When we arrived in the Philippines they greeted us by
saying…”Welcome to your favorite month on the world race!” And although I have
only been here 2 days and so I cant call it my favorite month yet, I can say
that I know I will love it because the people here are AMAZING!! Talk about the
sweetest and most joyful people you will ever meet, wow. I am super excited
about this month also because I am with 4 other teams from our squad, so there
are a total of 31 people from my squad here this month! Which I am loving
because by this point I have known these people for 7 months and now get to
spend a full 4 weeks of ministry with them!
What are we doing here in the Philippines:
Orphanage: We are working with Kids International
Ministry, which does a TON of different ministries. Their primary focus is the
orphanage here with 25 children ages 0-13 years old which is on site where we
are living. With the orphanage we will be working 24 hours a day with the
babies completing shifts of 6am-2pm, 2pm-10pm, and 10pm-6am. With the older
children the shifts are 5am-9am and then 3pm-8pm, because they go to school and
will be gone the hours of a school day. In the mornings we will help them get
ready for school, fed, and do devotionals with them. In the afternoon, help
with homework, cook dinner, and spend time with them.
Prison Ministry: This is a ministry that will be
everyday from 1pm-5pm. This is an amazing opportunity to pour into and
encourage people. The 9 P-Squad men already went today and hung out with the
guys there for a while and had an AMAZING time. They said it was a great time
of prayer, worship, encouragement, and talking about the Lord. The boys said
the women there were actually sad there were no women with them today because
they didn’t have anyone to come sit and talk with them. I am excited for this
ministry because I have never done prison ministry before. This ministry was
actually started and now run by a past world racer!
College Ministry-InterVarsity: This ministry will
take place Tuesday and Thursday from 7pm-9pm and then they will also come on
Saturdays from 12pm-5pm. During the week we will go out and meet on their
campus and it will be run much like Campus Crusade or InterVarsity back in the
states (at least I think, I will find out more tomorrow on our first day
there!) where there will be a message which we will give, worship, and prayer.
With this ministry they already have many small groups but what we will be
doing is assigning people to come along side the leaders and help lead the
bible studies and also disciple the leaders of these bible studies. They said
they will also want us to speak every Tuesday and Thursday and they love
hearing from foreigners! I have been asked along with my friend Will to lead
and head up this ministry this month! I am really excited about this
opportunity!
Feeding: We will be feeding anywhere from 200-300
people every Saturday. They will come from 12pm-5pm so we will also be having
small group time, discipleship, and just hanging out with everyone. We are also
encouraged after we get a feel for what this looks like to ask the Lord and see
where he would have you lead something, maybe games or worship or dances or fun
chants/songs.
Basketball Games: Pick up basketball games will be
every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday starting at 7 pm in the community.
Basketball is very big here in the Philippines and they told us it is a great
way to minister to the community and make friends. The guys and girls are all
encouraged to play. The people here in Mindanao (2nd biggest island
in the Philippines) actually want to start a world race team to be in their
league here they love it so much! KIM ministry has world race teams VERY
frequently here in the Philippines so they are used to and know world racers
here.
Bonfires: As a
squad we see how busy our schedules will be and that it will be a very fast
pace month so we will be trying to do worship every Saturday night at 8 pm!
Other Ministries: There are just so many different
opportunities here… some others are painting walls, gardening, planting,
painting a mural, and they just really taking the time to pour into the staff
here that do not have many days off and work very hard.
Where am I living this month: Remember summer camp?
That is how I feel a little bit here J I live in one room
with 12 other girls in bunk beds, actually except me I am sleeping on a pull
out trundle type bed on the floor J The walls are gray and
look like a chalkboard kinda so we are going to try to get chalk to write
scriptures on them! We do have a bathroom, no flushing the toilet paper, no
drinking the water here, and the showers are ice cold at all times so I will be
taking VERY limited showers J I think I may just try to bathe in the sink instead
lol.
So I have only been on this island, Mindanao, for less then
48 hours but I am liking it so far! We are far from internet and the town
because we are living in the MOUNTAINS far away from civilization as they said
to us day one haha, but I will have some access maybe once a week. We will have
one day off per week and on that day there are some fun opportunities here to
do fun things such as, scuba diving, the beach, cave tubing, hiking, white
water rafting, and the spa. So very interesting thing about the Philippines,
everything is VERY cheap here! I am going to make every girl cry with this one,
an hour and a half massage here is $3 USD!! Crazy right? And the really great
thing is the ministry actually encourages us to go on days off because the
women they send us to this is how they stay off the streets and have jobs. And
when I spoke to one of the women for over two hours about it she says her
favorite times are when world race missionaries come because she gets so much
business. In partnering with KIM ministries they make more money then they
every have before in their lives. It seems crazy and was really hard for us to
think getting massages was ok but after spending over two hours with the
sweetest lady named Yolly I realized this is a GREAT ministry opportunity! The
women came three nights ago (before I got to my ministry island we were
together for one night with our squad) SUPER excited to see so many people
there and seriously I cant even explain to you how joyful Yolly was all night.
After doing my nails she went over to her supervisor and actually begged her to
switch with someone so she could do my massage also. We has the best
conversations about the Lord and her children! It was a blessing for us both,
as I had just ended my 48 hour travel day. Its really hard on the race to
accept things like this because something attacks you saying you shouldn’t be
relaxing like this but after hearing their testimonies and what us getting
massages or nails done does for them my heart changed. And after I thought about
it too, they don’t want a hand out, they don’t want just money. You should have
seen the absolute pure pride Yolly took in making everything nice and when I
complimented her she got a huge smile!
I love you guys, wont be able to email much this month but I
will try to write one blog a week and post it when and if we can get into town!
Love you mucho mucho!!-Em
