Where do I start? So much just happened and I don’t want to forget a second of it. This is a journal entry that I wrote today! We just got to the Philippines yesterday and it is amazing:)
So first of all, we finally made it to the hotel we are staying in for parent vision trip! We got here a day earlier than our parents to get settled and to have a meeting.
Before this meeting, I really just wanted to eat dinner. Now, I’d rather journal than eat!
I just met Kenny, or Coach as he is called by the people who know him. He is such a unique person, he is someone who you really just have to meet! He is so passionate about You it’s not even funny. I couldn’t help being inspired just being around him.
He told us what Wipe Every Tear does and it is amazing. They go into bars and brothels and help free women from the sex trade. There is so much love and freedom and celebration that exudes from him that it made me want to go and just do something.
The girls who they help free then go on to lead groups who go back into the bars and help free more women who are seemingly without hope and in chains.
The girls find liberation in Gods love and can’t help but share it with those who they used to be in chains with. That is the gospel.
Coach told us that he heard God tell him something directly, and I never will forget it.
Don’t you dare go into those bars and talk about the gospel
He doesn’t want us to even bring up Jesus in the bars. He wants us to be Jesus to these broken girls. If you met this man this wouldn’t sound as bad as it does just in words. This man loves Jesus soooo much, and he loves people enough to do something about it.
Other groups in the area go into the bars and just pray for the girls and give them tracts, but they don’t do anything else.
Now there is nothing wrong with those things, but there is something wrong with that if that is all you do. It’s like telling people that they are in chains and then dangling the key in front of their face.
We are not here to just pray for people, because the help that we tend to pray for usually comes in the form of people…Us…we are meant to do something about it.
It’s like that story in the bible when someone sees a begger on the road and merely tells them, “I really hope God will help you, god bless!” (Jonathan paraphrase)
We have the ability to make things better. Jesus above anyone did. And you know what he did? He worked himself to the bone to help those who were suffering. He would always help people physically and then spiritually.
So the last thing that the girls in the bars need is religion…they need freedom. And luckily that is what the gospel is all about.
It’s about identity. Do I find my identity in what I do or who Jesus is? And he is love. And he loves those girls desperately. He sees them as daughters.
I really don’t want to bash on those Christians who are out their helping people where we are! I really don’t. They give up so much to do what they do. I’m just introducing some things that might help!
I don’t have loads of experience, but I have enough to know that love is the most important thing we can share with people, and it always will be.
By the way, we had our meeting with coach on the roof of the hotel we are staying at for the week. We could watch the sunset over the cityscape in Manila. It was amazing. But after the meeting , when it was dark, we saw a bunch of lights in the distance.
They were having a lantern lighting ceremony. It was like a scene straight out of the movie Tangeld! The lanterns drifted up and over the city, and we were just far enough away to get a perfect view.
It made me want to sing and I told the group so. We sang How Deep the Fathers Love For Us while we watched the lanterns drift away. It was like we were seeing a glimpse of the freedom that is going to take place during this week.
Some of the lanterns would catch on fire or they would just slowly drift down out of view. But there were some that kept going. They could be seen high in the sky, lighting up the night. I’m not sure why those ones were able to keep going when the others couldn’t, but I guess that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the ones who were able to keep going did so until they couldn’t go any longer.
That’s what I want to be. I want to keep going when others can’t. I want to be that light in the darkness.
I don’t know why I was lucky enough to be born in the United States into a family that loved me and taught me how to love instead of growing up orphaned and sold into the sex trade.
I don’t why I was lucky enough to go to a good school instead of growing up in a village where I would grow up to be malnourished and uneducated.
I don’t know why I am so healthy while others have terrible, debilitating, illnesses that are not because of anything they have done.
But I do know one thing. I have the ability and opportunity to make a difference. To love those who are unloved and to relieve pain and suffering wherever I see it. And I’m going to do something and shine a light in the darkness until I can’t do it anymore.
