(added pics from the street!)Sniffin’ Glue & Lookin’ for Love

    As month #8 comes to a close in Manila, Philippines…the once dark alleys have pieces of my broken heart shattered & are stained with the salty tears which have been shed out of love & compassion on the streets. To truly love is to open your heart & be vulnerable. To love without holding anything back.To open your arms wide & love unconditionally.This vulnerability comes with a high risk though. The risk of being hurt.The risk of feeling the sharp pain of heart break.A heart break that causes you to not be able to sleep at night. But the risk of heart break & sleepless nights did not keep me from opening up my heart this last week. Little did i know the impact these street kids would have on my life & my heart, the first night i volunteered to come out…

 

    Monday night i arrive on the streets around 8pm. A dark alley.Trash everywhere.The stench of urine lingers in the air.About 30 kids under the age of 16 are sitting on the dirty, sewer-soaked curbs with plastic bags up to their faces, huffing glue.They sniff/breathe in PVC pipe glue in order to numb themselves from their strong hunger pains & attempt to escape their horrific living conditions & abuses they face on a daily basis. I saw 10-12 young girls prostituting themselves right in front of me. Tiny little things, none of them older than 16yrs old. Even the 16yr olds look like they could be 11 or 12. Seeing the glazed over faces of these hurting, afraid, lonely teens/young children completely ROCKED my heart & my world. Not kidding, within 5 minutes after i jumped off our truck & my feet hit the pavement, i was in tears. Sobbing tears. I was speechless.

 

     I met Norma, a pimp in her late 60s.A grandma.A mother.Lives in a house with about 4 teens girls who prostitute for a living. Norma saw Jesus in me.That’s the only connection i could make or the only reason i can come up with to explain why she never left my side every evening, all week.An odd friendship, to say the least. When i told her Jesus loved her, i knew she understood, despite not being able to speak much english.She would give me a big smile, with her few teeth she had.She asked me the first night “why you cry?” With the help of translation, i was able to share with her why my heart was breaking at what i saw.To her this was just an everyday sight to see & was all she knew. This was life in the alley. 

 

    Meet Edwin, who soon came to be my favorite street boy.He’s 13yrs old, has the  best hair i’ve ever seen on any kid or man!Very intelligent. We soon became best buds,attached at the hip.Every week night this week that i came out to do 3hrs of street ministry, he would come find me & hug me & we’d tell each other we love each other.The moment he found me, he would pull  my hand over to the curb, motion to sit down, & put his hand in mine.Then he would fold our hands together & point to the sky,wanting me to pray for him.He would call over a filippino volunteer to come translate the prayer for us.As i would pray for him, he would crawl up in a ball on my lap, usually high from sniffing glue, & have biggest peaceful smile on his face. These were some of my favorite moments.One night this week Edwin was so high that he passed out on my lap as we were hanging out & i had to almost spoon feed him his  meal of rice & chicken. He has several older siblings.One of his sisters prostitutes herself on this street. He told me that he gets abused at home & decides to sleep on the streets many times as the “safer” alternative. These streets are full of gangs, violence, & drugs….but yet he chooses that over his “home” life. If that isn’t heart breaking, i don’t know what is. Tuesday night he was crying in tears at dinner time  when we were gathering the kids to serve dinner. He curled up on the ground & grabbed my arms & placed them around him. His tooth was in so much pain that even though he was starving, he couldn’t eat.Tears ran down his face & i wiped them off with my fingers.All i could do is embrace him,plead for him in prayer for God to heal his pain, & i cried with him. My heart was broken, in pieces! He glanced up at my tear stained face & almost cracked a smile.I know he knew at that moment how much i cared for him & loved him.That no matter how high he got i still loved him. And most importantly, God still loved him.God healed his toothache that night! The next day i asked how his mouth was feeling & he said he had no more pain. Praise God! I have never sniffed glue, i but i have tried in the past to numb my pain other ways, one being drinking alcohol. I shared with them that when they feel pain or hurt they can call upon the Lord & He hears their cries & He will answer them.That His love will heal & restore & redeem. That this drug habit is destroying them & their futures God has for them.

 

     Monday-Friday night we hung out for at least 20+hours with these kids on the street. Piggy back rides, races, dance  contests, movie,laughing, joking, praying, crying, holding, hugging, kissing, bible studies, sharing testimonies,feeding, & just living life together in the evenings.The kids wore the same clothes on Friday that they were wearing Monday night. I asked if i could buy them clothes/shoes(most of them were barefoot w/sores on their feet from glass/rocks on ground) but i was told not to, since they would just turn around & sell them for more glue.They were completely smothered in dirt & food from previous meals.After holding them i would have dirt all over me, but i didnt care. Met a homeless mother with 6 little children & her mother (probably in her 90s), living in the parking lot of Mc Donalds. And when i saw “living” in the parking  lot, i mean all of them laying on 1 blanket that doesn’t fit all of them. All of them were lacking nutrition & starving for love. Heart break. More tears. I did not even want to sleep on my mattress under my roof when i got home. In fact i didn’t sleep, just layed in bed crying & praying. Friday night was our last night, which means the painful part of saying goodbyes & hugging/kissing for the last time.Saying goodbye to Edwin was the hardest part.He knew i was leaving & got more high on glue that night than any night this week.He didn’t even want to come around me because he knew he hurt me when he sniffed glue. But i pursued him & embraced him,kissing him on his cheek & with tears in my eyes saying “i love you & im praying for you”.He gave me biggest hug he’s ever  given me & then disappeared into the dark alley.I was told by 1 of the regular volunteers that he has  never let anyone in like that before & that God really used me this week in his life to make a loving impact.I pray that is so!

 

     God put on my heart to give away my REI 2 person dome tent, sleeping bag, pillow,REI daypack, some clothes/toiletries to the homeless mom & her kids.She & her family NEEDED it more than i did. I was able to go shopping to buy her kids some clothes,buy her a pot to cook rice in/coals.I’m not sharing this to brag about a kind deed, but i am sharing about this to brag about how AMAZING Jesus is & how He provides.God provided those materials for me & He knew i would cross paths with this precious family, & He knew..out of the love HE has given me in my heart…that i would give it to them. The manager at McDonalds is allowing this family to pitch the tent in their parking lot every night, as long as they take it down during the day. (if that’s not favor from God, i dont know what is!) So now they at least have a tent which they can all fit into & have food for a while & clothes.But most importantly, we got to pray over them & share with our WORDS & ACTIONS God’s love, which is the most powerful thing. The mother hugged me & said that she will never forget me.

 

    Heart broken for the hurting, Michelle 

 (ps. This is last blog i’ll be able to write until April, since March 5th we are flying to our next destination in East Asia which is a CLOSED COUNTRY & we can not use internet there!)