Tabitha: Food For Life is more than a feeding project, it's a long-term approach to changing the communities we work in. The children enter the program after a screening process that determines whether they are underweight for their age, as well as other indicators of malnourishment. We feed approximately an average of 85 children Tuesday through Saturday at our main location, plus an additional 220 on Saturdays at the 3 new locations we are expanding the program to. The children attending range in age from 2 to 12 years old, and as they grow we keep charts to show their progress towards better health.
Altogether, over 2,500 meals are delivered to God's precious little ones in Agdao and other depressed areas of Davao every month.

Currently, Tabitha: Food For Life has 4 operating locations, each with its own opportunities and challenges:

• Tancontian: This is our original location, where much of our current strategy was developed. Tancontian Street is the location of our ministry base, and that is where the children, averaging about 85, meet 5 days a week. These children come from the squatter community that surrounds our base and many of them and their families are involved in the House of Jubilee church as well. Since it has been running for years, we know many of these children well and have seen the godly character that is developing in their lives as a result.
• Rosemary: This is one of the three new areas we have recently expanded to, where we currently have feeding on Saturdays only. About 75 kids on average come each week to the school that has agreed to let us use their courtyard and a classroom for our program. This area is close to the Agdao public market, and being mostly a squatter community it faces many of the same challenges as Tancontian.
• Madapo Hills: This community is on the other side of downtown Davao from Agdao, but we have a good connection with a local church and the community they are reaching, which is similar in many respects to Rosemary and Tancontian. About 80 children come every Saturday to the program.
• Bacaca: We are partnering with another local church to reach this poor community along the Davao River. This location is interesting in that, although the population of the other areas is primarily Catholic, Bacaca is a more diverse community with several different religions and ethnic groups represented. This location currently sees an average of 65 children each Saturday.

Vision:

It's central to our program that we feed these children mentally and spiritually as well. The children receive tutoring, mentoring, hygiene training and primary health care all saturated by the compassion and love of Jesus Christ. The program each day is a mix of preschool and Sunday school activities, crafts, games, story time, lessons and some unstructured but supervised play. Building good habits is a strong focus, too - each child is given a toothbrush, and they line up to wash their hands before meals and brush their teeth afterwards. We take an interest in the school performance of the older children, and follow up with their teachers and family, and they get scheduled tutorials as well. Most importantly, God's love is shared with these children, who often come from difficult family situations, and as they grow we can clearly see the impact it has on their lives.

We also actively reach out to the families and try to involve them as well, through house visitation, assistance in health care situations, health teaching seminars, invitation to church and organization of Bible studies, and parties during Christmas and other special events. Some of the parents have become volunteers and help cook the food and supervise the children. Several have found salvation in Jesus though the relationships we build with them.

As God leads, we foresee this leading to more salvation among the children and their families, and to a spiritual awakening in the community.

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