Hello there World!
A lot has changed since my last blog. One thing that I’ve learned is that being a full time missionary is a lot different than going on a short term mission trip. It is different because it is literally your LIFE. It is not an event, it is not a “cool” trip that you get to “experience” and then come back home to “normal life.” It IS your “normal” life. Being an international missionary day in and day out means that LIFE happens in the midst of your ministry – there is just no stopping it. Life must roll on. Also, being an international missionary means that not every day is spent building a house, teaching Sunday school to poor children, or preaching the Good News to the world.
Just a few LIFE things that have happened in the last week or two while we’ve been trying to do ministry are: sickness, devastation, and disaster.
Sickness
In one week’s time, five of the six members of my team all got bacterial infections from eating food made for us in the Dump. Four of the five of us who were sick, including myself, had to go to the emergency room. We all took turns caring for one another. I spent an entire night laying on the bathroom floor of our hostel, rubbing my teammates back while she threw up in the toilet, only to find that a few days later I would be kneeling on a bathroom floor in the emergency room throwing up while another teammate returned the back rub. I had a horrible experience in the hospital and ended up having to be there all through the night, over eight hours, with two IV’s. My beautiful teammate Jessica spent that entire time in the hospital by my side. Our team’s “ministry” was each other. We prayed healing over each other, we served each other, we went out to find food for each other, we medicated each other, we made each other laugh, we cried with each other, we laid in bed for hours with each other, we were patient with each other, we simply LOVED each other. It is humbling when you can’t be a “cool” missionary. When you can’t do the things that sound impressive to the outside world. When you want to be out there making a difference, but instead you’re spending a lot of quality time with plastic bags and the toilet. God taught us a lot through this, I think we will continue to learn from this and use it for good. We are still recovering from all our sickness, but overall, we are all healthy and strong again.
Devastation
On our last day of recovery before we were scheduled to go back to our ministry again we woke up to the devastating news of the unexpected passing of our dear teammate Wendy’s mother. Words cannot express the sadness that came over our team. Words cannot express the empathy we felt and still feel for Wendy. It was so appropriate that it had been down pouring since we woke up that morning. It was a symbol of our tears, of Wendy and her family’s tears, but also of God’s love being showered down over us during such a time. We knew that we would not be going back to ministry. We knew that it was time for us to just sit and receive God’s love pouring down onto us and also pour God’s love out onto each other, specifically Wendy, during such devastation. We got taken out of the hostel and we are now back at the KIM base where we started this journey a few weeks ago. We are in very comfortable living and are simply trying to serve Wendy and build each other up as a team as we sort out where God wants us to go from here. Please pray for Wendy and her family during this time.
Disaster
That down pour of rain that I referred to actually turned out to be a Typhoon. A pretty extreme typhoon at that. It was SO God that we got taken out of the hostel when we did because all of the extreme flooding, power outages, and a lot of evacuations were all taking place literally right where our hostel and our ministry sites are. Our hostel lost power right after we left and didn’t have it for two or three days. Because of the flooding and intense wind and rain it would have been extremely difficult to walk out and find food. And without electricity it would have been difficult to communicate with anyone, which is very important given all of our current circumstances. Also, we would not have been able to go back to ministry even if we wanted to because the dumpsite in Tondo and the cemetery in Navotas have both been very badly affected by winds and floods. God was definitely looking out for us, as usual. My team has been SO positive and flexible through it all. The entire team has pulled together so well during this time and continues to prove that we are six extremely resilient women. Please pray for Navotas and Tondo, the people there have been heavy on our hearts. We are not sure what the rest of our month is going to look like for our team, but we are hopeful that we will get to go back to the dumpsite and the cemetery and try to bring some light to the people there who have been affected by this disaster. Pray that this typhoon will be used for GOOD and that the families will get better homes now because of this.
It is a very intense feeling to know that you are literally in the midst of spiritual warfare. Satan has made it very clear to us that he does NOT like our team. He is doing anything he can to break us, to make the light, which the Ladies of Light shines so bright, go out. Well, we say, thank you Satan, we will take that as a compliment, and all this does is make us come to battle even stronger. As Christians, we must always remind ourselves that we are not fighting FOR victory, but we are fighting FROM victory. Thanks to Christ, we have already won! Satan will never stand a chance against us. God’s plans are ALWAYS perfect and His purposes, one way or another, will ALWAYS be accomplished! Amen?
Over the next day or two, we pray to have Wendy back home with her family safely and we pray to have a plan made for what the rest of month one will look like for team LOL. I know so many of you have already been absolute prayer warriors for my team and let me assure you that your prayers are being answered. God is protecting and providing for our team in amazing ways, and no matter what, we are still being good stewards of the opportunity we have to be missionaries here in the Philippines. Despite sickness, devastation and disaster, despite a literal AND spiritual Typhoon.
