A Small Piece of the Philippines

Where do I even start?? (Sighs!) I really do not even know where to begin
on the Philippines which is why I have not written one thing about it yet. 

We started out the month having a four day debrief with our squad leaders and coaches. It was our first actual debrief so, it was just a time to reenergize and let them check up on us to make sure we were okay. It was nice to hear how everyone else’s months had gone and catch up with all of our squad. We also found out we would be staying with our entire team for the month and have the opportunity to do a lot of different ministries together. 

Some of the other ministries that I participated in throughout the month were going to feed children, helping out at the orphanage that was onsite, helping out at the onsite school, playing with kids in the community, getting to know the other staff at KIM ministries, connecting with locals in the community, met a market vendor named Janet that we
ministered to on a regular basis, praying in the 24/7 prayer shack and

We also had the opportunity to run in a 5k race which about 30 of us participated in for Habitat for Humanity and we went to visit Michelle’s 92 year old grandfather who is from the Philippines. He is a beautiful little man who looks like he’s 50 years old and the rest of her family showed us nothing but amazing hospitality and welcomed us in just like family. It was definitely a nice break for our team and actually the one and only time we were alone just the six of us as a team before the team changes took place. Rollie, one of our ministry contacts, took us to the Vietnam War monuments to see all of the names and graves of the American soldiers who passed away there. It was a pretty powerful experience seeing the hundreds and hundreds of white crosses everywhere. It definitely becomes real when you are able to see things like that. Our squad leaders also planned us a one day beach trip with the entire squad before moving onto Cambodia which was an amazing time to relax and spend quality time together without thinking about everything else for a day. 

The month was absolutely amazing. God showed up in every possible way and definitely rocked my world. He broke my heart for the people there, showed me His dwelling place, showed me the pure joy of the people’s hearts, showed me the power of prayer, opened my heart up even more to adoption, taught me even more about the world and where He desires us to be and so much more. He blew me away there in every possible way. It is hard for me to even write about because there is still too much for me to process or express on a page. I am going to be posting separate blogs about each part of the ministries I participated in but it might take me a while to get them all up so, please bare with me because they are definitely worth following up on. 

I love each and every one of you and cannot thank you enough for all of your love and support. It blows me away and I am so thankful that God has blessed my life with such amazing people. I cannot wait to see you all and definitely can’t believe we are about to go into our fifth month already. God is doing awesome things on this trip and also at home. He is so powerful and it is a crazy honor to get to see Him work in so many people’s lives each and every day.