Let me tell you a little about my family this past month.
This month we were blessed with the opportunity to be apart of a sweet organization (a.ka. family) called Children’s Garden(CG). We have been living with and around 12 amazing young men who are full of energy, wisdom, goofiness, and so much Jesus. They all have backgrounds of living on the streets in some sort of capacity and almost all of them come from fatherless or broken families. They get to come to CG to have a second chance essentially. The coolest part about it is that they get to choose to stay once they come. At any moment they could walk out back to the streets or wherever else they previously were.
Of course its not an an easy transition for these guys. Life on the streets is wide open, no rules, duties, or routine, and CG is all about all of those things, in a healthy and balanced way. Its good for them, and us too! Thats why so many of the boys once they get to CG they end up staying for years. They come and enter as phase one boys and leave after completing phase two where they’re given more responsibilities and opportunities to learn trades and skills, and live in a different house without other adults living with them.
We’ve been blessed with this ministry of hanging out with these guys at the house, at outreaches, and simply being invited into the CG family.
Most days looked like hanging out with the boys, just chatting in-between attempts to read my Bible in the morning. One of the boys named Boyet, loved to practice English with us. The main language here is Tagalog, but so many of the boys have incredible English because they actually practiced with other world race teams, visitors, and/or in school.
Its almost inevitable that some sort of music was always playing or being sung. Spontaneous dance party or battles would break out, or we would jam out as we’re eating or cleaning, arm wrestling, or playing games. There was rarely a dull moment!
We hangout a lot! Which was awesome! And most afternoons we had some sort of outreach were we went back to some of the communities the boys came from like a local juvie where we went & hung out, shared a bit about Jesus and ourselves, play some games, and ate some food together. On and nightly devotions with the phase one boys were cool too. So casual we just got together sang some songs, and talked about Jesus.I think I learned a ton about presence this month through this, the most casual and effortless interactions usually ended up being the most meaningful.
One of our last nights at CG was the sweetest. The night before we left we had a night of games, group charades and fear factor with food, karaoke and s’mores! It was a blast to bond with he staff, the boys’, and team Ohana who I was with this month. We sang for so long, and in fear factor I got to experience what it felt and tasted like to eat part of a chicken head. Yes, a head of a chicken… bones, brains, and all. I spit it out after a few crunches to be honest, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around all the anatomy of what I knew I put in my mouth. It also made me feel a lot better when some of the guys couldn’t do it either!
After the end of the games and eating wild food, we had a time of also sharing thanks for one another. The boys all got a chance to come up and speak to us, and we followed too. We shared fun memories and thanked the boys and the staff for all the ways this month blessed us. It was so so sweet to hear out loud all of the beautiful ways we saw the Lord in one another all month, and just to express thanks for the goofiness, and absolutely abundant joy, and gift that this CG family was to us all. Then all of our CG fam laid hands on us and prayed for us.This was, ah, so heart wrenching, but somehow I managed to hold back my tears. For now.…
The night ended in roasting marshmallows over a fire, which quickly turned into a melted marshmallow fight between a few of us. I was so into it, it was disgustingly sticky of course, but so much fun fun! So worth the extended shower time scrubbing marshmallow out of my hair!
We got to experience family this past month in a way I hope and pray I get to experience the rest of my life. It was so goofy, so fun, full of joy, and yes we witnesses the hard times and conflict some of the boys had, or we had with one another. We cried, and we laughed A LOT.
We were a family. And I thank you CG for being my family this month.
The moment we drove away in our squished van full of our bags, team Ohana, and myself, tears instantly rolled down my cheeks. It literally felt like I was leaving family.
As I expressed how hard it was to leave CG that morning to our awesome squad mentor Megan she said “When you cry hard, you know you loved hard!” And I think thats true of this month. I loved hard and felt how good and how hard that is and can be. Especially when you have to leave.
Love is weird like that. It hurts when you gotta leave pieces of your heart behind.
But that’s just the race. And its beautiful but its so freaking hard sometimes.
Each time I’m filled more so with thanks for these families, these people that showed me love and allowed me to show them love.
So here’s to you CG. Thanks for being my family this month. I’ll never forget you, I think a piece of my heart will always be there, and pray that one day our paths cross again.
Heres some pictures!
Our fam! The whole squad on the last night!
nightly devotions
Some of the phase one boys, my buddies! (left to right: Arjay, Boyet, Ares, & John John)
Feeding our new friends at outreach, Wendall serving up some mac & cheese with hot dogs in it!
Meteing new buddies at outreach at one of the villages we went to! Photo Credit: Jordan Allen
Playing red light green light at outreach, ah so much joy! Photo Credit: Jordan Allen
A real life Karaoke machine, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t know these existed, well until our celebration night.
FEAR FACTOR! Pre-chicken head eating… some got candy, some got chicken intestines, others got chicken head! ah!
This is family. This is community. Its the sweet moments like this I’ll miss a ton.
Last meal/morning with the CG fam, so many family meals happened here!
Our packed van driving away, and yup that’s me in the corner crying. Every tear was worth it.
