Wow, its been 4 days and God is doing so, so much here.
The World Race begins with Launch. Launch is 4 days of teaching from WR staff/leaders/coaches. Man, these teachings have been increadible. Learned about the 5 things we need for the race (traveling companions, the presence of God, a positive attitude, limited emotional baggage, and a willingness to change), about how to cultivate the presence of God, and so much more. Time of worship and prayer has been INCREADIBLE. We literally are experiencing Heaven.
Launch was at the KIM (Kids International Ministry) house and it is BEAUTIFUL here. Kim was founded by a couple from Kansas in 1991. We are so beyond blessed to have launch here. There’s about 80 of us living together (it works quite well actually). Myself and some of the other girls choose to pull mattresses outside on the pourch – way cooler outside. And the fun part is that every morning at about 5 am ish there is a market set up right across the street so our wake up calls are chickens, roosters, tut tuts, motorcycles, the smell of fish – yum! – and lots of other random noise. Our team has been doing 6:30 am runs; I am going to be in great shape by the end of this!!
The KIM compound is such a blessing: beds, running clean water, showers, toilets, people who cook for us – and it’s delicious food!, lots of space, lots of love.
Funny story: There are women training to be cosmopoligists here so they give massages and pedicures/manicures to those who sign up. Our entire team got massages yesterday (hour long, fully body for $4 USD) and then some of the girls got pedicures. My pedicure was going a little long and the evening session was about to start, so I’ve got one foot on one lady’s lap, one foot on another lady’s lap, all while I’m eating my dinner someone bought me. priceless.
Disclaimer: we are FULLY aware this is not the norm and our days are not going to be about teaching sessions and massages for a year haha.
Yesterday we had a few hours of down time so my team walked up the street to the orphanage and played with the kids. So crazy to me that we can just walk in and they let us play with the kids (the orphanage also knows the World Race and KIM though).
It is just so exciting how much I am being challenged and growing. God is definetly exposing things to me, like how I sometimes run or push things out of my mind when the really should be dealt with. The other morning during quiet/devo time, my mind keept wandering to a silly issue I was worrying about. In the midst of my sitting there lost in thoughts of worry, the girl next to me turns and says, ‘hey, want to hear some truths?’ ‘sure!’ i say and she proceeds to read me all these Bible verses about worry. Wow, thank you Jesus. We started talking about how worry is actually a sin because Jesus flat out says ‘ do not worry’ because when you trust in him, he makes all things work out for his good.
Random things:
– Jeepies (here’s how my team describes it: the front of a jeep, and the back of a short bus combined. except there’s no windows and there’s crazy paintings on the side. and the horn sounds like a horse/dog/goat/cow all in one) are way fun. took one to the waterfall to go swimming our first afternoon here!!
– my team is awesome. we laugh all the time and there is a lot of love and saftey in our group. (so prophetic our name, United)
– i am so excited about living in community with my team and how much that is going to shape me.
– the people in the Philippines are increadible – so filled with joy and laughter and love
Tomorrow (at 4:30 am) we are leaving Manila to go to Mindanao for the rest of the month. 2 teams are staying here in Manila to work with KIM, and 4 teams are going to Mindanao (another island in the Philippines) to work with another ministry site where we will be doing evangalism, construction, prision ministry, working in the orphanage… all sorts of stuff.
Internet connection is a little rough there, so not sure when my next update will be. like probably in a month.
Our assignement was for every team to make a movie with the prompt “I never knew….”
here is what our team made. enjoy, its pretty fabulous.
