to figure out more about the title keep on reading!!!!!!!!!!
I’m here. the final 3 months of the race. It’s begun. It actually started about 5 days ago as I was on my flight from
Johannesburg, South Africa;
to Hong Kong, China;
and finally landing down in Manila, Philippines.
After three straight days of traveling, I’ve never been more tired in my entire life. It felt impossible to fall asleep on the bus that took us from the airport to our ministry site; but as I dozed in and out of sleep now and again, my eyes would open to a new scene every time. My gaze shifting from the tallest sky scrapers, and 7th largest mall in the world, to the most impoverished communities my eyes had ever seen. Streets full of trash; lined with malnourished cats and dogs with burns and scars and rashes. Streets lined with beaming eyes and bright smiles of the little hands and feet of the future, running up and down the road. Laughing, playing, & waving, all careless in the carelessness of God. Wild & free.
After 3 hours on the bus buzzing through traffic, we finally got to our ministry site, got settled into our rooms, ate dinner, and went to bed shortly after. Long travel days call for absurd amounts of rest.
( Very fast, the first few days were pretty great and full of really good things but I don’t want to take away from the point & importance behind what the Lord is doing in my heart because of today; March 12, 2018. So I may touch on the things that happened in the last few days in a different blog, but for now, i’ll begin with today. )
The Ministry we’re working with is called Kids International Ministries. It all began because of a little girl that saw the need, on a mission trip with her family to the Philippines. She’d seen this boy, on the streets begging for food. After her curiosity began spilling from her heart she’d come to figure out the boy was an orphan and had absolutely nothing. No food, no family, no home. She’d gone and told her dad, “dad, we need to be doing more.” Their family bought a house here in Cainta, Philippines and turned it into a children’s home. A home for street kids. The abandoned, neglected, and orphaned children of this place. With the help of really incredible people, they built more and more on, turning it into a fully functioning ministry consisting of an children’s home, not just one or two schools but a third one in the process of being constructed. Schools that contain over 500 students. Schools that devote time and energy into pouring education, joy, and love into the lives of the future. They don’t stop there, they have partnered with many different schools/gap year programs/ organizations/ families/ & everyday people that come to volunteer at K.I.M. Giving people the opportunity to work at the birthing clinic down the road, feed the hungry littles on the streets, pray for, pour into, and raise up people in the different communities to provide nutrition for their communities while they financially support the expenses used to purchase food for the feedings. WILD. I’ve never ever been apart of something like this. So many chills thinking about how the Lord has used the lives of the people that so efficiently and successfully run this ministry in such huge ways.
After figuring all of this out during our orientation, we went on a tour of the community. I saw the schools, stories high. The children’s home, the birthing clinic, & the undergoing construction being done at the 3rd school they’re building. As we were walking back home, I saw a woman on the road washing her laundry. In the Dominican Republic the Lord gave me the great gift of enjoying the act of ……. WASHING LAUNDRY BY HAND!!! I’d spend hours washing clothes in the waterfall on our site occasionally losing track of my friends socks and underwear. So sorry Shane Clardy. Anyways; the woman, She immediately caught my eye and I knew the Lord was telling me to help her. “Okay,” I thought. When the tour is over, i’ll go over there. Not even 5 minutes later, our tour ended and I found someone to go with me.
Guess who it was.
The infamous Kaylee Sloan Stephans. Aka the Yes Man.
Hey, Maw Maw, Poppa Mitchell, Momma Julie, Aunt Amy, & Grandma reading this!!!
Kaylee and I began walking back up the road to the long haired woman I’d seen sitting on the ground with a washboard, bucket, and pile of clothes. We stopped for some really yummy Lumpia filled with banana, and made our way over.
“Hello!! What’s your name?” I got down on her level and asked to her smiling face.
“Marissa.” She said back to me.
“I’m dasia, this is my friend Kaylee. We were wondering if we could help you do some laundry.”
At first she was reluctant. As a dozen littles surrounded us playing with our hair and asking our names, we sat. Patiently, waiting for her to budge.
“I can’t wash the rest because I don’t have any water.” said Marissa.
“Well can we go get some for you? Do you have a bucket?”
She handed us a bucket and 40 cents. The kiddos all around us grabbed our hands and led us in the direction of the water fountain. We began walking over when all of a sudden their eyes met mine:
“Let’s run” they persisted.
The thing about this moment is:
time literally slowed down.
