Helping Traditions

An Aeta Chief with his son in a remote mountain area of the Philippines in Quezon Province.

A bridge that Helping Traditions Christian workers had to cross to reach a particular mountain tribe living in the Philippines.

Helping Traditions is a Christian ministry that was started in the year 2000 by Brian and Marianita Shilhavy in partnership with local Christians from various churches and denominations in Quezon Province of the Philippines. The original purpose of the ministry was to reach out to the unreached people groups in remote places of Quezon Province and other places in the Philippines with health, sanitation, and livelihood programs. These tribal areas were often overlooked by most churches that did not have the resources to minister to them. This ministry continues on today throughout the Philippines.

Some of the people groups we worked with initially, and still work with today, are the mountain tribes of the Aetas, the isolated island mountain tribes of the Dumugat, and the "gypsy" Badjaos who are displaced Muslims from Mindanao that now make up some of the poorest groups of people in the coastal urban areas throughout the Philippines. The Christian workers who went to these people groups were all Filipino Christians (there were/are no non-Filipinos involved in this actual work in the Philippines). The Christians who started this ministry were all from different churches and different denominations. Their strategy was to visit churches near these needy people groups who had a desire to reach out to them with the love of Christ, but were lacking resources. Helping Traditions would fund outreach programs to these remote people groups which included free medical clinics, health education, sanitary training, and livelihood programs to generate income. The sponsoring church would then provide at least one part-time, or in many cases one full-time, dedicated Christian worker to follow-up and work on an ongoing basis with the tribe/people group.

By 2002 Helping Traditions began partnering with other Philippine Christian organizations to expand their ministry outside the Philippines to other places in Asia. Today Filipino Christians are ministering to the lost and needy throughout Asia.

In 2005 Helping Traditions partnered with local Christians in Medan Indonesia to help with Tsunami relief efforts.

Our main base of operation is currently centered in the Philippines, where our organization is a registered non-profit company, and run by a board of directors that are 100% Filipino. In the U.S. we operate as an information vehicle for letting people know about current projects and needs. Helping Traditions currently receives no funds in the U.S., and no funds ever come into the hands of its directors, Brian and Marianita Shilhavy. All funds for work outside the US are currently given through Christian Aid, a U.S. based non-profit charitable organization that has been in existence for over 50 years, and issues tax-deductible receipts for all donations. You can read more here.

The directors of Helping Traditions in the U.S. are Brian and Marianita Shilhavy, who live in Wisconsin. Brian grew up in the U.S., while Marianita grew up in the Philippines. In the Philippines, the board of directors consist of:

Brian W. Shilhavy, BA, MA - Brian earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Bible/Greek from Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and his Master of Arts degree in linguistics from Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. He has traveled extensively around the world and lived in many Asian countries. He was the logistical director of Global Partners in Diyarbakir Turkey after the first Iraq Gulf war in 1991, coordinating the relief efforts among the Kurdish people in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. Today he is the CEO of Tropical Traditions, Inc.

Marianita Jader Shilhavy, CND (Certified Nutritionist/Dietician in the Philippines) earned her bachelor of science degree in nutrition in Manila. She also did graduate study at Philippine Baptist Theological Seminary in counseling. Understanding the nutrition of Filipino foods, Marianita worked for over eight years as a hospital dietician and nutritional counselor in the Philippines, using her knowledge of Asian foods to help people recover from illness.