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October 3, 2010 Day 21

El Nido, Palawan, Philippines

Rain rain go away….you make it hard for my laundry to dry!!
Our time here in the Philippines is almost up. We have this last week to make sure we served our purpose here. Sometimes…a lot of times actually, it’s hard to know exactly what that purpose is. That of course makes it even harder to determine if we’re fulfilling it. This month has been interesting because things here have been pretty relaxed. I think it’s safe to say that we have not had a typical world race month. This last week was especially odd because I don’t think I did much. The first half I spent it lying on my bed or in the bathroom. The second half of the week it pretty much did nothing but rain! It’s difficult to build a house in the rain. We had the opportunity Friday to work for a few hours on the house because the rain let up for a bit. I wonder though how much of an impact we are making to the other people in community. What do we look like to those here in El Nido? What do they think when they see us walking down the streets?

Erin shared a verse this morning with the team. It’s one that I have been trying to live out since we’ve been here. I’m not always successful but it was a nice reminder from God.

“Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” Colossians 3:1 NIV. Outsiders include different types of people. It’s not just talking about random strangers in foreign places. It applies to people who don’t know Christ. It applies to your neighbor in the town you live in. It applies to you. I think we should be wise also in the way we act toward insiders. What a great place the world would be if we all practiced acting wise to everyone we encounter. What a great place the world would be if we made the most out of every opportunity that God gave us. What a wonderfully crowded place Heaven could be if we lived out Colossians 3:1.

There are a few places we frequent here in our free time. (mostly because they have good internet 🙂 It has given us a chance to get to know some of the locals here and even the foreigners who’ve chosen to stay here. We met a German man who owns a local cafe. We invited him to come to church with us today. I was excited when he and his wife actually did 🙂 I hope they understood the service though. I didn’t. But that’s because it was mostly in Tagalog, the language spoken here. The service we went to last week was also in Tagalog. The intersting thing is that they preach in Tagalog but sing in English 🙂 I like that.

One of the local preachers told us that not too long ago his congregation was asking if white people believe in Jesus. And then we showed up. We visited the site where we’ll help build their church. They were so excited to hear that we did in fact believe in Jesus! Another pastor told me that us being here is such a blessing to the local people. The fact that we would take time out our schedule and fly all the way from America to help build their homes makes such an impact on this community. We are recognized all the time now. People know who we are. They know we are working at the GK site. GK means Gawad Kalinga and it’s the site where we are building. They now know that we are not here on vacation. We are here to serve them. I like that.

Much love from the Philippines

Michelle