Riding on the outside of a jeepney, which is one of the primary means of transportation in the country. Filipino’s certainly don’t fight to have this accommodation, as they would much rather prefer to actually have a seat on the inside. However, I had a blast hanging on tightly as we wove in and out amongst other traffic, vehicles and people along the roadways. Minus the occasional bug in your face or random sprinkles of water flying at you from the puddle you just went through, the ride was incredible! I got to see so much more of the scenery and landscape as we headed back to our ministry site one afternoon.
Toward the end of our month we had a night of fellowship with our Filipino ministry contact, Rhayan and his family along with the Pastor and his family who lived below us at the camp. Our team cooked and served them dinner. Then after dinner we had a great evening out by the campfire as we ‘bonded’ and sang worship songs together.
Opportunity to hold a youth conference and really allowing the events of the afternoon to be led by the Spirit. It may have started late according to American time so we weren’t sure how it was going to turn out, but we were thrilled with all 20+ youth that attended. We sang worship songs, shared parts of our testimonies with the youth and had a time of reflection and prayer. In the end some great conversations happened one-on-one with the youth and individuals from our team. The most exciting news from this afternoon was the rejoicing that took place when three of the young gentlemen accepted Christ as their personal Lord and Savior!
Many conversations with our Filipino ministry contact, Rhayan. The two of us learned early in the month that we have many similarities in our personalities which allowed for us to connect rather quickly and have some serious conversations about life and our spiritual walks with Christ.
Hosting a VBS event in a local scavenging community where over 75 children/youth attended. Many of the children in this community do not attend school because at a very young age their parent(s) send them out to a local trash dump (that has been closed for 10 years) to search for plastic and recyclables that can be sold for a profit, which is then what these families live off of.
Visiting a famous landmark in the Guinness’s Book of World Records—the largest Ten Commandments. They are located on the land where we have lived for the past month, so we have been able to see them multiple times.
My journey on the world race includes lots of ‘firsts’ for things, including the first time to experience lice. May not be the memory I want to remember the most, but hopefully I can stay clear of those little bugs and eggs in my hair going forward!
Bernie Journeys! There was a guy in the community who we met on the second day as we toured the local community. He was quite the character and somehow we always seemed to run into him when we were out and about. He always wanted to show us something new or take us somewhere.
Visiting the Manila Zoo with our ministry contacts. It may be considered very small in the eyes of the typical American, but for a dollar entrance fee, it was totally worth my time to experience. AND my team even got to feed the elephant. A big crate of food filled with pineapples, bananas and bread!
Being able to experience God in a new and more intimate way that allowed me to go deeper in my relationship with Him. I am thankful for the many truths in Scripture that I was directed to in order to find more freedom and combat the lies from the enemy. I’ve been taken on quite a spiritual journey this month and I know that God’s not through with me yet.
Who knew that I would enjoy building bamboo fences so much, even without the ease of power tools! I truly had a blast manually sawing and cutting large pieces of bamboo down into the appropriate sizes for the three different types of fencing we created throughout the month. Although it would have been great to finish all the bamboo projects, it really wasn’t feasible in a month’s timing, but it was still a great accomplishment to see the progress that was made.
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Three months in Italy… say less!
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