Faces blurred passed me, as I looked down at tan, little brown eyed kiddos that looked back up at me giggling and running; their feet pounding the pavement alongside my own.
It was freeing.
Simple.
and time slowed down.
We reached the gate of our ministry where we filled up the bucket with water free of charge, and then headed back to Marissas house. Three pairs of little hands helped mine carry the bucket back and as we handed it to Marissa she smiled really big and began to say “maraming salamat” which means thank you very much. She told us that we’d done enough and she was grateful.
“well, can we help you rinse them now?” we asked.
She, again, was reluctant. “you guys have done so much for me. It’s okay. thank you so much.”
“Marissa!!!! please let us help you. we really love washing laundry.” I wasn’t giving up.
Finally she budged, let us do the rinsing, ringing, and hanging of the clothes. I rang, Kaylee hung. As Kaylee waited for me to ring clothes out, I looked back to see her dancing and singing with all of the kiddos around us. It was sweet. She continued playing with them as I finished.
Afterwards, Marissa brought over her best friend and sister in law. Birdgy & Charlene. Birdgy came over for a little while and then left again to bring back a shell, to thank me for helping her friend. Golly. We began talking for a little while, when all of a sudden they asked me “Can you sing?”
“Can I sing? Oh. I can sing” I really can’t but, hey. Why the heck wouldn’t I sing for these sweet Filipino women. They dragged me by the hand to a tent of people singing and eating down the street, and I grabbed Kaylee, and all of the kiddos followed. “You will sing Karaoke for us.” they told us as they handed the two of us a book about 4 inches thick with songs to choose from.
“Livin on a Prayer” Bon Jovi.
Our jam. Let’s do it. After a few songs, lots of dancing, and sweet conversations with kiddos, It was our turn to sing. We screamed our heads off to lyrics we barely knew, as people all around us laughed and danced along. By the end of our performance the people were yelling for an encore. “1 more song please” this woman asked as Kaylee and I were about to leave for dinner. We agreed on five more minutes and then decided “Up All Night” by One Direction was our last performance for the night. She ushered us to sit down as they skipped the next FIVE people ahead of us. SWEETNESS. (don’t forget, we’re in the middle of the road) But really, it was Phillips arena. We again, sang so loudly as people laughed, and danced, this time yelling the lyrics to the song as we pointed at them, along with us. This is also how Kaylee also almost killed a grandma: picture this: kaylee dancing, woman falls dancing with kaylee, kaylee falls on grandma….. MY OH MY!!!!! it’s okay, everyones okay. ps i have video proof !!!! Anyways, By the end of all of this, We’d sung Karaoke with sweet people, danced so hard to the point of near hospitalization for a woman kaylee danced with (she’s okay, she just got a little too jiggy), got invited to our friend Jamaica’s 10th birthday party, and made dozens of new friends. I felt the love from these people in such a beautiful way. Undeniable that it was the love of God that shone through them, whether they knew it or not. Today they showed me more of what it look so like to be seen and loved as i am by the creator and his people.
Who knew laundry would lead to this.
After we finished our set, All of the littles grabbed our hands and jumped on our backs as they walked us back home. Asking us the whole way, “what’s my name?” all trying to get our attention at once, little voices in unison yelled out “Ate, what’s your name again? what’s my name!!!!?” (pronounced Ah-Tay; meaning big sister). Their hands let go of ours at the gate, and they asked if we’d come outside again tomorrow. “If we have free time, we will be there,” we said our see you laters and went in for dinner, as little voices yelled to us from outside of the gate “Ate!!!! Dasia!!! Kaylee!!!! We will see you tomorrow Ate!!!!!”
This is just the beginning.
Today marks day 5 of our stay here in the philippines which is indeed, 3 months long. This is the start of something huge. This place holds a place in my heart so large I feel I may just explode, and I’m only 5 days in. In the midst of littered streets and homes built from and covered in what to our american eyes are scraps, and a culture with such a high population of kiddos living in the streets, as a few parts of the island sits in the red light district – God, has not forgotten about this place. I see that in the people, in the way the people love so naturally and effortlessly. I see God in the middle of the Philippines, in the heart of this country, tugging on my own heart strings to possibly start something or join something big happening here.
I have a lot more to tell you on where my hearts at after today, with revelation and reflection that’s come with worship from tonight but I’ll leave you with this much:
Psalm 37:4 – “Delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
My passions, desires and dreams will be God centered. I don’t want to live a life out of selfish ambition, and this life. Today. Right now, is the start of something really great.
