Crisis,Poverty,and Survival in the Philippines: One Woman Finds Hope

Filipino women have traditionally enjoyed greater equality than women in other Southeast Asian countries, and women have played an important role in keeping families together despite impoverished conditions. One such woman is Rufina, who grew up amid poverty, and began working at the age of 14 to help support her family. More recently, due to military conflict in the countryside, she was forced to flee with her six children to the city of Bacolod, where she lived in an abandoned storage building with five other refugee families. Amid the crisis her two youngest children died, but through the seemingly hopeless circumstances, Rufina found hope through the ministry of a Christian evangelist, who was able to offer her medical aid and food supplies through a local congregation of believers.