The title of this blog may or may not have anything to do with the blog itself, but here's an entry from my journal a few days ago after our first day of ministry.
11/5/12- Hero
To be here now in the presence of my Father in the Philippines seems so surreal. Words and feelings of awe attached with slight confusion. These are the feelings that I feel at this moment after an interesting day. Our job and duty while here is to meet with “street kids” and ask them survey like questions in order that someone else can come in during January to take our gathered information and possibly provide these children with a shelter, a place to eat, or a place to get an education. The problem is that some of these kids may not have a family to go to at night, and others choose not to go home because they like the street life. These kids choose to run away and are caught by the government only to return to the streets once again. Glue sniffers, rapists, fathers, mothers, druggies, and some of accused of murder. These are the children that we’ve come in contact within the last 5-6 hours. Then you have the children who may not have the opportunity to have an education because they’ve been displaced because of the flood that occurred over a year ago. Desperate to have an opportunity to study or learn, a few children and parents met tonight just to learn English or practice spelling and math, with volunteers who offer up a piece of chalk and chalkboard, a couple of rolls and juice box, and about 45-60 minutes of their time so that these people can have a little “bit more.”
Then you have the kids who are in “boy homes”. These are children kids who have “cases.” I mentioned above rapists and those accused of murder, these are some of the kids I meant. Out of 46 children, 14 of the kids have cases. We went there for a short time today just to get a feel of the location and of what we could possibly do there. Within 15 minutes of arrival, basketball was the chosen activity for the duration of our time.
These children’s ages range from 8-17 years old, and they are most likely forgotten by there parents or have no desire to return to them. These are the children we run into.
Some children with innocent faces, others with their bodies tattooed.
I will never forget one of the boys that came up to me today. Without any words, he continually showed me pictures of American people and our countries flag. Picture after picture, the boy smiled and pointed. One after the other, after the other! After finishing his magazine, he left to go back inside the dark cemented building he’s known practically all of his life. Upon returning to the hot and humid Philippine weather, I again noticed his bright smile and thick long sleeved sweater he bore proudly. Seemingly untouched and brand new, the front of his sweater bore 2 American Flags. All he wanted to do was simply and proudly boast of what he thought to be so “wonderful”!
Later on after we left, I soon found out that the boy was deaf and all he wanted to do was show us his own “American Pride”. Now as I sit here and write this blog, I struggle for words to write. I wish I had some poetic words, or well written sentences, but I don’t. All I have at this moment is a broken heart as I look at the picture of this boy and recap the night and day that I just experienced. All I can think of is the question “what”? What can I do to help these kids? What can I do to change their minds from the streets, and point them to Christ? These kids need something. They need a hero…they need Christ! So again the question is this…what can I do? How can I exhaust all my time and energy to point these kids to Him? What influence can I have now, in order to change their lives forever!
