When I first landed in the Philippines 5 months ago and I got to experience the village we were living in and how the people there lived, it changed me. It changed me for the better because I got to see Gods love and joy more than I ever have, in people poorer than I have ever seen. I got to see that no matter how much or how little you have in material objects it will never define your happiness. Only the knowledge of the love your creator has for you can do that. I also thought by the end of the month that I was done learning about this in that way, but of course I was wrong.
After leaving Asia and arriving in Lilongwe, Malawi in the Southeast part of Africa we wasted no time getting started in our ministry. The very next day after landing we were headed out to a village an hour and a half outside of town to help finish digger a well to provide clean water for this village. Because none of us were experts in well drilling we helped where we could but most of the day was spent interacting and having fun with the people of the village. We got to do a lot of interesting things but my highlight experience was having the honor of killing the chicken that we would eat 20 minutes later.
When we got back that night and shook off all the red dirt and dust we had accumulated during the day I started thinking. Less than 48 hours prior to being in the village I was in one of the biggest airports in the world where I had access to pretty much any modern amenity I could possible imagine. I went form that to being in a village with no electricity, no clean drinking water, no modes of transportation at all, where they grew all their own food and where they lived in dirt shacks with barely any worldly positions at all. I couldn’t believe that one day I was in an airport where a bag of M&M’s cost 15 dollars and the next I was playing with kids who only owned one outfit and had never left the village in their life. But the one thing they did have was pure unadulterated Joy! Did these people have a personal relationship with Jesus?… I don’t know! We only knew about 3 words of each others languages. I do know that they were happy and that they showed love to me and everyone around them.
Why am I telling you this? I think its because even I (Whose seen this in all 5 countries on the Race so far) needed the reminder that people do live like this all over the world and they are happy despite how poor WE THINK they are.
This time instead just telling you I’m going to show you! I made the following video of me and my team are first few days in the village. In this video you wont see how these people prepare their food, do there chores or how hard their daily living conditions are. What you will see is all of us having some all natural, old fashioned, unedited, middle of Nowhere Africa FUN!
P.S.
Yes, there is a video of me killing the chicken and yes it is graphic so if you want to see that shoot me a text and I can send it to you.
