Being a brother's keeper

 

A small group of church members gave up their Sunday afternoon today to make a plan to help a family in need. Most of them are working, fully committed to their own families and serving in many ways at church. Yet, they chose to step outside their own busy lives to see how they can help others in need. I'm so humbled by this amazing group, stepping into the Safe Families programme. They offered resources and strategies to help others who could probably never pay them back. 

When I looked into bringing Safe Families for Children to the Philippines, I thought we would face a big task to get people motivated to help others.

I was wrong. 

What I have found is that many are already helping their neighbours, friends and strangers with the resources they have to hand. When they heard about Safe Families, they were grateful that there was a model for a support structure for something that they'd already been doing. This recognised their efforts and looked to draw the wider church into the work they were already doing. The work we're doing right now is to build team dynamics where the members helping support each other as they reach out to families in need. What a joy it was to hear them sharing ideas and get excited about giving this family a new lease on life. 

A Year of Resilience, Growth, and Hope

I can easily say that 2025 was a defining year for 4Freedom Philippines Inc. It is marked, not by ease, but by extraordinary resilience. What began as a year of strategic growth was dramatically reshaped on September 30, when a 6.9-magnitude earthquake struck Northern Cebu, followed soon after by Typhoon Tino. 

Amid devastation, displacement, and uncertainty, one thing remained constant: our commitment to safeguarding children and strengthening families.

At its core, 4Freedom Philippines exists to protect families from exploitation and abuse through prevention, intervention, and collaboration. This year, those pillars were tested—and proven strong. When disaster struck, our team pivoted immediately from regular programming to emergency response. In partnership with local churches, mental health professionals, and fellow NGOs, we supported 420 households with essential relief goods and provided Psychological First Aid to earthquake and typhoon survivors. Our staff also assisted local authorities during active search and retrieval operations, embodying both compassion and courage on the ground.

Alongside emergency response, 2025 marked a major step forward in institutional legitimacy. 4Freedom Philippines secured its DSWD Certificate of Registration and License to Operate, affirming our compliance with national social welfare standards. Later in the year, we were granted a National Public Solicitation Permit, enabling us to mobilize resources on a national scale and ensuring sustainability for years to come. These milestones strengthened our foundation and expanded our capacity to serve the most vulnerable.

Even in the midst of crisis, our ministry programs continued to grow. Through Play Therapy Philippines, sixteen professionals completed an intensive post-graduate training course, and four fully functional play therapy rooms were maintained across Metro Cebu. Church partners and caregivers were equipped through seminars in play therapy, sand story skills, and trauma-informed care—multiplying the impact far beyond our immediate team.

The Alongsiders Ministry also reached a significant milestone in 2025. Across 15 partner churches in the Visayas, 132 Alongsider–Little Brother/Sister pairs were mobilized, offering consistent, relational support to isolated children. The ministry celebrated its first annual camp and graduation and received the Green Mango Stage Award for surpassing 100 active mentoring pairs—a powerful testament to the local church stepping into the lives of children with faithfulness and love.

Meanwhile, Safe Families for Children Philippines was officially launched, mobilizing volunteers to support family preservation and crisis care. Core trainings, leadership development, and international partnerships—particularly through engagement with Safe Families USA—laid the groundwork for future expansion while keeping children safely connected to family and community whenever possible.

Throughout the year, 4Freedom Philippines strengthened strategic partnerships, remaining active in networks such as DSWD ABSNet, the Children’s NGO Network, the Philippine Mental Health Association, and YWAM. International engagements in Thailand and the United States brought global best practices home, enriching local programs with broader perspective and deeper collaboration.

Behind every number is a story of faith, perseverance, and community. In 2025, with a small but dedicated team of staff and volunteers, 461 individuals were trained, 132 youth were mobilized, and countless families were reminded that they were not alone—even in the hardest moments.

As we look ahead, we do so with gratitude and hope. The challenges of 2025 did not derail the mission of 4Freedom Philippines, they refined it. By God’s grace, what was shaken did not fall. Instead, it became a foundation for deeper impact, stronger partnerships, and renewed commitment to seeing children and families live in freedom.

Culture shock

You'd think after 15 years of being in missions and 10 years of living in the same culture, we would cease to have culture shock. But there's always a surprise in store for us hiding. 

When you live in one place for your whole life, one begins to assume that the way of doing things is not only normal, but "right". As you travel and experience differences, these seem 'wrong'. Probably the most stereotypical of these is the relationship to time and respect. Punctuality in some cultures is seen as so important, people will break relationships up if the person they're meeting is late. They will see it as the person not respecting them. However this has little to do with relationship and more to do with the concept of time and the value of time. Time is money, they'll say. So they value the person or the relationship based on how much time they're committing to the person. However, this is not how people think in other cultures. I once had my car in the garage to have it fixed and the guy said it will probably take at least 2 hours and cost in the region of 500 Philippine pesos for the job. After 8 hours, he was still working on it. In my mind, I thought, well if 2 hours costs 500 pesos, then 8 hours will cost over 2,000. When I picked up the car, he'd been working solidly on it all day and apologised, saying the job was a lot harder and more involved than he was expecting and he had to replace more parts. When the bill came, his labour was still charged at 500 pesos. I had been so ingrained that "time is money", that I could not comprehend why someone would "cheat" themselves like this. 

This is when I started to learn that time has a whole different meaning in the Philippines. Take arriving late, for example. In the 'hot' culture, late coming is more tolerated way more than how we show respect to each other, especially to elders and those in positions of power. I only realised the other day that the only person in the Philippines that calls me Peter is my wife! I'm either referred to as Pastor Peter, Sir Peter, Brother Peter, Missionary Peter, but never just "Peter". So, turning up late for an event would be acceptable in many circumstances, but addressing the senior pastor of a church as "Jack" would be considered unacceptable. 

