While the Philippines has become my favorite country so far on the Race I have been constantly left frustrated and broken. One of the ways Satan has frustrated and broken me is during the feeding ministry I partake in every day. In the morning, we finish breakfast at the ministry center and head out with scalding hot tubs of rice and soup of beans, chicken and vegetables to the areas around Manila that are filled with malnourished children and desperately in need of a balanced meal. We arrive and are greeted with fifty to a hundred children running out of their shacks singing “Feeding time, feeding time, feeding time!!!” The older kids are generally holding the younger kids, none of them have shoes on and the littlest ones never have pants or diapers on. Ever. Ever. Ever. That’s a lot of little babies butts running around…let me tell you. 🙂
We have them form a line and bless the meal and then begin the assembly line of serving as many children as we can in the shortest time possible. Rebecca Weaver (on team W.O.W. that’s working with my team this month) is a R.N. (Registered Nurse) and does medical missions at the feedings for any children who need any medical attention. That’s basically all the children at the feeding locations, I’ve decided. When we run out of food we are left with broken children’s faces, looking up at us with the saddest eyes because they know they can’t eat. There’s no food left, there’s nothing more we can do. And it breaks my heart in half every single day.
Yesterday one of the Filipino staff came up to me and said one of the children ran up to her and asked in Tagalog “Please, is there any more? We’re still so hungry and my sister didn’t eat yet.” This is my reality on the World Race. Oh wait, it gets worse. On top of that, when we’re done passing out the food we turn to Rebecca and the other nurses who are always swarmed with kids who have infections, colds, rashes, eye problems, tooth aches, blisters and things on them that look straight out of a horror movie. All of these things are due to unhealthy lifestyles and all of these things could be easily prevented…if the children had a family with any means of financial stability. But of course they don’t.
People come to Rebecca with glass vials of medicine with the words “Tuberculosis” written on them asking for more. We don’t have anything to help that in our medical kit we brought from the center. Children come with infections so severe they need a doctor, but their parents don’t have any money to pay for a physician’s visit and even if we paid for them to take their child to a doctor, nine times out of ten the parent’s will pocket the money they were given and spend it on other things than getting their child medical treatment. Like I said, this is my reality. This is what I’m faced with every day. As an American college graduate, I am not used to seeing such devastation day in and day out.
I was sitting on the tailgate of the ministry truck, looking at all the faces of the children needing treatment and I felt helpless. “How can we do anything, God?” I prayed. “How can we help them?” Alana Lusted, one of my team mates and dear friends came up to me while I was praying this, thinking the same thing and softly whispered, “Jesus take the wheel…” and then I heard the Lord speak. “What is the one thing you have yet to do for these children, Angie?” And it hit me.
Yes, we would bless the feedings with a prayer at the beginning but I was never praying with authority that the mighty power of Jesus would supernaturally multiply the food so all the children in the community could eat. I wasn’t praying that the Lord would miraculously fill their stomachs with such contentedness and give their bodies such perfect nutrition from the meal that they would thrive and be healthy. I wasn’t praying in the name of Jesus that every child that Rebecca attended (and even the ones no one could get to) would be healed of whatever illness they had. I wasn’t. Nobody was. And Satan knew that and was using hopelessness to keep me down.
It is powerful. It is effective. And it’s all we’ve got.
Last week we went to a school to feed the students and one of the children, Marlon, had a horrible case of pink eye and his eyes were so swollen he could barely see. We decided to lay hands on him and pray that the Lord would heal him since we didn’t have any medicine and we knew his parents had no medicine or any means of helping their child. Yesterday I came back to that school and saw Marlon, eyes fully healed, completely restored. PRAISE JESUS! This is just the beginning of feeding ministry. The Lord is at work here and it’s so exciting to see such work being done in Jesus name.
I’m thankful that the Lord has shown me that when the food runs out, and medicine is gone, that’s when we get on our knees and pray…
bringing the food to a little village that you can only get to on a tiny dirt road
the soup, with rice, beans, chicken and vegetables!
Linsey and Lander (Lander has become my favorite child in the Philippines) running down the dirt road to greet us with their cup for the food…
