As Jesus said in Matthew 6:19-21, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Father Oscar Camomot, who runs KAMAMA Orphanage in the Philippines, takes this passage literally by placing his treasure in the Lord and in the children he cares for each day.

Father Oscar Camomot trusts that God will provide for the children in his care.

In Cebu City, Fr. Oscar devotes not only his time to the 19 children that live at the orphanage, but also his small personal pension from the Archdiocese of Cebu. If the orphanage falls short from time to time, Fr. Oscar uses his own money to pay the bills. To a man who gives almost everything for the children in his care, amassing worldly treasure isn’t important. Fr. Oscar knows that if he didn’t use his retirement account when necessary, the orphans might not receive the meals and school tuition they need.

Fr. Oscar also lives out Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:25: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.” Fr. Oscar trusts that God will provide for him and the children at KAMAMA Orphanage. With his faith and leadership, the children at KAMAMA  understand how important it is to store up treasures in heaven, not here on earth.

Cross International Catholic Outreach is committed to helping Fr. Oscar meet his orphanage’s budget. We commend Fr. Oscar for giving so selflessly out of what little he has, and we hope that American Catholics will help us make sure he has enough money each month to keep this important ministry running—without using his whole pension.

Click here to read about KAMAMA Orphanage and other programs for orphaned children that Cross International Catholic Outreach supports around the world!

When Mother Joan Clare first held little Prince and Princess, 17-month-old Filipino twins, they were only 6 ½ pounds. She tried to give them food, but they didn’t know what food was. She tried to give them milk, but they vomited what little they consumed. She says, “They were both suffering from severe malnutrition…they could not speak, walk, or even sit up. They were yellow from lack of blood, and too listless for comfort.”

Mother Joan and Sr. Aura cuddle 20-month-old Prince and Princess, twins rescued from the brink of starvation just three months earlier.

She rushed the twins to the hospital, but she knew the odds of their survival were slim. The hospital found their blood so anemic it was like water, and Prince’s condition was the worst. His tiny veins were collapsing, making an IV or blood transfusion nearly impossible. Mother Joan says, “The skin color of Prince was a sickly, pasty yellow, and the look of death was on his face. I emergency-baptized the baby.”

Mother Joan knew it was time to call in divine forces. She pulled out her cell phone and sent a text to her priest, “FATHER WE NEED A MIRACLE!” His response: “I WILL PRAY AND HOPE YOU GET YOUR MIRACLE!”

The next morning, Prince and Princess were still alive, and three IVs were finally feeding nutrients into Prince’s tiny body. A week later the twins were discharged into the care of Mother Joan at Cross Catholic-sponsored Queen of Peace Children’s Home. She says, “God never fails—I got my miracle!”

“There are three ways to get AIDS: From your mom, from blood, and from unprotected sex. I got it from my mom,” said 12-year-old Farah, matter-of-factly—over the radio airwaves. Farah is an orphaned resident of The Rainbow House, an orphanage we support for AIDS affected children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. An only child, her mother died when she was 4. She is very open about her HIV positive status and was recently interviewed on a Haitian radio station for an awareness campaign.

Twelve-year-old Farah teaches peers about AIDS, helping banish the negative stereotypes in Haiti surrounding the disease.

In addition to providing shelter to 42 AIDS orphans and children who suffer from the disease, The Rainbow House has an innovative outreach program whose goal is to educate the community about AIDS. Their hope is to eliminate the negative stereotypes and unfounded fears that cause people to shun or mistreat children like Farah — the innocent victims of the AIDS pandemic.

The Rainbow House’s myth-busting community awareness program has won recognition by the United Nations as a “Best Practice” model for other organizations to emulate. For nearly a year we’ve been working with The Rainbow House and a few other partners, including Medishare and Espwa Orphanage, to roll out a similar approach on a larger scale throughout Haiti under a $4.8 million, three-year grant awarded to us under the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

In the meantime, the gift of life goes on for Farah and the other AIDS-affected orphans at The Rainbow House, where they find acceptance and encouragement, as well as the medicine, nutrition and care they need to live full, healthy lives.

Would you believe the patron saint of priests was a man of average intelligence who struggled with his Latin studies, failed his pre-seminary exam, and was sent home from school and told never to return?

Recently, during morning devotions, our staff talked about the life of St. Jean-Marie Vianney, in honor of his feast day as well as the 150th anniversary of his death. Never heard of him? You’re not alone. But St. Jean-Marie’s story is especially significant right now, as it highlights the theme of the “Year for Priests” that Pope Bendict XVI declared for the period of June 19, 2009 to June 19, 2010.

St. Jean-Marie Vianney was known for his charity toward orphans, the sick, and the poor.

It turns out that St. Jean-Marie’s claim to fame was not his intellectual prowess or eloquence, but his humble spirit, his dedication to hearing confessions, and his charity toward orphans, the sick, and the poor. He brought Christ to hungry souls by living as Christ lived, with purity and compassion.

It’s easy to feel intimidated by the enormous responsibility of caring for the world’s poor. But the life of St. Jean-Marie reminds us that God doesn’t need super-humans, just humans with a servant’s heart. They are people like Sr. Angela, the 80-year-old, wheelchair-bound nun who refuses to let her partial paralysis get in the way of helping poor young Guyanese women at St. Bernadette’s Hostel. Or Fr. Marc Boisvert, the former Navy chaplain who chose to move to Haiti and start an orphanage among the poorest people in the western hemisphere. Whatever their talents, whatever their resources, they answered the call, and God honors their obedience.

We at Cross Catholic rely on God to do incredible things through us that we could never achieve on our own. After all, Christ promised the earth to the meek, not the scholar with the largest IQ. He promised the kingdom of heaven to the poor in spirit, not the billionaire Wall Street mogul. The Jewish fishermen who spread Christ’s name to the ends of the Roman Empire showed the world the awesome truth that God is glorified in our weakness.