Remember that time I promised to post a blog soon? Well apparently “soon” meant in three months.
I have gone from Manila to Tacloban, Tacloban to Manila, Manila to Swaziland, and now I am sitting in a hostel in South Africa trying to sum up the last 4 months of my life.
We started at Kid’s International Ministries in the Philippines. Here I had the privilege of working with orphans and showing them their value, feeding the hungry and providing for their basic needs, I have worked with girls who have been taken out of abusive homes into a place of safety and refuge, I helped rebuild an area torn apart by a typhoon, and I taught street kids how to swim.
In Swaziland, we were on top of a mountain, working alongside a ministry called El Shaddai. This is a home for 52 children who either have no family, or their home life was abusive or dangerous. In the mornings we did gardening or construction with them, and after lunch we would just hang out with them, until chapel at 5.
But through all of these things, I have learned the importance of giving a part of myself. Not just doing things for people, but giving them something that can’t be returned- my heart.
At the beginning of this trip my heart looked like a toy you get on a Christmas. The one with the packaging that is impossible to open, you know the one? It is the toy where it takes every pair of scissors and every single knife in your house to open, and when you have succeeded, there is no putting this toy back inside the safety of that plastic shell.
I thought that by keeping that plastic shell on, I was protecting the impact I was making, that it would last longer if it were preserved and beautiful, but boy was I wrong. No child wants a toy that they can’t play with, that is a decoration, not a toy. The toys you remember are the ones you take everywhere, that you are willing to see get torn, and battered, because you want to bring it with you everywhere.
The Lord tore off this plastic covering and I was exposed all of me. All of my strengths and all of my weaknesses, my life could be used in it’s fullness. I could change the lives of others and they could change mine.
My heart has changed; it is no longer in the safety of a plastic shell. Each person I have met has chipped off parts of me; this means they have a piece of me, and they have left a mark on my heart.
Once my heart was a toy safe inside its plastic shell, easily returnable. No longer can I be returned, because I have been used and changed, my heart is a toy that has been well loved and experienced, and I will never be the same again.
This is just the beginning; we still have almost two full months left in Swaziland, and three months still to go in Nicaragua. If you want to play a part in my journey and help me impact the lives of others, you can hit the support me button, I still need approximately $1300 to be fully funded, but every little bit helps!
