The World Race can sometimes be characterized by one random event after another and last week was no exception. I had one of those days on Friday where at the end of the day I realized that multiples times I had shook my head, smiled, and wondered if it was really happening. Blogs like this are so hard to write because unless you were with us it is hard to comprehend the craziness, but I will do my best to paint the picture.
One of the teams has been invited by
Samaritana Ministries to join them a few days a week and do ministry with the women in their center. Samaritana has been in Manila for over 15 years ministering to women coming out of the prostitution business. They have weekly outreaches to women currently in prostitution and they run a center that teaches life skills, jewelry making, and Jesus. It is a phenomenal place and I decided to join the girls for day of ministry. In typical Filipino style, the 6:30AM ride didn’t show up and we found ourselves late, lost and a tad frustrated on our 1+ hour ride to the center. I assured the girls that the best ministry usually involves some kind of frustration in transportation and we rallied.
The morning was spent having a tour of the facility, meeting the women, morning prayer, and having some orientation about the statistics of prostitution in the Philippines. After lunch of a whole fish (head to tail) and rice we split up to work in the center. Some cleaned, some organized jewelry, some shopped for jewelry (me!) and some helped to organize Friday Fellowship. Every Friday they open the center to all the women they have reached over the years and invite them to come for Fellowship.
I am not sure what I expected, but i sure didn’t expect the next hour. The women are absolutely amazing and it is important to realize that Filipinos are BIG on fun and excitement. We sat in a big circle and sang some basic praise and worship and then the leader announced that the text for the day would be Matthew 22. Easy enough, a simple parable about the Lord inviting people into his banquet and them turning him down. No problem. Or so we thought.
Next thing I know I am dressed up in a crazy Filipino costume from the 70’s acting out the
part of the King in the story, all while dancing to Don’t Cha by the Pussycat Dolls. We were given 10 minutes to break up into 2 groups and act out Matthew 22 while donning costumes. Keep in mind that there is a bit of a language barrier, but we persevered and someone managed to find us our “dancing music” and a boom box circa 1991. it was truly amazing. I can’t say that the parable was really the focus of the crazed dancing, but it made for some good laughs.
We all piled in a cab to head home and the first question the girls asked me was “is this normal?”
And my answer was “of course!”
Two hours and quite a bit carsickness later we were home. All in a day’s work. I have some video of the day, but it really isn’t quality enough for the blogs–but rest assured the day was recorded for posterity.