I’m so excited and I just can’t hide it.
I’m truly excited about this month. Two days ago I couldn’t have said that so emphatically.
We left a “missionary retreat” in Manila and flew to the southern island of Mindanao. The new home is on camp grounds in a 12 bunk dorm style room just across a field from a children’s home. Noise carries and mud tracks. This island is damp and very very green! It is a totally different world from that in Manila. Initially I felt a little bummed out. The Manila home has a spa, weight room and pool. There are TWO American coffee pots and a rack of seasonings. It even has wi-fi and two washing machines! It really is a retreat center.
Yet, in one month I will be home in the US of A. I have mixed feelings about the return, but I am certain that God isn’t mixed up or confused about His plan for my last month of the race. I am staying on camp grounds. We don’t have a spa, weight room or pool. We have lush green lands, a super sweet hospitable house woman, and awesome contacts. We are staying near Malaybala at a kids camp area called Mt Moria. Atta Auprina is the resident house keeper, cook and sweet Filipino lady. Our contacts are two former World Racers, William and Tara, who married and moved abroad to build, work in and help Children’s Homes for abandoned, lost or disabled children. William is an Alabama boy, from Tuscaloosa, that attended and played for, The University of Alabama! (What a connection!)
As people who have literally gone through this experience before, William and Tara want ministry to be fun; they want ministry to use our talents and skills; they want us to spend this month working in areas where we are the most skilled, talented and effective….Yay! On the camp there are work projects to complete, reading programs to administer, meals to prepare, students to tutor, babies to love, etc. We have made a schedule to organize the chaos and make sure people are working where and when help is needed. Mark, the gentleman in charge of the Children’s Home, spoke to us and reiterated over and again how important it is to maintain as much order and routine as possible. It was great. He didn’t sugar coat his concerns, but spoke with us as adults. His wife, Ellie, runs the reading program for the children as well as the adult staff. She told us how God moved in her heart to get her to the Philippines. It was touching and encouraging.
My first thought was, “Wow. We are so different. She didn’t want to be overseas and leave her life. I don’t want to return home…” but what I learned the next morning was that God changed my heart as He had hers. Her illustration was of a hand, palm up, half open; it was still clinging to the things of old instead of being fully open to anything God might put in her path. I realized that coming into this month I didn’t want to work with kids. I love them, but didn’t want to be 24/7 at an orphanage or running a kids program. I am more suited for the order and discipline role than the ultimate goofball playmate. God opened my hand. He rid me of anxiety about spending the last month with kids and got me excited.
I am now scheduled to help in the Children’s Home almost all day, everyday. I volunteered to help with meals, reading programs for children and adults, devotion once a week, after school tutoring, and lunch time with toddlers. I am literally spending my days in the Children’s Home, the opposite of my intentions for this month…but those were my intentions. When I choose to follow God I find that His plans are exactly what I wanted and just didn’t know it or understand it. I’m excited that God opened my heart to new opportunities. I’m excited for this final month of ministry.
