I had a whole blog post in my head but then I decided this was going to take a whole other direction.
As you know this journey on the World Race is going to be taking me to 11 different countries. So I thought it would be a good idea to dedicate a blog post each month to a country to share the need there and why I am going to be doing what I’m doing and why missions is so very important.
So the first month of the journey is going to be in the Philippines. It’s known for it’s diverse terrain of mountains, volcanoes, and beaches, the Philippines is a popular haven for tourists. A melting pot of cultures, religion, and tradition, the beautiful people of the Philippines are diverse, with influences from America, Spain and other Asian countries. More than a getaway for Westerners, this 7,000 island archipelago is home to many who earn less than 15 cents per day- giving them the status of “ultra poor”. In order to survive, some have resorted to prostitution and human trafficking.
These chains y’all, they need to be broken. And sometimes God uses the unlikely (me) to come into these countries and bring hope, compassion, someone to just listen to them, pray with them, and to love them right where they are at. I am not being sent to change these people or to change their circumstances, but to point them to the one who can. To let them know that there’s life abundant, when it’s a life found and chasing after God. When you let him into the dark recesses and pits of your life, those areas where the people of the Philippines see no way out.
Prostitution, sex trafficking, this is NOT okay. This is not the life God has intended for his people but a life sadly a vast majority of the people in the Philippines have found themselves in. I can’t even imagine.
When the whole journey of it all to getting myself out on the World Race, when I find myself overtaken with anxiety, fear, worry, doubt, and feeling so unequipped when you think about the heaviness of what these people are going through. I often think to myself, “Who am I? But then I turn that question around and ask “Who are you NOT? All that to say, when I find myself in the thick of that first month out on the mission field in the Philippines, it will be a fleeting thought and then and truly then I will know without a shadow of a doubt why I am there. The Philippines I imagine will hold a special place in my heart, because it’s where the whole journey will begin. It’s like my heart’s already there and I haven’t even left yet. Crazy, right?
And then I realize, sometimes you just have to stop thinking so much and go where your heart takes you.
Much love to you all.
