This week started off with our Welfare Services Conference which was held Monday through Wednesday. Most of the conference was held in a town close to Clark Airfield. This is a growing, planned development community now, so they have open, green spaces and nice housing areas (and hotels and casinos). We learned a lot more about our role as welfare missionaries and how we work hand in hand with the Welfare and Self Reliance managers for our areas. It’s delightful to work with these people who are so hard working, dedicated and also like to have fun.

Visit to Tribal Schools

We stayed up that way for an extra day so we could meet the president of the Rotary Club in Angeles and have her take us to two tribal schools that they are hoping to help. We were surprised to see a nice building there, despite the fact that you have to walk 30 minutes to get to the school. These are the Ayta people, who are indigenous to the Philippines. They have a lovely mountain area to live in and do some farming up there. They are poor, but to me, their lifestyle is good. I’m not sure if we will be helping them, but it was so nice to see their living space and their schools.