Hi all! Sorry that you have not heard from me in a while! Things have been going great here in the Philippines, and I have been so involved with life here, sometimes I forget to stop, reflect, and tell the story of what God is doing here. I spent my first 3 weeks in the Philippines in Manila, the capital. A week ago, I came to Tacloban. If you don’t already know, Tacloban is the city that was completely devastated by Typhoon Hayan last November. We will be here until the end of November, and I’m so excited to really be invested in ministry here!
I’ve heard from former Racers that one of the hardest things about the Race is leaving a little piece of your heart with each place you leave. Well, it’s true. A small part of my heart is still with an orphan back in Manila. His name is Danilo. Here’s his story.
I met Danilo the second time I walked into New Faith Family Children’s Home, which was just across the street from where I lived. He was immediately friendly to me, and wanted to play hide-and-seek. As we played, he kept smiling at me, and I could tell we were going to be friends. In the next few days, I learned that one of his favorite things to do is play basketball. We often went to the goal and play around together. We joked, laughed, and just had so much fun together. I found myself walking over to the home, almost every day, and we played basketball as much as we could. As we played, it didn’t feel at all like I was “doing ministry.” I felt like I was spending time with a friend. I had fun, and sometimes I even lost track of time as we played basketball on and on.
September 27 was Danilo’s eighth birthday. It was a Saturday, and every Saturday night, all the kids in the home have movie night with popcorn. For his birthday, Danilo got to pick the movie that they all watched. He chose “The Wolverine.” For his birthday, I helped buy him a birthday cake, along with another missionary who works with those kids. When the kids were ready for movie night, we sang “Happy Birthday” and brought in the cake. Then we all watched the movie and ate. I was having such a great time!
Once the movie was over, I was saying goodnight to him and to the other boys, and Danilo asked this so simple but so heartbreaking question:
“When you leaving?”
…I had to tell him that I was leaving Wednesday, meaning I only had three days left with them. I thought later on about what all was behind that question, and I realized that after I had been there a few weeks, he expected to me to leave soon. All he knows is people coming and going, again and again.
For my last three days, I spent as much time with him and the other boys in the home as I could. The last day we had a “dance party.” We played music like Gangnam Style and the Cha Cha Slide, and we had so much fun just being silly.
After the dance party, it came time to say goodbye. Before I left, he and I sat on the stairs outside and I told him that I love Jesus and that the reason I came to the children’s home was to tell him that Jesus loves him, no matter what.
I will never forget that boy. And my hope and my prayer is that he will not forget me either, and that he won’t forget what I told him about Jesus. My life has been changed by my time with him, and I pray Jesus has changed his life through me too.
