Even though I have been here for a week I still can't tell you what time it is or what day it is. (It might help if I changed the time on my iPod to Manila, Philippines.However, I leave it set to NC time so if and when I do get to call home I don't wake anybody up….sorry Nana!!) According to my journal from a week ago, my very first impressions of Manila was: its HOT, its LOUD, its crowded, way to many cars, and I've never seen smog like this before!! Our environment this month is the exact opposite from last month. In Nicaragua it was quiet, cold in the mountains, green, and did I mention quiet?
We are living in the San Buena community, otherwise known as Junction Squatters village. For those of you who don't know what a squatters village is…its the slums without being on a dump pile. At first we were slightly concerned being a newly formed all girls team, especially when our main contact picked us up at the airport and said, “I thought there was going to be 2 men with you this month?” We quickly fell in love with our host family and the community, and now I can't picture this month with guys on the team.
One of the families from the local church has opened their home up to us. It is a small one room shack, with a side room smaller than most closets in America. By the time we moved our big packs in we took up a good portion of the room. After some reorganization, there is plenty of room for Team Shiloh, and our host family to sleep side by side on the floor. (When I say plenty of room I mean, if you roll over you will be on top of your neighbor, and if your stretch your legs completely out your feet will be in someone's face). Honest to God I can't imagine being anywhere else!!! I feel at home for the first time since I left India last summer!!
Ministry this month is attending Bible Studies every afternoon with the women of San Buena, prayer meetings, youth and teen night. To be honest, I have spent the first week trying to figure out what we are even doing here. The only part of the Bible study we understand is the song we sing in the beginning for the group, and at the end when we are asked to pray for the ladies. As I was sitting in Bible study last Thursday (the second one of the day) I was pleading with God to show me why we are here. What is it that He wants us to do this month. He reminded me of 1 Corinthians 13:1 “If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or clanging cymbal.” Ok God, so I will love this month but how do I do that when these ladies won't speak English even though they know how? I felt like God was saying, “Just be patient.” Which is not at all my favorite thing to do. At the end of the study as I was praying for a group of ladies they shared with me their specific prayer requests in ENGLISH!! After we prayed we talked for a few minutes and they told me about their families!!
God has opened my eyes on so many ways to love this community and these people. Playing with kids out in the street, prayer walks around the community, writing the ladies in the community encouraging notes and hand delivering them to them. Christmas caroling around the village, holding a lady's hand as she crys and not knowing where the tears are coming from.
You see, when we first arrivied in this beatuiful village the devil tried to discourage us by telling us lies that we can't make a difference here. That we would have been better off just sending money instead of coming and at least that would have given these families food on their table. But God is showing me there is so much more that money can't do.
Money can't:
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Wipe the runny nose of a little girl playing in the street.
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Hold the hand of a crying mother because she just lost her child
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Comfort a child who's parents have abandoned them.
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Sit for hours on the floor and color with a child
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Hold the hand of an elderly woman who is all alone in the world
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Comb through a child's hair looking for lice
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Comfort a child who has just fallen down in the street
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Give hugs
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Tell a child they are loved by their creator the King of Kings
Thank you for everyone who has supported my journey so far!!! If you haven't supported it is not too late!!! It is easy and doesn't take long to do!! Just click the support me tab on the left side of this blog!! Help me be able to love on the unloved and forgotten not only here in the Philippines but over the next 7 months as well!! How can we put a price on sharing the love of God when His love for us was the ultimate price!
