This is a picture of me (and Megan a fellow World
Racer) with some of the players of the Filipino Homeless World Cup Team. Megan
and I had the privilege of accompanying the Jeepney Magazine workers to the
shooting of a Filipino Independent film called Happylanders. Happyland is
a very poor slum located near downtown Manila. The film is about a group of
boys coming together against all odds and winning a football (soccer)
tournament against the Boys Town team. The Boys Town team (in yellow) was
comprised of the Homeless World Cup players and strangely enough me. Yep,
I showed up as a spectator but the Boys Town team was short one player, so I
was recruited to play with them in the film. That was an amazing blessing
God poured over me: on the World Race I was in a Filipino Independent film. I
am going to try to get a copy when it comes out later this year!
This is Sel. He is the assistant coach of the
Filipino Homeless World Cup Team. An amazing man!
These are a few shots of the filming of the final
game.
There equipment was legit. They had 3 Red cameras (if that means
anything to you)
Now
I can tell you about our actually ministry for the month. Team Malachi was
asked to work with a community about a 15 minute drive from where we were
staying in Valley Golf. The community was called Karlangan. It was filled
with wonderfully friendly people but the conditions were just a notch above
what one would call slums. They all lived in concrete houses with
concrete paths in between houses and a few wells in and around the community.
Unfortunately, the water was contaminated from waste runoff from near-by
communities, the concrete houses were sleeping twice if not three times as many
people as the space should occupy. To top it off, last October the whole
area flooded and although the concrete prevented their houses being washed
away, it did little to prevent their stuff from floating away. Jobs are also
hard to come by and with little money many do not get consistent food each day,
and very few get the nutrients they need, especially the children. You
will see in the pictures that follow most of the kids teeth give clues to the
lack of nutrients in their diets.
So this is the community we were blessed to
work with, and yes I mean blessed. Their particular situation isn’t the
worst in this world; it also isn’t the best, but God wanted to move in
Karlangan, and we were blessed to be there to witness it. Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays we would do home visits in the community in the
mornings. These consisted of us walking around the community meeting and
greeting people and sitting down with them in their houses. Our priority
was just to get to know them, encourage them, ensure them that they are loved,
and then pray with them about anything, and yet almost every morning we did
this we would end up praying with someone for them to put their trust in Jesus
Christ. We were able to verbally share the Gospel in almost every house
we entered. God had prepared their hearts for someone to share His love story
with them, and they were more than ready to accept it. God wanted them and we
were they to witness Him call them into His fold! That was a blessing! Then on
Tuesdays and Thursdays the girls on my team would lead a bible study in the
community. (The men were all at work so John and I took up the task of
distracting the kids.) On Saturdays our team would lead a church service in the
middle of the community grounds with the help of our translators Pastor Rey and
Pastor Jun. (These two are amazing men of God who helped us out every
single day without complaint…true servants!) Lastly and my favorite
part of the month, everyday at 4pm we would host a devotional and a feeding
program for the kids of Karlangan. This was a time when we would just
hang out with all of the kids. The girls learned dances and songs, John played
a lot of basketball and threw a lot of kids into the air, and I read a lot of
books to a lot of kids. Then we would sit them down, sing songs like Father
Abraham & Deep and Wide, share a Bible story, and eat. It was wonderful…kids
really are the joy of God. Life just isn’t right without a lot of kids
around! Here are some of my favorite pictures of them. Enjoy!
This
is my Filipino daughter. She was always in my arms for the entire feeding
program each day and we finally discovered she had been calling me Dad.
She even snuck a kiss one day!
I
love this photo because it reminds me of the calm within the chaos that was
every day for us.
This
boy was hiding around the corner during one of our Church services. I had to
sneakily capture this photo.
We
wrote our schedule on the Day Care building in the middle of the community so
they would remember when we would come.
This
is a father and daughter that came to get checked out during our medical
mission day.
Me
and the boys. Typical!
His
name is Roman. He is 85 years old. He was also the only Christian we met
in the community. That is a strong man of God.
This
is Katie Swan. She is a World Racer on M Squad who is also a nurse and was kind
enough to volunteer to help us out during our medical mission day.
By
far my favorite kid. His name is Justin, but he looks like a Japanese Anime
Cartoon character so we called him Super Sayan Gohan.
I
love this picture because you can almost hear her laugh!
This
was a creek we would cross on the way to the feeding program. This is the
water condition in Karlangan.
I
love the irony in this photo.
If
you haven’t already noticed, the eyes of these children were beautiful and
powerful. It was my favorite thing to shoot!
The
way Margie loves! And she does it well!
This
is a small part of the community that God is pursuing in Karlangan. Please keep
them in your prayers! God Bless!
