I love the Philippines.. which is one of the excuses I’m going to use to why I haven’t blogged yet. I have been 100% sold out to my ministry here. I waited for the time to truely say this and now I can, I’m in LOVE! I have found where God placed my heart and it is here.
The night I arrived, Jeff our contact, told us that he needed 4 girls to move into a different part of the ministry site to work with 5 teenage girls and 3 boys. He told us it would be our full time ministry if we chose to move down there. It was a serious thing. We were told we needed to be sure that this is where our heart was before we committed.
I knew the second he said anything about teens that I was committed. God has given me such a heart for teens since I’ve been gone and, Lord willing, I plan on doing a lot of ministry with teen girls when I get home. I took this as God giving me a chance to start that ministry sooner. So my first night I moved into an appartment like home with 5 teen girls, 3 teen boys, and 3 other world racers. We had no idea what we were getting into.
Here is a schedule of what my day looked like at the beginning of the month:
4:50 am- wake up and get coffee/pray for God to get me through the day
5:00 am- wake up the teens make sure whoever is supposed to make breakfast makes it (sometime this involves me walking to the market across the street with them to buy some of their groceries)
6:00 am- have everyone up with clothes iorned and showered and starting to eat breakfast
6:40 am- morning devotional with the teens
7:00 am- off to school
7:00 am- 3:00 pm- the kids are at school. Sometimes I would use this time to go to other ministry (feedings in the villages or working shift at the hospital with baby Cedric- a 9 month old from the children’s home here) or to plan our fun things for them (like weekend trips to the mall or fun suprises)
3:30 pm- the kids got home and we had to make sure they washed their uniforms (every day.. crazy but part of their schedule) and take them to after school activities. This is the time when our job got hard because they kids have strict rule to live by and like any teens they wantd to push the limits. They wanted to slip the wool over our eyes and say they could go places alone and all these other things they couldn’t really do. So after a couple days of disobedience we laid down the law and explained to them we aren’t stupid… afternoons go a whole lot smoother now:)
4:00-6:00 pm- on certain days we send the kids off to book club and karate classes
6:00 pm- dinner has to made and they all eat together
7:00 pm- homework, cleaning up, ect. for the next day
8:30 pm- in rooms
9:00 pm- lights out
***
So thats our schedule. Its a little different every day. And I no longer try to do it all. I wanted to do tons of other ministry and constantly be the one in charge of all the kids. I was crazy. Now I’ve made a schedule for all of us working down here (now including Robby- his help with the guys is awesome!!) and I feel like I can breathe easier:)
I’ve also seen that these kids don’t need stuff. I came in wanting to give to them and everytime I took them out they wanted me to spend my money on them. I felt I had to buy for them because ‘ who am I to tell this teenage orphan that they can’t have something’. Then I woke up. They aren’t orphans. They’ve been adopted by God. They might not have the family I would hope for each of them to have, but they have a huge family of Christian brothers and sisters who are constantly loving on them. They don’t need stuff. They need to be known. They need time. Thats what I’m here trying to show them.
I will be writing another blog soon that is more detailed about these beautiful children, but until then please keep them in your prayers and please pray for the 5 of us looking after them. We need God’s wisdom to answer the questions they hit us with and we need God’s energy to keep pouring into their busy schedules.
I love you all! Thank you for your support!
through HIS love, Rachel
