Oh, hey. Welcome to my newest blog that I’m just now posting after months of not posting a blog…oopsy…WELL… heres whats new (a very little bit…), SO much has happened and time is flying!
My team and I have been staying at a private christian school here in the Philippines, working with kids of all ages with various subjects: physical education, reading and writing, penmanship, christian values, etc. Not only do these kids have insane talent and intelligence, they are deep and have insanely hard things going on in their lives ALREADY at such a young age. They have gone through things. Things that have grips on their lives and control their emotions and their thoughts and they don’t know how to make it stop.
My team and I had the pleasure of preaching together to the kids one morning for their chapel service they have every Wednesday. Life as a missionary consists of many things; one of them is getting thrown into random tasks with a minute to gather your thoughts. Well, after we preached, we got thrown in to one of those tasks. We were asked to lead break out discussions with the 11th grade students to reflect on what we preached on after the chapel service was over. We split up into groups and asked the questions they had to answer that were placed on the projector.
The first question was something like:
What is something difficult you are facing and how are you finding joy in that from the Lord?
Leading my group, I expected to hear about school and friends and such, you know, high school stuff. What I got brought tears to my eyes. I got stories of death, illness and disease, mothers and fathers leaving and abandoning them, families getting split up. And then I hear, “But God helps me, still. He gives me hope. He makes me happy and makes me feel joy.”
The second question:
What can you sacrifice or have you sacrificed that brings you closer to the Lord?
The third question:
What are some gifts/talents you have that you can use to build up the body of Christ?
The fourth question:
How can you persevere through the tough times?
The kids answered these questions, reflecting inward on things that they could do differently, things they struggle with, things they were good at (I can’t tell you how many times I had to pull out of them what they were good at because they shook their hands and said nothing).They saw themselves as “bad”, as unworthy. But if you asked them about the Lord in each one of their answers, they would tell you that He is good.
Kids that have gone through death, through poverty, through losing everything that STILL see the Lord as a loving God that is good.
I think I’ve heard that a million times lately, that God is good. I even heard a sermon the other day about what this means. So, what does it mean? We hear the word good used to describe how someone is doing quite a lot. But, what word do you think of to describe the word good? “I’m good. I’m happy.” Good has become the easy answer to the question “How are you”, and has become synonymous with the word “happy.” But is God still good even when we aren’t happy? Of course… He is good for who He is and what He does. But do we see that? Are we able to see that even when we pretend to be “good,” He really always is? Do we see that He alone has eternal, infinite goodness? Do we know that our goodness is limited, but HIS is limitless?
I see the hurt and the pain on these kids; I hear the stories and the things that they have been going through and have had to deal with at such a young age. But I still see the joy, the love, the life in them. They say God is good, and I see it in their lives. But do they see it? Do they understand it? From what I hear, they could say a lot of things about God in all the bad things they have seen and gone through, but what comes out of their mouth is glorifying and honoring. It’s amazing. It is “God is good.”
These kids are special. They pull on my heart. They have gone through so much in their short lives, yet they still amaze me by their gracious and joyful hearts. My team and I have been truly blessed to get to know each one of them, and I am so thankful to have gotten to sit and lead reflection groups to hear even more and see even more of what the Lord is doing here. He is moving, there’s not a doubt in my mind.
Days here are the best. My day consists of teacher devotions in the morning, breakfast with my team, talking with my hosts, teaching classes, doing flips off the slide with some of the elementary kids, and playing some intense (not really) games of basketball with the older kids. Each day is filled with joy and laughter and innocence. We have 2 weeks left here at the school before we head out for some ministry time with our parents during the Parent Vision Trip and then its off to South Africa! Keep us in your prayers as we wrap up our time here in the Phil, say some hard goodbyes, spend time with family, and then travel to our final country. Some amazing things are going down here!! I can’t wait to see whats in store for the rest of it.
