Hey everyone, this is my first blog from my first country on the World Race. There is so much that I want to tell you and I’ll do my best to keep it short.
First off I’ll talk about the ministry that my team is paired with and how we got to them.
So we officially started traveling to the Philippines on Saturday morning when we left the Atlanta air port. After a 9 hour layover in L.A then a 15 hour flight to China followed by another 9 hour layover. We finally made it to the Philippines after about 47 hours of traveling. During that time I only slept about 3 hours.
We made it to our ministry contact which is about a 3 hour drive up into the mountains from the capital Manila. We got there late at night and fell asleep as soon as we got our sleeping bags unrolled. We woke up in the morning and finally saw are surroundings in the sun light and were amazed by the mountain view right outside of are bedroom. the camp is about 13 acres of mountain side that mostly consists of jungle with one large building that is home to everything the ministry does. the building is beautiful and has so much charter that it is hard to describe. There is also a field for playing games and a farm on the property.
Grow International Ministries is a camp here in the mountains whose main goal is to take boys that live on the street of Manila to the camp. Provide them a way to get clean, eat good food, have lost of fun and learn about Jesus. They also have a clinic for new mothers and a sustainable farm. This coming Sunday we get to be apart of there first ever church service. Overall it is an awesome place that has Gods hands all over it.
As I sit here in my hammock on the on the porch outside my bedroom breathing in the mountain air and listening to the ran tap on the tin roof above me I’m starting to get very frustrated. I’m trying to write this blog and explain everything about this place and this ministry but I cant. I want you to see how joyful all the people of the small town are even tho they have absolutely nothing and live in shacks that provide no shelter from the elements and some cant even cloth there children. I want you to see the boys from the streets how dirty they are when they arrive still high from the glue they were sniffing when they were picked up. But how loving, full of energy and selfless they are when they having nothing but the cloths on there back. I want you to see how much Rhyan and his family sacrifice to make us comfortable and to provide these boys with a few days away from the streets. So they can be normal kids and play soccer without worrying were there next meal will come from.
No matter matter how many pictures and videos I show you or how many many commercials you watch with sad music showing starving children you won’t understand till you have seen it and experienced it first hand. I clearly didn’t but now I know and it doesn’t make me nervous for the rest of the year it makes me excited. because even in places like this where people have so little God is still present. Not only is he present I feel him closes than I even have in my life. And I hope that I can provide some comfort for these people because they have already shown me so much.
please keep praying for me and team boundless as we keep working in the Philippines
