Well, my friends, I blinked and just like that we have
already left our first country and we are now preparing to enter the next. On Saturday, we will leave Hong
Kong where we are currently staying for the week and head to the
dark side of the moon. When we move, our
bags will each be a laptop lighter and all communication with the outside world
will be cut off. I hope to share
November’s blessings with you by Thanksgiving. I hope that you will pray for us as we go, but I also hope you can feel
my heart and how absolutely excited I am. I mean, seriously – this is cool stuff! Isn’t this the adventure that every boy dreams about?
Before we
are silenced, I just wanted to take a look back at the Philippines. For the past month, I have chased (or been
chased by) spiders, lizards, cockroaches, and rats through a school in the
middle of the dumps. I have taped labels
on thousands of books and helped arrange some of them on the shelves. I have dug through dirty, water-damaged boxes
to help clean a storage room. I have
helped lead chaotic soccer practices and seen children worship. I have gotten to know my team better and
deeper, and I have been a jungle gym for children. I have gotten dirty, smelly, and gross. When you think about it, I really haven’t
done that much.
As for my
team, Judah, and partner in crime for the month in Libre, we have a little more
to share. We have turned a trash-filled
room into an actual library fit for the expanding of children’s minds. We have taught Filipino teachers English and
brought Christ’s light to the dumps. We
have befriended numerous backpackers in our hostel and shared the Gospel
without shame. We have helped this
school run more efficiently, helping to ease the burden on these courageous
teachers as much as possible for the short time we were there. We have shared our stories, and seen at least
one 14 year old girl saved after having heard testimony and seen her mother
prophesied truth over the night before. Our tasks could have seemed menial at times, but we didn’t come with our
own agenda, but with God’s. We simply
followed Mother Teresa’s advice and did lots of small acts with great love –
Heaven, Hell, and the Philippines
noticed.
How about
the rest of our squad as a whole, you ask? Oh, I’m just getting started. As
a squad, we paved a trail through a trashy cut-through, enhancing one
community’s daily route both physically and aesthetically. We have held sick babies through the night at
the Children’s Home, praying over them and actually seeing them healed by
morning. We have visited a prison and
shared God’s love with the cell mates. We have ventured into the deepest parts of the community where even local
Christians would not go and established relationships with them. We have laid the foundations and begun the
construction for a new children’s home. Some of our girls went to a house for former/current recovering
prostitutes, sharing love and showing a different way. And everywhere we went, we have reached out
to the ones to whom Heaven belongs – the children of the earth; swinging them,
lifting them into the air, playing with them, or simply showing them
affection.
As one, I
am human. I get tired and
frustrated. I am weak and I am
nothing. As a squad – the body of Christ
– we are moving mountains, reclaiming dominion over this world as God’s
territory with every step we take. This
is what being a part of something bigger than yourself is all about, and why I
have no problem using the word “we” for things I didn’t actually do. This is what following God and going filled
with His love is all about. Do you see
the trend expanding as the group gets bigger? We were ALL made to work together in the Body of Christ. As the body gets bigger and more unified,
life just gets more and more exciting. So my only question now is, when I do a review of November, what will be
your story to add to the list? And just
remember, it has nothing to do with what you do, but everything to do with how
much love with which you do it. So, Philippines
in review? We have done nothing. WE ARE.
More pictures will come in a month. I will talk to you again on Turkey Day. Until then, it’s lights out.
~LOVE~
