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| Frankie Libre, former street dweller, tells of the changes in his life resulting from having come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. |
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| Former street dweller Nida Charcos (left) shares her testimony, with Angelito Gabriel, executive officer of CCT Inc., serving as translator. |
Frankie Libre and Nida Charcos, former
street dwellers, shared the stories of their changed lives during opening night
of the third Transformative Economic Empowerment (TEE), an international training
session for micro finance workers. The
TEE attendees are from Peru, India, Moldova, Zambia, Kenya, Sri Lanka Thailand, Uganda, and
the US.
Frankie told of life on the street, his
having to steal to survive, his being
involved with drugs, and of coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ through the
Kaibigan Ministry (KM) of the Center for Community Transformation (CCT). Frankie is now a worker with the KM
himself.
Nida, who was homeless and lived on the
streets with her daughters for three months, spoke of God’s goodness to her by
providing her with a steady job as one of the service staff at the CCT support
office. She said she will soon be a
homeowner because her application for housing assistance was approved by
Pag-Ibig, the government’s home development fund. (Read her full story
here: http://cctkaibigan.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-nida-charcos-story.html).
The Kaibigan Ministry has ministered to
street dwellers since 2005. The work,
which began with street side Bible studies and feeding sessions, has grown into
several programs and services that
include evangelism, discipleship, and counselling, skills training and job placement, family
reunification, children’s education, resettlement, access to social services,
and membership in a cooperative composed mainly of former street dwellers.
TEE is a joint activity of CCT and the
Ka-Partner network, a consortium of US-based organizations ministering to the
poor. The founding members of the
network are endPoverty, Five Talents, Hope International, and Peer
Servants. The training session allows
the sharing of CCT’s best practices and stories, benefitting the poor of other
nations. The theme of this gathering, held during the third week of October 2013, was leadership and
vision, and spiritual integration in micro finance.
