We woke up this morning to Alissa saying we need to get up. There was an urgency in her voice that got under my skin and I wanted to pull my sleeping bag up over my head and ignore her. We needed to meet our contact at 8:30 and it was already 6:20am and we had had a flood.
At some point during the night I had heard the rumble of thunder and the sizzling rain, but this quickly was hidden in the sounds of our air conditioner and our fan. Our room had two double beds and enough floor space for Josh. The five of us stayed in this tiny little hotel room and it was a bargain until Alissa shook us from our slumber and said “we have more of a mess than we thought to clean up” and I hugged my pillow and thought how many times had I heard about cleaning up my mess? I know my stuff is a mess…geez, relax.
We were finally stirred under Alissa’s relentless onslaught against Mr. Sandman and I just hoped she had made us some coffee. I was commanded to turn on the lights and I sat in a stupor as Alissa made us aware of the flood in our room (Alissa wants the reader to know she is not always like this, she is also a good person, she is only like this when she wakes up to a flooded room and 4 other sound sleepers). The side of the room where Linnea and I were sleeping had been mostly protected by Josh and his stuff on the floor, and we began cleaning and packing and we prayed for God to help us think without caffeine and to give us the joy that the morning usually lacks.
I had tried doing some writing last night, but Ivanhoe kept calling me back. I have been reading this classic by Sir Walter Scott as we travel from location to location, and I think we are like these knights on adventures and quests, errants of derring-do. (you got me on what that means, I have to read every paragraph in this book at least twice, and this book has a glossary in the back 5 pages long, but I need 25 pages). Our adventure has taken us to many different and interesting sites.
When we arrived in Manila we were whisked away to the slums to serve with MMP.
Missions Ministries Philippines was started by Stewart and Corrie de Boer. Stewart spells his name in the Scottish style and was excited to have a fellow ‘Scottsman’ with him. I liked that he had an affinity toward me based on my name and I didn’t bother to tell him that my name was inspired by that classic song “Watching Scotty Grow” and not by my scottish heritage, of which there is a very small sliver. Stewart’s eyes lit up when he saw what I was reading. Stewart is 79 years old and looks very healthy and energetic. He served in WWII and Vietnam, he was raised in India by American parents and he had dreamed of someday returning to India to be a missionary, but the doors were closed and in 1975 he was in the Philippines.
We sat in a small bamboo cabin and Stewart asked us questions about who we were and where we were going. We shared the vision of the world race and we each shared the vision for our lives, where we had come from and what we hoped. Stewart shared his vision and told us about the growth of the ministry he has headed for as long as I have been alive. Stewart has a vision of holistic ministry, helping and teaching health in all areas of life.
This cabin was in the field of one of their experimental farms. This farm is called the “King’s Garden” and is one of the ministries under the umbrella of MMP. Stewart and Corrie provide resources for people to pursue their dreams, to pursue God. The Kings Garden is experimenting with growing vegetables in a system called hydroponics. I had heard about hydroponics before, but mostly this was in reference to the growing of illicit Weeds. My understanding of hydroponics is it is simply a way of controlling the amount of water in the soil, in this climate it is common for the vegetables to drown. The purpose of this experiment is to teach locals how to provide their own food to their families with the limited availability of land.
MMP also has a vision of a church in every slum. These churches are supported by small entrepreneurial ventures, the slum we were in, San Buena, was opening a cell phone repair shop, a beauty salon, and a Botica Binihi, or a small drug store which provides needed medicines such as amoxicillin very cheaply. MMP also opens pre- schools in these slums, or communities, and have started 450 self sustaining schools in the Philippines.
The preschool program started 20 years ago and the teachers have written and published and sell the curriculum which is used here.
Now we are sitting in the living room of the guest house of our new ministry, which I will write about next.
