you can call me Kuya

Where we’re at, where we’re going
We left the orphanage in Malaybalay yesterday (Wednesday) morning, and are back in Manila for a couple days for a mini-debrief with the 2 other R squad teams before we all head off to Cambodia on Friday. I am really excited for Cambodia – Team Shabach will be at the University of the Nations Siem Reap English Center, primarily teaching English and potentially other skills with plenty of other opportunities in the area. I’m also not complaining that it looks to be about 15 minuets away from Angkor Wat, which was on my list of places I wasn’t going to get my hopes up of visiting on this trip. Look it up, apparently it’s neat enough to put at the middle of the Cambodian flag.

Who is this Kuya guy?
What feels like forever ago, I remember taking that first 5-9am morning shift at the orphanage with the older boys. I was quickly perplexed as I felt like all these kids kept calling me “Kuya” (roughly coy-uh, or coo-yah, or something along those lines). Eventually, I figured out that Kuya means “brother” and is used as a general title used to refer to older men. For the last month, I’ve been “Kuya Tim,” and I think I’m really going to miss that title and seeing through that familial lens when I use it. It was a privilege to come into the lives of these boys as their Kuya; by unsuccessfully trying to get Joshua out of bed in the morning, helping Ariel memorize the metamorphosis process of frogs, tossing a frisbee with Cedreck, endlessly pushing Eric John on the swings, or letting Oneil climb all over me.

Better to have loved and lost
This month had it’s heart-ache. A couple weeks ago I had brought my bible and journal to one of my morning shifts, and some of the boys were sifting through them, as they tend to do with pretty much anything. In the back of my journal I had stashed some pictures of people back home, including a couple of my whole family. It really broke me explaining my family to these kids, who have spent most of their lives as orphans. My heart fell through emotions – an overflowing gratitude towards the family I was blessed with, and a genuine struggle with why these kids could not have that. Above all else, I was struck by an unavoidable burden to love them with everything that I have.

My heart continue to collapse while watching those kids yesterday morning as their teary eyes stared out the windows of the
school bus, struggling to let go of the hands of these Kuyas and Ates
(sisters) who had loved them so well. I would be entirely insincere if I
didn’t acknowledge the thought that was present in many of our minds.
Why love, if every month we’ll have to leave it behind? Pieces of my heart will be left in 11 different countries this year, and that is the reality of the race. This year is an opportunity to see what’s breaking God’s heart around the world, and that is the roller coaster I signed up for. The only eternal thing that we can bring is the love of God, and that’s been doing a wonder in these places long before we arrived.

As I keep working through some of these thoughts, my awesome teammate Leslie just posted a blog with some similar thoughts, if you want to read her beautiful, powerful words and leave nice comments.

“being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will
carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Kuya Clint with baby Kenneth
The unseen is eternal
There has definitely been a persistent air in the midst of this heart-ache, questioning the good being done by these 11 short-term mission trips that we have committed ourselves to. I was wisely challenged in this by many people I love and respect preparing for the race, and it certainly merits consideration. Thankfully, with one month under my belt, I can speak with confidence about the work that we’ve done and will continue to do. This month we got tangible work done planting the soccer field and taking shifts at the orphanage, but I’ve been particularly struck by what I will never see. There is an eternal work being done by God in that children’s home, in the city of Malaybalay, in the country of the Philippines. We caught a glimpse of it, and maybe even played a small hand in it, but this work is infinitely greater than what we can do in a month, or what we could do in a lifetime. I am thankful for the seeds that were planted or watered this month, and know that the harvest will be clear someday.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal”

-Kuya Matthew with Joshua, getting one last run before Joshua gets on the school bus.