Children's Shelter of Cebu

My friend Joel works at the Children's Shelter of Cebu and last weekend, Ali, Lea (one of IJM's social workers) and I went to visit. Sandy, one of the shelter's founders and resident child development specialist, took us on a tour of the shelter and told us about some of the children that live there. There are between 70 and 80 children there at any given time with new children coming in and others being adopted all the time. One thing that's really neat is that they put a really high priority on keeping sibling groups together. So families from the US will adopt entire sibling groups. There was a family of 6 children that were all adopted and another family of 9! I can't image what it would be like to adopt 9 children at once. That's a remarkable kind of love. This shelter has 3 houses each with a set of house parents who live there. Sometimes even the house parents have their own children there. There is even a school that is part of the shelter.

We were there on a Saturday afternoon during the children's play time. It didn't take long before we were involved in their games. I played with several children on a monkeybar of sorts. And then, when I pulled out my camera, they were quick to pose for a photo shoot. They also wanted to borrow the camera and take pictures of each other. These children are so beautiful. Below are just some of the pictures either I or the children took that day. Click here for more pictures on Facebook.