-style-living for special needs adults, space and equipment for life-skills and job-skills training, meeting space for inter-agency meetings with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the Area-Based Standards Network (ABSNet), and much, much more.
But more than all of that, this structure is a witness and testimony of God's love and YOUR LOVE: it is evidence of the undying, tremendously generous, and selfless love and sacrifice of folks around the world who have made the construction of this building possible. Thanks to the generosity and prayers of folks like you, we've been able to lay brick after brick to get us to where we are today. From the bottom of all of our hearts, THANK YOU!
But more than all of that, this structure is a witness and testimony of God's love and YOUR LOVE ...
The completion of Hope House represents not only a new home, but also a new chapter and new opportunities for our older kids. This new year brings with it endless new opportunities THANKS TO YOU. We have older kids that are working hard to become engineers, graphic artists, architects, pilots, etc. ... kids who will have their dreams fostered by the services and training we can provide in this new space.
Just last month, a group of older kids (the future residents of Hope House) helped to bring dirt and soil up to the roof-top garden which will be used to grow produce for the residents to use and/or sell (see pics below). Please continue praying with us for all of these amazing kids and for this very final leg of the construction.
We'd like to give a special thank you and shout out to Principal Architect Mike Torres, Ar. Yvette Doguiles, Ar. Melanie Manlangit, and Ar. Chrislin Heyrosa of ArchiGlobal, Inc, JJ & EE Construction Supply and Development Services, One Urban Construction, all of our suppliers including Arbor Vitae (Green Antz Builders), Cebu Bionic Builder Supply, and many, many more that aren't named here ... all of our contractors and subcontractors, and of course THANK YOU to all of our donors, supporters, and prayer warriors. Soli Deo Gloria!
FUN FACT: We reclaimed as much of the original structure (the original home that stood on the site) as possible, incorporating it into the new build. This ceiling material/accent was reclaimed from the hard wood flooring of the old home. This home which CSC rented for decades was the original site of the Cherne Home back before CSC moved all of the houses to the land it purchased for its current location.
MILESTONES
Our family New Year celebration was something else! This year we stayed in, but the view from our roof-top didn't disappoint. It was while we were up there that we reflected on the fact that we had been in the Philippines now for 5 year. 5 YEARS! Praise be to God, and thank you all for supporting us through it all! Every time we think of all of the folks who are praying for us and supporting us, it provides an encouragement and a strength that can't be put into words.
If you asked us 10 years ago where we would be, we couldn't have imagined that we'd be serving the Lord and serving kids in Cebu while watching fireworks over Cebu City. We are so thankful that we can be used by God in this way, and we are thankful that we can do it in partnership with all of you. HAPPY 2025!!!
5 YEARS! Praise be to God, and thank you all for supporting us through it all!
At CSC, we honored our workers who have served for more than 20 years, 25 years, 30 years, and even 35 years! Our longest serving worker has served at CSC for 37 years!!! God has always brought the right people at the right time to serve Him at the Children's Shelter of Cebu. During our Christmas Party, we handed these awards to these amazing servants of God (their names are blotted out for privacy, but you know who you are ... THANK YOU!).
In our next blog, we'll go into some of the details of the amazing things that happened right at the end of 2024. In the mean-time, here is a picture of what sunset looks like at the Children's Shelter of Cebu. May the Lord bless, lead, and guide you all as we journey together into 2025!
PRAYER REQUESTS:
This year, one of our prayer requests is that we would be much more intentional and protective of our family time. Part of this is resuming our regular Wednes-dates with the kids. Please pray with us that we can attain a good and healthy "work-life balance."
A while back I wrote a blog post about one of the kids that just arrived at the Shelter (you can find the post here). By the grace of God, this little guy has just been matched for adoption with a local family from Liloan, Cebu! Please continue to pray for him and his new parents as they start this amazing new chapter in their lives!
Learn more about the Children's Shelter of Cebu here.
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