Thursday nights are one of my favorite nights here in the Philippines!
7:00pm Thursday night and we all hop into the back of a truck to go hangout with street kids. Its dark out and as we drive down town christmas lights flash everywhere but the weather is hot and humid like mid summer. "I'm still not used to the spending the christmas season in a hot country". We turn the corner off the main road down a back alley and we know that we have reached our destination. Children race to come see us with the biggest grins and yelling with excitment! As soon as I hop out of the truck children start climbing on me laughing and fighting for any attention they can get. Throughout the night we provide them with dinner and first aid. These children just want to be held, or sit next to you, to feel safe and the comfort and the love of someone holding them.
They live a hard lifestyle, many of them if not all of them stay up for days a time. The older girls are involved in prostitution and most of the children sniff glue to help them forget about ther hunger pains, while the younger children just fall asleep anywhere. Working with the street kids is emotionally hard but I wouldn't give those nights up for anything.
I am never going to forget this one little girl!
As we were leaving the other night I couldn't help but start to cry. Its around 11pm and it was time to head back home so we all hop into the back of the truck and wave goodbye to the children. Its incredibly hard to leave and I will never for get this one little girl. she is around 3yrs old, her hair tangled, her face is dirty and she is dressed in dirty tattered Pj's while holding a teddy bear that is missing an ear! And we had to leave her standing on the street at 11pm. It is the most unnatural feeling in the world! In that moment I felt so helpless but then my team started to pray and it reminded me that God is watching over them and we just need to continually pray for these children.
Malissa a girl on my squad who is just amazing had a great idea to put on a fun night for the children. So she posted a blog to raise support and God ended up answering our prayers and provided Malissa with enough money to make this event happen! That night 92 children and most of their families showed up!
We had a nurses station, bathing station, facepainting , coloring, balloon animals and a full spagetti dinner and a movie. I was incharge of making the balloon animals. 🙂 The balloons kept popping and the kids were crazy but it was deffinitly one of my high lights.
Towards the end of the night I was feeling overwhelmed with everything and I needed to pray. I couldn't handle the fact that we still had to leave when the evenning ended and they all had to stay and that we couldn't give them more. So three of my teammates and I decided to do a prayer walk down the back ally. During that prayer I realized that I was getting overwhelmed because I was taking to much on myself making me feel helpless. That when I let go and let God take control of the situation amazing things will happen! We can love on them, play games and bring food but prayer and the word of God is whats going to last a lifetime.
Melissa made this awesome video of the fun night, I hope you enjoy.
