My team had the pleasure of meeting a wonderful couple named Norman and Tina, who previously lived in the Philippines for 3 years and were back visiting. While living here they had become close friends with a pastor in Tondo. Tondo is a really bad area. It has lots of crime, gang activity, and unbelievable poverty. It’s home to several dumps which people live in. Norman and Tina took all 13 of us girls living in Manila to Tondo to meet Pastor Ramilo and do feedings and ministry in 2 different dump communities.
We took a train and then a jeepny (type of public transportation) to Tondo and went to Pastor Ramilo’s church. It was one of the best church services I’ve ever been to. During worship they were singing about following Jesus and God spoke to me. He said “if I told you that Tondo was your new home would you even follow me back here?”. I immediately told Him no. There was no possible way. It’s really dangerous and I’m just an almost 19 year old who doesn’t have her life together. He kept repeating the question and I kept arguing with Him. It was more like a fight actually. Then He said something else “do you still have so little faith in me? Have I failed you even once?”. Before I really processed that we left the church and went to Happy Land Dump to do a feeding. Its a trash dump where people live. They separate things like plastic and metal to sell. We were walking through wet trash to go and call the kids for the feeding. We loved on them and prayed with them. Later in the day we went to Smokey Mountain. It used to be a dump but it was shut down. It’s a really tall hill made completely of old trash. The dump is closed but there is still a community of people living at the top. We did a feeding, Bible study, and washed the kids. The things we saw were unexplainable. My heart broke for the people of these communities.
Later we left to go eat dinner near the train station. I still hadn’t answered God. My heart was broken over the things I saw and I was ignoring Him. At dinner Pastor told us a story and asked us to pray. There is a 13 year old girl in his church who has been raped by her stepfather since 5th grade. She’s living in the church because there’s not a safe place for her to go live. Here’s where this gets kinda weird. God gave me a vision: it was a home for abused kids like Jaz home, except this home was in Tongo. And it was full of joyful, safe children who were loved and protected. I was watching them them play in a yard. But this place doesn’t exist. And God said clear as day “well, it needs to.”
And then I told God I was in. If this was something He wanted to do then I’d follow Him.
So this blog is to ask you to join me in prayer. Pray for guidance. That if this is something that God has for me that He would guide me. Pray for wisdom in decision making and faith to trust God fully. Also join me in praying for pastor Ramilo and his ministry to the communities in Tondo.
