We have been continuing ministry at the
orphanage for the last couple of weeks. However, our new main manual
labor project has shifted to constructing a church on the grounds.
It is supposed to be done by next Sunday, in time for Philippino
Thanksgiving, but weather this week has really delayed construction.
As of right now the bamboo structure is
completed, and the dirt is mostly done, but the roof is only half on
and brick walls are just started. Hopefully, the weather will
cooperate, and we won’t have too many setbacks and we will be able to
worship there next week.
The big event this week was an outreach
program coordinated by an English speaking church in town. They got
approval to take all the highschool seniors, who are 16 here, out of
school on Wednesday and present to them a program about Christianity.
Altogether there were probably around 600 kids that attended the
event.
There were 3 speakers that talked about
the Gospel, career choices, and sexual purity. After each session we
had small group discussions lead by one of us. The groups varied in
size and mine had about 30 people in it.
One of the crazy things here is that
they tend to place a huge value on American culture and hold
Americans in a high regard. It sounded pretty strange to me at
first, but as we have gone around doing different activities people
constantly ask to take pictures with us and act all strange and
giggly like were some sort of celebrities.
It was no different in my group at
first, but after I told a little about my story and about what I
loved most about the Philippines which are the people, the food, and
basketball, they began to see that we have some of the same passions
and are pretty much the same despite the distance between our homes.
I have really enjoy talking with
highschool kids and haven’t had too many opportunity since I’ve left
home. They ask so many great questions and have so much more insight
into things I just assume it really pushes me to learn and grow more.
I was incredibly fortunate to have a
little help from God during the awkward beginning to the small group
discussion on sexual purity. We were sitting outside the auditorium
where we had been for the last two sessions and it started to
sprinkle just after the discussion turned away from silly games to
the heart of the matter.
At first they wanted to go inside to
avoid the light drizzle but after looking around there were really no
places where we could meet. I asked if anyone was afraid of the rain
and they all looked at me stunned for about a second then shouted no
and ran back to where we were. There was something in that moment
that really changed the attitude of the group and we had a great
discussion after that about God’s plan for our lives versus our plan
and the world’s idea of what our lives should look like.
The day ended with some worship that
turned a little raucous and at the end it looked more like a rock
concert than church. Which is something that is completely uncommon
here because of the huge Catholic and Baptist influence. It turns
out most Christians don’t know that worship can be fun that you can
jump around and dance for the Lord and that He loves it.
I just love that despite the reputation
for corruption and whatnot the government here recognized the need
for the kids to know God and let us speak to the seniors who will be
graduating in about a month before they start their lives out on
their own. The principal was so happy about the program, he booked
next years date already and another school asked if we would be
willing to do the same program for them next week. I’m not sure if
it will happen or not because of the limitations of the Philippino
speakers and the fact that next week is our last one here, but I
would love to be able to reach out to more of them with the message
of Christ.
