Spiritual Topics from the Week and How You can be Praying: SB
Coming out of debrief our team is learning a lot about each other. We are re-energized about praying together each morning and just working on going deeper in our friendships. During debrief we were blessed to have Seth and Karen Barnes here to meet with us as a team, a larger squad and as individuals. They gave us some great practical advice about how to run meetings, how to deliver criticism to each other, and encouraged us in new ways to pray for each other. We were particularly challenged by Seth’s talk how the World Race is part of the process of coming alive and finding our identities in Christ. God wants us to be broken as part of this refining process so we can gain dependence on Him. Brokenness hurts but there is this peace that goes with it when God is there. Seth also identified this feeling of limbo that many of us have been experiencing. How freeing to hear it’s normal and what we signed up for! We feel like God is stripping us down and showing us glimpses of what He has in store for us… but we’re not there yet and it’s the constant question “what’s next?”
Please pray for:
Our ministry hosts this month: Jeff and Colleen Long and Family, Rachel and DJ, the staff in our house, Children’s home, and CCC
Our team as we work on building deeper relationships and community, help us to push each other out of our comfort zones, and to speak truthfully and lovingly towards each other
Joy and peace for our coaches, Gary and Nancy and their son Kevin with his cancer diagnosis
Our September teamates as they travel to other islands and get settled in with ministry
Ministry/Team Activities: LM
We are in Manila until Dec. 24 working with Jeff and Colene Long. They have been in Manila for about 16 years working with New Faith Academy, a school for children of missionaries. A couple of years ago their desire to provide a safe place for abused, abandoned children in the Philippines became a reality with the opening of the New Faith Family Children’s Home (NFFCH). The children’s home now houses 28 children and is hoping by next summer to have room for 40. Because it is located in a very poor area sometimes called a squatter village, Jeff and Colene make it a point to reach out and provide for the community. They have given the community water access including an area for showers. They have opened a school at the Cuatro Community Center (CCC) for the children at NFFCH as well as the ones in the neighborhood who cannot afford to go to public school. The school also houses a free dental and medical clinic and on the roof is a basketball court/indoor soccer court opened to the public. This is a community with many needs and Jeff and Colene are constantly seeking ways to expand and grow to help the largest number of people possible. They are excited to have our team here and we are very excited about being here.
We will be helping Jeff and Colene through a variety of ways. Jackie and Colleen will be teaching in the morning at the school (CCC) Monday thru Thursday. Sarah will be helping out at NFFCH as well as using her rugby talent to help coach the New Faith Academy Rugby team and build relationships with the girls on the team. Danny, Kyle, and Colleen are helping to make a drainage ditch and build outhouses to keep the sewage off the streets and allow for a healthier environment. Danny has also been asked to use his web designing gifts to help improve the Kids International Ministry website. Basketball is the favorite sport of most Filipinos, and Kyle will be working with the sports coordinator at the community center to set up various basketball events where they can evangelize to the community. Lindsey will be helping out at NFFCH and has been asked to give specific 
attention to a child named Maricel who is 13 and has lived at NFFCH for about a year but does not verbally communicate very well.
Besides our individual ministries, we will be working as a team to help paint the building we are living in. They just acquired the building right around the corner from NFFCH and are allowing us to stay here while they decide the best way to use it. On Sundays, our team will have community outreaches at NFFCH. Also as a team on Thursdays night we will be in charge of taking care of the children at NFFCH; feeding them, cleaning up, giving nightly devotional, helping them get ready for bed, tucking them in, and staying there for the night. This is a very active community and it seems we will be playing a lot of basketball and volleyball with them, and will hopefully have an opportunity to take the children swimming twice a week. We have a lot of things planned for the upcoming week including watching a Filipino college basketball game, celebrating Thanksgiving, and Kyle’s birthday is on Saturday!
Cultural Quirkiness DG
The Tagalog language has been pretty sweet to learn for many of us. The Philippines were once a Spanish Colony so there are many Spanish words that are used in Tagalog. It has been pretty sweet. There are also some other fun words that have been easy for us to learn. One of them in particular is the commonly used phrase “mabuti”(pronounced My Booty). Mabuti is a response to the question “kumasta ka?” which means how are you? Being the cheerful team that we are, certain individuals laughed so hard that they started to cry when they heard how to pronounce the word. I won’t name any names, but I will tell you that her first name rhymes with Sarah. Then when ask to repeat the phrase, she cried even more trying to force the words “my booty” out of her mouth. Good times with Team Less.
