Category: Trip Stories

As the Finance Officer in the ICM Hong Kong Office, I spend most of my day on spreadsheets, filling out forms, and at the bank.  Last week I had the opportunity to visit our ICM base in General Santos with the Transform Program sponsors from Union Church HK. When we were visiting the Transform Program, one...

“I can’t say I came away from the trip feeling I’d had a ‘lovely’ time, it’s not a holiday; but I can come away from it saying I felt truly humbled and completely overwhelmed,” said Aimee.  Aimee and her co-worker, Yat Jing, from the Royal Bank of Scotland traveled down to Bacolod City to visit ICM’s...

Story and Photos by Suzanne Chu; ICM Trip Participant I first visited the Philippines with my mother when I was 8 years old.  We drove 12 hours in traffic jams to the house that she grew up in – a two-story house with no walls.  I remember wondering how it was that no one fell off the second...

Pam Riordan is a teacher from HK’s Kennedy School.  She recently joined a group of parents and kids on an ICM vision trip to Bacolod, where she participated in building homes for slum residents. “I didn’t know what to expect but was extremely excited.  On day one of visiting the slum, I realized exactly how...

The ICM Choir’s last performance of the 2011 USA Tour was held at Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta, New Jersey.  The Choir’s multimedia performance shared how the children’s individual stories of abandonment, hunger, disease, and displacement have been transformed by the hope of a better future.  As they sang their stories, they...

Dreams came true for the ICM Children’s Choir this past December.  The fourteen kids traveled to the USA to perform at the Washington DC ICM Banquet and at multiple other events and venues in D.C. and New Jersey.  The goal was to raise awareness of (and support for) ICM’s Philippine work.  They left a powerful...

Story by Tess Lyons, ICM Development Officer //  Video courtesy of Lynn Ketch, ICM Trip Participant  “Happy Birthday to You” is the most frequently sung song in the world, but not just because of the number of birthdays celebrated each day.  This is the song the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention recommends singing for 20...

“This is my second time going with ICM and I’ve been there four times with my family,” said ten-year-old Xavier, who was part of a recent group of parents and children from the Kellett School in Hong Kong.  Xavier helped build houses at the ICM slum reconstruction site and also helped dig a sewage ditch...

Diary Entry by Rebecka Kaltenbach, KIVU Gap Year Participant Camp KIVU is a Christian adventure camp in Colorado, USA where teenagers go to experience the great outdoors.  One of their programs, called KIVU Gap Year, reaches out to students taking a year off in between high school and college.  These students spend the year traveling...

Tess Lyons has been a dedicated volunteer with ICM for the past three years.  Tess and her husband, Charles Caldwell, are currently sponsoring their 4th ICM preschool. They have taken their four children down to the Philippines several times to visit their students and to participate in the ongoing slum reconstruction building project cosponsored by ICM and Gawad...