Break my heart for what breaks yours.
Everything I am for your kingdom’s cause
As I walk from nothing into
Eternity.
The smell of fish trespasses on my nostrils every morning as I dodge the trikes, bikes, and cars that go speeding down Valley Gulf Rd as I timidly try to cross the street. I have not completely fallen in love with the culture of the Philippines. Much of what is around me could be described as a beautiful chaos, or on some days just chaos. So as we bump along the gravel road towards our ministry site, I repeat the above song in my head as my prayer. . . it would take a movement of God for my heart to be broken for this place.
We pull into Children’s Garden a couple days ago. We file in and take our seats for a brief introduction to the ministry and to receive our daily schedule. Then we walk down stairs where a room full of 15-18 year old boys are sitting around a circle waiting for us; shy but expectant, excited but timid. We play an ice-breaker game. We try to learn and remember each others’ names. As the day goes on, their little personalities begin to break forth out of timid shells. And then God does something miraculous. I look at Paulo and see Josue. I see Ton Ton and there is Danuvio looking back at me. Jeffrey takes on the likeness of Marlon. Jonathan’s hard exterior reminds me of Norland when I first met him. God opens my eyes to see my dearly loved boys from Nicaragua in the hearts and lives of these boys here. And my heart breaks for them. 
Jeffrey.
Jonathan and Ton Ton
Paulo.
These boys are street kids. Most of them come from broken homes. Most of them started taking drugs, sniffing solvents, drinking alcohol as early as ages 6 or 7. Some of them have tried to commit suicide. Most of them have been abused. Many have been in and out of gangs. Now they have come off the streets and entered into a program of discipleship and education. The hope is to rehabilitate these boys to keep them off the street, let them reclaim a little of their childhood and adolescence, and disciple them to love Jesus.
As part of our ministry here, twice a week we travel to a place in metro Manila to do street evangelism. This is what we did today. The place we went to is near one of the large, extravagant shopping malls. There is a group of “squatter” families that live under the over-pass literally upon heaps of garbage. This is the area where two of the boys, Jonathan and Jeffrey came from. Walking up to this place, my eyes started to fill with tears and it was not due to the heaps of burning trash surrounding me. Hold it together Kristen! I had to keep repeating over and over. The kids were beautiful, precious, filthy and half-clothed. I became overwhelmed. God, why? Why do children have to grow up here? This is not right! Why am I so incredibly blessed and this child has to wear the same torn, dirty rag each and every day?!
I am still trying to process through all the emotion and conviction I felt this afternoon at the dump. I will keep you posted.
