Montana on a Mission

Can you imagine trying to live on $3.00 or less a day? How about having to live with chronic unemployment, inadequate health care, insufficient food for your family, substandard education, and difficult housing conditions? What would life be like if your only form of transportation was your own two feet?
This is a reality for many of the people of Calunasan Sur, Bohol, Philippines. This month my husband, Josh and I are traveling as members of "Montana on a Mission" with a group from Montana. We will be working in the barrio of Calunasan Sur alongside two families to improve their housing, assisting local individuals by training and designing handcrafted items for sale to tourists, and setting up the first of its kind, Learning Center in the local barrio. All of these projects are designed to give this barrio and the families and individuals in it a chance to grow out of poverty.

Here's one story of how this has already worked. This story with some minimal differences is representative of many families in Calunasan Sur. The Acain Family; Ramel, Vicky and their three children had a home that was literally falling down. They had no water and therefore no facilities to wash clothes, shower or for a toilet. Vicky was planning to go to work in Manila leaving her family behind including "Be Boy" who was then two years old. MOM came along side the family. First, they and the other families were provided with two deep wells and several cisterns to supply water by a newly installed distribution system to each home. Vicky and family then had a sink, shower, laundry area and toilet. Vicky was trained to sew by one of our team and today sells her own line of clothing. She has named her business "Vanessa Designs" after her daughter and she is home with her family, not in Manila. Ramel is now employed as a carpenter’s helper and works making small wooden items in a new production center built by MOM. There is now hope in the family and the children have taken a renewed interest in school.

(images courtesy of MOM)

We are inviting you to partner with us by asking you to help finance these efforts in January. Each of us are providing for our own travel expenses and subsistence. Any donations will go entirely to fund the materials for building the computer center, library and pre-school classroom furniture, flooring, electrical etc.
We will also be building two homes for homeless families. Lastly we need to provide start-up materials for women to make clothing, handicrafts and small wooden items to sell in a newly established "River Hut".

Please join me in becoming advocates for these wonderful people. Montana on a Mission is a 501(c)(3) organization so all of your donations are tax-exempt. You can send your check, made out to Montana on a Mission, to me or contribute on the Montana on a Mission website through the Donate button on the front page. Please visit the website for more information. I will keep you informed about how your donation is used. In addition to working alongside the locals I will be documenting our trip and the local culture. Please subscribe to the RSS feed on my blog to keep up with our adventures. Thanks so much for your consideration in sharing what He has first given us.

God Bless.