One such culture shock that we experienced when we first arrived was the mapping of places. Big businesses and organisations would put a pin on the Google map for their location in a totally different place to the actual location. It didn't seem to matter to them that their location wasn't exactly where it said it was, as long as they placed a map, roughly near where they were. In the first few weeks of being here, I came flustered to meetings at churches and events in my mind being "late" (5-10 minutes after it officially started -- a cardinal sin in my mind), apologetic for being late, but annoyed that the map was wrong. Nobody seemed a) bothered that I was late and b) that the map was wrong! 

Bring that forwards to this weekend, where we tried out a brand new shopping mall near the airport. In a not too uncommon event, some of us needed the bathroom and sought to find it, only to find the signs pointed in every direction but the bathroom, yet there were plenty of signs proclaiming to show you where the bathrooms were. 

My son spotted this as an opportunity to make a short video clip to share online of this cultural experience:

Listening for God’s Heart: Walking with a Family in Crisis

Ok... I know... this is an AI created image (even the logo is a bit wrong!), but it's hard to include pictures in the blog (which is publicly available resource) which shows the actual work, as we want to maintain the dignity and integrity of the work. 

In our Safe Families work, we are continually reminded that responding to poverty and crisis is not just about action, but about listening. That’s listening first in prayer, then to the families He places before us.

Recently, a new family was entrusted to the Safe Families team at Bradford Church. With so many families living in deep poverty, the needs can feel overwhelming. It is often hard to know who to help and how to help well. Rather than rushing ahead, our social worker brought several referrals to the newly formed team and invited them to pray, asking God to lead them to the family He was calling them to walk alongside.

After prayerful discernment, the team chose one family and took their first step of faith. They visited the family in their community and shared a simple meal together at Jollibee. In that small act of presence, eating together, listening, and learning names and stories, relationship began to grow. On the newly created Safe Families group chat, they discussed their anticipation and ideas of how they can help.

The family lives in a congested slum area where four people share a single room. Poor sanitation and the absence of privacy make daily life exhausting and fragile. This kind of poverty quietly wears people down, affecting not only physical health but also emotional and spiritual well-being. Yet this reality is all too common, and when families reach a breaking point, there is often little government support and uncertainty within churches about how to respond.

Safe Families exists to meet families in these moments. Not with quick fixes, but with compassion, humility, and partnership. We believe God is already at work in each family, and our role is to come alongside, listen carefully, and discern together what hope and support can look like.

For this family, the mother does not have a regular income, leaving the father to carry the full weight of providing. Without a financial safety net, every day is lived on the edge, where one emergency can push the family deeper into crisis. It is a heavy burden, and one that calls for prayerful, thoughtful support rather than short-term solutions alone.

The Safe Families team will gather again to pray, reflect, and seek God’s wisdom on how best to support this family in the short to medium term.

Learning to take a break

Do you ever feel like the wheel is spinning and you just want to get off? I'm not talking about leaving life (un-aliving), more of a need for a break. I, like many, are in a time of my life where things are so busy with so many plates spinning simultaneously, that I don't know if I have the energy or the strength for the long term sustenance. 

But what is the alternative? 

Do I just check-out and stop doing what I'm doing? There are real-world implications for such decisions. It is a realisation that I don't think I can do it!

Right now, I'm running a growing ministry with a task to help poor communities at risk of human trafficking. We do outreach programmes for children, families and youth to be more connected and valued. At the same time, I'm a dad to four very different children, two of whom are home-schooled. 

But who's the home-school teacher and co-ordinator? Me! 

Then I'm also responsible for the fundraising, strategic thinking and growth of the ministry. Then there's the running the house (paying the bills, doing the grocery shopping, banking and other essential tasks). I feel overwhelmed, but I don't see anywhere within my capacity to let anything go. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not super human. I struggle and fail in many ways. And I'm not a typical "busy" person who uses it as an excuse to shun others I "don't have time for". I try to always have time for visitors and others, even when things are overwhelming for me. I rarely use the excuse "I'm too busy". However, I do often let emails and other communication lapse. I don't properly read communications (which has led me to be in hot water on a number of occasions!). There's a great book by Bill Hybels entitled "Too busy not to pray". I must confess, I've never had the time or energy to read it myself (how ironic!). However, the title alone is all I need to know about where I should turn. There are two areas which I need to change going forwards from here:

1. Return to quiet times. Although I've just spent a year studying God's word and I'm continuing the enormous task of reading through my notes and meditating on the deep revelations I was getting over the year, I'm oftentimes neglecting a quiet time to just be with God. 

2. Take a sabbath. Sundays are busy days. We help a local family whose mum is overseas working on a Sunday to take them to church. We have our "work" hats on when we meet with pastors and others on a Sunday. Saturdays are often family days where we're organising activities or ministry. Rarely is a Saturday a restful day! I need to discuss this with my wife, but I feel that maybe it's time for me to carve out a day in the week, when I just dwell in the presence of God and leave all my "to do's" undone for that day. 

God designed us to work. He also designed us to rest. Rest isn't about "checking out" (which I easily do) or doom scrolling or watching movies (which I also do). Rest is about dwelling. As Bill Hybels calls it "slowing down". It's about not being in any particular hurry and not caring about deadlines or particular tasks. After not working, I easily struggle to get going again. Yet, when I've dwelled in His presence, I find myself renewed and refreshed. I find my mood is lighter and my desire to serve much stronger. 

If you think about the encounter Jesus had with Mary and Martha, this epitomises this message. One was busy trying to "please" Jesus by serving him and preparing food (essential, especially in the culture), whilst the other just rested at his feet, knowing deep down that being in his presence was more important than anything else.