A Fun Month

Jamie (the volunteer from Canada) poses with Child. She is helping in the nursery with the little babies and filling in where needed. She's a real help and a blessing to the children and staff.



This girl is learning to walk this month.



The nursery has lots of babies and we enjoy seeing them all talk with each other throughout the day.



Funny face.



The super teapot performance.



Our visitor from Wisconsin visits the babies.



Child practices the auto-harp.



We have 2 new interns in our farmers training program. They are both from different orphanages and will be learning our technology to help others. Jimboy and Leo pose with our staff farmer BenJoe.



Growing tomatoes and bananas on the neighbor's lots. We have an opportunity to purchase permanent property below us.



Pineapple fruit is sweet when grown with proper moisture and compost.



Keith, Narcy and Archie pose on a good hair day...

Door of Hope

The Miks traveled through the mountians to visit a new orphanage starting on the West Coast. It was a fun trip for us and our hosts were very excited to show us their vision for helping children from remote villages and tribes in Palawan. It's a well done facility considering how remote it is. We were there to help them with registration with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) on behalf of the Area Based Standards Network (ABSNet).



They also are interested in producing there own fertilizers, so we did some composting with the staff and created some future fertility to grow high nutrient vegetables on the farm.



Archie hiked and swam and jumped the cliffs. They have a beautiful stream and waterfall area with a great swimming hole!

A Mom's Overview

Sharon has been home schooling her 9 children for almost 20 years, with some now graduated and in the work force! She came to Aloha House with her 17 year old daughter to help out. Her blog is www.nehemiahmoms.com



"My daughter Kelly and I just returned last week from a delightful time at Keith and Narcy Mikkelson's Aloha House orphanage in the Philippines. Below is an exerpt from an email I sent out to friends and family who supported us.

...Our team consisted of Barb Palmer, an older friend from church, Don and Kathy Shire, seasoned missionary travelers, Kelly and me. Don, a professional trumpet player, was our team leader. His experience helped us make it through customs, flight transfers, etc. We were VERY thankful for his leadership, both practically and spiritually.

What we did on the trip:
Played with babies and little ones at the orphanage
Took them up over the mountains to the beach one day
Dodged jellyfish in the ocean
Helped the orphanage staff do feeding programs for squatter-village children
Cleared area for more garden space



Taught a few goat-care skills
Learned and learned and learned
Helped create the children's Lifebooks
Introduced the autoharp and recorders to the staff /children.
Sang at Don's trumpet concerts at many local churches.
Led a worship workshop for a small local church worship team
Led a homeschooling workshop
Enjoyed the cultural differences (communicating through facial expressions, pointing with ones lips)

What we learned:
Our primary goal in going on this trip was to serve the orphanage staff and children however we could. But a personal goal was to put myself in a position for God to do a work in my heart. He did that by showing me example after example of people with servant hearts, more pliable and less proud than mine. Kelly noticed this as well in many of the Philippine people we met. I now have a picture in my mind of what a servant is to be like, and my desire is for God to continue working that out in my life.

We learned that the need for a relationship with Jesus is the same everywhere, no matter ones location, situation or income. We met with believers who live near the dump. There are so many people surviving off junk in the dump, that there is a church there for those who are believers! Don led a service there. Kelly shared a bit while the pastor translated into Tagalog. We all worshipped together. What an incredible delight to worship our common Lord, even if we had little else in common. These are our brothers and sisters in Christ! And it seemed so as well. Don commented that as we approached the little bamboo hut, it felt strange and out of our comfort zone. But as soon as we stepped in, it was as if we were with family. Indeed we were.



We learned a lot from our host, Keith Mikkelson, who is a constant teacher, expounding on topics from theology to sustainable agriculture. We brought back ideas to help increase food yields of gardens and farms and how to integrate resources. At their orphanage, everything is integrated. The roof is designed to catch water that they use for washing the 200 diapers each day, and for filling the fish pond where they raise talapia fish for the children and staff to eat. Several worm beds produce "vermicast" which is used to fertilize the gardens.



The gardens produce food for the orphanage and the extra is sold to generate funds. The peelings and left-over garden produce are carefully fermented a special way to make more fertilizer and livestock feed. The animal droppings are used to create fertilizer. Several bee hives keep the gardens pollinated for better yield and also produce honey. So everything is used to help something else. It's fascinating. Keith teaches local farmers about all this, and we learned a lot too. I'm hoping to use what I've learned. This is a very specific and practical answer to a recent prayer of mine about how to generate more good foods at less cost for our family."

Mission Team Visits Aloha

Don Shire Ministries does short term mission trips with local churches and teams around the world. He has been in 33 countries working on building projects, helping orphanages and playing his trumpet. He came with his wife and 3 others from his home church. They are all from Wisconsin. They spent two weeks here helping at Aloha House and reaching out to the community that we work with in Palawan. It was a real blessing to see an old friend from my high school days, Sharon Duke (Carlson) and her daughter Kelly.



Narcy and I met part of the Duke clan on a previous trip in Northern Wisconsin while visiting a child we placed into a family. Kelly Duke was interested in visiting Aloha House when she gets older. So after a few years went by, through a series of blessings they were able to cover their airfare and expenses for her and Mom. They proved to be eager helpers with the children and staff. They saw all the babies that they have been praying for the last 8 years or so. Kelly has been following our websites over the years and was keen to learn as much as she could about culture and ministry here in the Philippines.



She was also part of the music team and was able to give testimony to several groups of Filipinos. Kelly's Mom, Sharon, was able to teach our son Archie and Abigail to play a song for the last night of the outreach. Sharon is an excellent teacher and loves music and worship.



Each night of outreach Don and Kathy sang on stage an opening worship song with Barb Palmer and the Dukes. Then Don took over the night with amazing slides set to music from various trips he's taken around the world.



Don Shire has many albums and enjoys performing to small churches or large crowds. He's a real adventurer and enjoys fellowshipping with Christians from all walks of life.




http://www.donshire.com

Visit his website to learn more!



Barb Palmer is a nurse and was a great asset to the team. She enjoy scrap booking and stamping with our staff and brought a suitcase of papers and tools to help out our Mother's with Hope program. As a grandmother she enjoyed all the babies and was able to spend time in the nursery as well as join on outreaches and feeding centers.





The whole crew helped bring the babies to the beach. The children enjoyed the extra attention and played in the water.



We saw some jellyfish and met fisherman.



The children get to swim and see the ocean and get sand in their toes.







The van temporarily got stuck and needed a quick push.



Down the beach they hiked. Always an adventure with Don, he will play his trumpet anywhere people will gather!



Time for a quick concert at the fisherman's village.





A tough day at the beach with the team.



Don mixes some microbes that help build up soil and create fertlity. They all attended our Sustainable Agriculture Seminar to see the technology that can help so many people. Don is on the BOD for an orphanage in S. America and he wants to help them to grow more food.



Barb with another baby. William is filling out and growing stronger each day.




The big event brought in over 500 people from the community and various churches in Plalawan!