Family  Ministries Philippines were able to end the year 2009 with great gratitude and thankfulness to the Lord for His faithfulness and goodness to provide and care for his beloved children as we came together with the Student Sponsorship Ministry (SSM) for a Christmas Party in December. It was a privilege and a great joy to treat the SSM students and families with wonderful food and dessert and to give each student and family a Christmas gift consisting of some food like 25 kilo of rice, and noodles, sugar, milk, canned goods, coffee and other things like vitamins, blanket, a devotional book or childrens Bible, T-shirts and socks. The SSM students all come from poor families from  squatter areas in the community and many families cannot afford even essential things like milk for their children.

The wonderful part of this celebration and blessing is that it was high school students from Norway who had worked hard to raise money for the poor children and youth here in the Philippines, as part of their yearly  Mission Project at school (An elementary and high school  run by YWAM Norway). So to share that all the goodies and gifts we gave the SSM families came from young kids and students, not from some kind of "rich" person made an impact on many, and even some of our own staff children were touched deeply and have now started to save their pocket money to be able to help more poor children.

We are also so blessed to be partners in God's ministry together with Family Ministries Norway. They have been a blessing to us here in the Philippines in many ways through the years, and last July they were able to collect a big offering for Family Ministries Philippines in two of their Family Camps and the money was sent to us last November. This big blessing is really a wonderful encouragement and it gives us indeed  a fresh new start for  2010 and we are looking forward to new ministry opportunities throughout the year.
So all glory to God, He is a wonderful and awesome God!

On behalf of Family Ministries Philippines,
Heidi Evensen