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Overview of Baseco |
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Ok, Baseco is a large slum area, or as they say here “a depressed area”. This is where we work and live. We do not live in the type of housing you see here, we live in a little bit more of an established area. We have running water and electricity.
Depending upon whose report you believe, Baseco is about 60 acres, with more than 15,000 families living on it. Large portions of the people do not have electricity or running water.
They are all classed as squatters. All the people live in various states of poverty, not all are the poorest of the poor, but all are poor.
Many of the children do not attend school and many experience hunger weekly.
Baseco was originally planned to be a shipping port, but squatters moved in during a break in the development process. Some people have lived here for 20 years, this is truly their home. They have birthed their kids here and they survive from scavaging the rubbish which is used as land fill.
There is a development plan in progress right now. Habitat for Humanity is building a large number of homes for the squatters. It’s both good and bad. The homes will not be enough for all the families, it’s great if you managed to qualify for a home. Time will reveal the overall effect of the development. It will take several years to complete, and so people still need help in the mean time.
When we first arrived here there was only two other missionary groups working here, Koreans, a Swedish group and then us. There was also a number of local pastors. Now there has been a huge increase in local churches, there might be 20 local pastors here. This also is both good and bad. Not everyone who says “Lord Lord shall enter the Kingdom”, amen. Unfortunately some of the local pastors are as corrupt as the nation they live in, and they use the poverty of their own people as a means to accessing foreign money for themselves.
There are also some excellent pastors, Ps Celestino Paano, is one that we work with often.
The Govt’ is building a large primary school, which is great and really needed. We also plan to begin some form of a small day care centre for pre-schoolers.
Baseco is a constantly changing environment, but peoples basic needs are the same day after day.
The basic need is Jesus Christ and the salvation that He offers. They accept Christ through the many mercy ministries that we and
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