Good morning/afternoon/evening from 30,000 feet above who knows where! At the time of typing this, it’s 8pm in the Philippines where I was yesterday, 9pm in South Korea where I spent the last 20 hours, 10pm in Sydney where we will be landing in about 8 hours for a layover, and 9am in Argentina (my final destination). I’ve got a Donald Miller book on my lap opened at page 70 where I stopped abruptly when I decided I wanted to watch a movie that’s now paused at 20 minutes in to write this. They just brought around free wine and coffee, and you best believe I have a glass of each sitting in front of me. All of this to say… I’ve had about 4 hours of sleep in the last who-knows-how-many-days-because-I-couldn’t-tell-ya-what-day-it-even-is-right-now. All THAT to say… the Philippines was incredible, and even though I feel like I’m floating in some kind of out-of-body experience from exhaustion and caffeine overload, I still have so much I want to share from this past month!
I had the opportunity this month to work with an absolutely amazing organization on the outskirts of Manila called Kids International Ministries. We made multiple visits to a children’s home (orphanage) to love on kiddos and help with laundry, participated in daily village feedings, hung out with teenagers at a local high school, worked in a pregnancy clinic performing check-ups and ultrasounds, led a Bible study for women, painted murals for the organization’s new social media vision, gathered information in the surrounding community for a census, plastered walls where a new high school will be built in the near future, and much more. The Filipino people are absolutely incredible—some of the most welcoming, kind-hearted, and selfless people I have ever met—and it was an honor to work alongside them and serve them. I sweat a WHOLE lot this past month, painted more little fingernails then I could begin to count, ate the Filipino delicacy called Balut (fertilized duck egg), hiked an active volcano, and even got to help birth a baby! To top it all off, my parents flew halfway across the world to come see me at the end of the month!! It was seriously so incredible to hug them both for the first time since December, and even more incredible to get to love on people together. They were jet-lagged, exhausted, and sweaty as crap, but they didn’t slow down once or miss an opportunity to serve. Heck, my dad took a week off of concrete work, just to find himself knocking down concrete walls with a sledge hammer and slathering cement plaster on walls, sometimes being the only one on the construction site after the rest of us had tapped out from heat exhaustion; and my mom was thrown right into the women’s clinic to find baby heartbeats with a doppler as if she’d been a trusted midwife for years haha! I am so so grateful for our time together, and we definitely made many lifelong memories. Check out my most recent vlog for a peak into one of our days together;)
Although my entire time (besides maybe the Balut) was beyond amazing, the most impactful thing about my time in the Philippines was meeting a little boy named Joban. Every week, the ministry we worked with has a feeding in Tondo. Village feedings consist of bringing food (similar to Feed My Starving Children), songs, Bible lessons, and love to people all around Manilla. Tondo has a giant garbage dump called Trash Mountain or Smokey Mountain, on top of which a community of immense poverty lives. After a bus ride, two train rides, a JeepMe (google that one, it’s kind of like a school bus!), and a short hike, all in a bazillion percent humidity, I was dripping sweat, hungry, smelled like a 4H barn, and was honestly ready for the feeding to be over before it even began. We reached the top of the mountain, and my exhaustion and bad attitude melted quickly as my eyes were met with actual problems.. children in tattered or non-existent clothes, black with soot from burning trash, most crawling with lice, covered in infected wounds, distended bellies… and giant smiles and gorgeously bright eyes. We began to play with the kids, paint nails, sing songs, and organize the food, when my eyes were drawn to an older woman on the outskirts of the group who was carrying a little boy. I went over to her, and was met with some of the deepest poverty I have ever experienced. Both of her eyes were weeping with pink eye, the few teeth left in her mouth teetered with every word she whispered to me, an oversized and hole-y t-shirt hid a body so frail I couldn’t believe she had the strength to hold this child. The “child” I learned, was actually a 12 year old named Joban, severely mentally and physically disabled. I scooped him up, holding back tears as my heart broke for this injustice, running through a million possible “plans” to fix this situation. I spent the rest of our time there, as well as the next week’s time there, holding him close, praying over him, trying to make him smile, feeding him out of the ziplock bag “bottle” we had fashioned to try to help him eat. It was a pretty heart-breaking experience to learn what it is to love when I have no other cure-all solution.
I really liked how one of my squad mates, Olivia, put it:
“I’m not a savior trying to come to these kids and families as the elusive ‘white person’ to give them things all the time, but my heart wants to badly to give them basic needs. I’ve learned that, when in doubt, bring bubbles. The kids here have access to school, they have access to free medical care at a very accessible clinic. A few of us were talking to a long term missionary who works with these families and who accompanied us today. We asked the age old question. When helping people turns into hurting people, what else can we do? Give them Jesus. More than food, more than money, more than anything physical I can hand them, nothing will change until Jesus comes in. Change starts in the heart. We will still feed the hungry, we will still try to clothe the naked and heal the sick, but the heart of going into these places is showing Jesus. And today I found out that sometimes Jesus looks like a 49 peso bubble gun from Hypermart.”
There I was, getting pretty angry trying to come up with a million solutions to try and fix, fix, fix.. wondering if enough was being done for these people, these kids, Joban.. what more I could do or initiate or give. And most times that kind of passion is what the world needs to bring about change. But sometimes you just have to take your focus off the fixing long enough to sit in the dirt, holding a 12 year old boy named Joban who can’t walk or talk, praying for him to somehow have a revelation of how stinkin much Jesus loves him.
Whether it’s lice and trash, someone you just can’t stand at work, or forgiveness and grace that’s extra hard to extend.. love really does conquer all. I know this seems to be a repetitive theme in all of my blogs, but I just can’t get over how big of a difference love without strings or conditions makes. It really is everything. What does love look like for you today?
On to South America… our last continent, and final 4 months on the World Race. I am so grateful for all of the encouragement and love I get every single day from all of you, and I am expectant and excited to see all that God has in store these next 4 months! Thank you so much for partnering with me on this journey<3
**Closing prayer request: Margareth, the little girl I talked about in my last blog from Indonesia, passed away last week after a two year battle with cancer. When I was sitting with her last month, she pointed to my cross necklace, made a cross with her little fingers, then put her hands on her heart and nodded with the biggest smile. She was the most joyful, love-filled, hope-saturated child, and she is no doubt dancing with Jesus right now. Please pray for her family as they go through this unimaginably difficult time.
