On December 17, a New Year’s reception was held at the residence of the Consul General of Russia in Ho Chi Minh City A.V. Popov, which was attended by Russians and Vietnamese friends of Russia. Among the invited were the managers of the JV “Vietsovpetro”, rector of the parish of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God priest Evgeniy Tsukalo, representatives of “Zarubezhneft” Corp. and other leaders and representatives of the Russian associations, Vietnamese students of Ho Chi Minh city pedagogical University and Institute of social Sciences and Humanities.

On the island of Mindanao at the end of 2019, a series of devastating earthquakes occurred, there were deaths, many people were injured and left homeless. Orthodox churches located near the epicenter were not left without damage. So the church of St. Seraphim of Sarov in Makalangot suffered, but now its structure has been strengthened and all damage has been fixed. By the grace of God, this temple was already consecrated.

But there are other damaged temples. So the church of St. Queen Helena in the village of Little Baguio survived, but was severely damaged (by the way, the Roman Catholic churches located nearby were completely destroyed). Skew cracks appeared in the supporting columns and walls, and the concrete cross crowning the temple broke. At the moment, the church needs to be reinforced with an external metal structure, but the parishioners do not have the funds for this, since they mainly live in agriculture and are very poor.

Thanks to the help from Russia, materials for its repair and strengthening have now been purchased and delivered. We thank all the donors, especially the Christian book Foundation, for their financial support for the renovation and strengthening of the church.More than 140 metal corners were purchased, as well as rebar and other materials.

The miracle of Myrrh-streaming in Makalangot (Mindanao) has been continuing already for one month; now all icons in the church are streaming!
The Secretary of the diocese Hieromonk Korniliy has visited the temple of St. Seraphim of Sarov and has witnessed the miracle, fixing it with the camera.
After careful examination, he found that the drops of the Myrrh on the icons could not have appeared from natural causes. Together with Priest Moses Cahilig and Deacon Nicholas Salgado, Fr. Korniliy performed a special prayer service. Then he examined the church again and found that droplets began to appear on the icons, where they were not at the first inspection. After a while, these droplets became larger and began to form into rivulets, and new droplets also began to appear. This is a quite rare miracle and it’s wonderful that it is taking place in the Philippines.
We thank God for giving us such a spectacular sign of His presence!

The Department of charity and social service of the diocese of the Philippines and Vietnam, with its center in Tagaytay, publishes almost daily reports on its activities on the Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/ROC.Charity.Philippines/

Under quarantine, it’s difficult but very topical to assure the work of feeding programs for poor people in every parish, especially in Mindanao. Thanks to donations, we were able to restart children’s programs that also feed poor mothers and the elderly. In addition, donations were used to pay for medical expenses for parishioners.
Assistance is also being provided for the construction of a school for mountain tribes on Mindoro island.
In October and November, several powerful typhoons hit the Northern Philippines, injuring tens of thousands of people. The Department provided material assistance to victims in the provinces of Batangas, Quezon and Cavite.

There are many interesting people among us with a good set of useful knowledge. I’m sure that children would be interested in talking to them and learning something about the country where they have lived most of their lives (Vietnam); how to give first aid to themselves and each other; how to drive ships; how to make interesting videos; about music, mathematics, physics, chemistry, Russian, English and Vietnamese, plants, nutrition, maybe even honey!
Yesterday, November 13, a meeting was held in the refectory of our church for children and everyone. It was conducted by our parishioner – Maxim Chekmarev, translator of the office of JV Vietsovpetro.
Everyone listened with interest, asked questions, ate fruit and drank tea!