Thank you so much everyone for your support through this whole journey! I have truly grown so much and am really enjoying these months! I wrote so much about the Philippines just because it blew me out of the water! Last month I learned things that I thought I already knew but realized I knew nothing! Last month I was loved so fiercely that I feel like the grinch who’s heart grew three sizes bigger when he discovered the true meaning of Christmas! I grew to love 40 girls as sisters, and I had the most painful goodbye ever when we left! I learned how to open up, and to allow myself to be loved! I learned how big God is! I saw things that I didn’t necessarily want to see, but I know I needed to see them so that my heart could grow more, and that I could really understand the lesson that God was teaching me!
God is this big Father up in Heaven who created all of these amazing incredible beings. He loves all of us so deeply and greatly that He is in constant pain to see the atrocities that are being done to them. So what does he do? He sends one of his loved ones, the ones that have the ability to help, to his other loved ones to take care of them, but also to learn from them. If God hadn’t sent me to the Philippines I wouldn’t have understood the truth about redemption. If God hadn’t sent me to the Philippines I might never have understood unconditional love. Sometimes I still wonder why God sent me to Angeles City if none of the girls that I talked to came home to Wipe Every Tear, but then I remember something. I am still talking to one girl. I am still messaging back and forth with a young 16 year old mother who works on the streets outside the bars selling cigarettes to pay for her daughter’s food. I made a friend that night, and maybe in the future she will get away from there and live at Wipe Every Tear like she wants to, and THAT would be the reason God sent me to Angeles City. Maybe….. we never know God’s plan but I trust that he’s taking care of it!
Personally though I know that God just wanted to show me how big his love was for me. I have been away from home for Thanksgiving/Christmas for the last two years, this is the third year away, so I was determined for it to matter. Boy was I in for a surprise! Little did I know how much these girls meant to me until Thanksgiving. As we slaved away making them a full dinner, and scrambled to get it all ready for 50 people, we were showered with love over and over again. Girls helping out, getting super excited, helping me create a random piece of craftwork! As we served the girls their first Thanksgiving meal, and they sat on the floor in one little living room, I was struck by the beauty of it! Here are 40 girls who used to be trapped in sex trade, and were now free to live their life however they wanted. Here are 40 girls who are so ready to receive and give love that was never given or received by them in their past. They welcomed us into their lives and made us family. Home is where the heart is right? I never knew what that meant til now. I didn’t feel homesick at all. I felt loved, and I knew that I didn’t spend Thanksgiving away from home this year. I was home.
