Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while, its been pretty crazy! So all the things you missed is debrief (thats where all 51 one people on the squad come together and we relax for a while) Christmas and new years. There has been a lot of things been going on with all of it.
First things first, debrief was really awesome and a much needed rest period. Doing ministry 24/7 for 6 weeks is a lot of work and can be physically, mentally, and spiritually draining. so debrief is a much needed time of rest where you get to focus on yourself and do what you want to do. You can stay in bed all day or you can go out to eat or worship wth people. What ever you want to do you can do and thats just a very good feeling. Also, you can see all the people that you haven’t seen in weeks and ask them how they are doing and hear all the stories and everything crazy they have done too. We had debrief in Manila and it happened to be right by the red light district so alone who wanted to minister to people definitely had the opportunity to. It was a very great time.
Next on the list is Christmas. Philippinos love Christmas very much. If you walk down the street in September people here will wish you Merry Christmas. My team and I had three Christmas parties. One with the whole squad at debrief, another just as a team, and another at my hosts house. They were all very fun and relaxing. Walking down the street on Christmas here is hard to do because everyone brings their tables out in the street and eat and drink in the middle of the road. Everyone offers you drinks when you walk by because these people here are the most friendly ever.
New years was pretty cool too. It isn’t cold here so they can be outside and lighting fire works and having a good time outside. They love to make noise here and Im not talking about the good noise either. Im talking about bad karaoke, beating on pans, hitting on walls, beeping your horn insanely long, yelling, fire crackers and anything that will be loud. They continued all of this for about two to three days and nights until New Years came. Lets just say it was cool at priest until the loss of sleep came and then I wanted it to stop haha. It was an over all good time and I wouldn’t mind going through it again.
Alright! Now I hear many people are asking about me back home and wondering how Im doing spiritually and everything like that. And if you aren’t asking that then suck it up and get ready to read it any way haha don’t worry hopefully won’t be long.
Cool, well lets talk about how I’m doing physically. I still ave a little bit of that ring worm on my shoulder but its barely anything and is dying now so thank you for praying about that. I have lost a to of weight from when I was back home. Its not really because its from lack of food(even if I say that just rice is not a nutritious meal) its mostly because my diet has changed greatly! Before the race in the states I was trying to become a body builder or at least get bigger. I would eat very many meals everyday to meet what my goal was. Now being on the race and not having hardly any kind of that food or even places to work out like that, I have lost a lot of weight. So i feel weaker and more tired and just nothing compared to how I felt back home.
Mentally, all the weight loss and the feeling weak and not howI used to feel and like there is a lack of nutrition has gotten to me mentally. The whole race it has been bothering me but this is my first time telling you guys because….i dont know haha it just is. It frustrates me some days more than others and I now that if I don’t want to loose even more weight than I already am then I shouldn’t go to the gym because I don’t have the food sources to supply what I need to become bigger and stronger and I would end up just loosing weight. That being said, I have always loved working out. I have been doing it ever since my dad showed me how to when I was like 11 or 12 years old. It is what I do for fun and for enjoyment and to get my anger out and everything like that. So its been a pretty hard mental battle but I’m working through it, but the more prayers the better!
Spiritually, it started off really rough in the beginning of the race and even before then. I slipped away from the light there for a while and I even knew it but I didn’t really care very much. I got baptized and it just all went down hill from there(hint: thats the wrong direction that you are supposed to go after you get baptized). Then I saw the race and I thought i would try it because God pulled me a little bit to it and i thought that that was cool because he hasn’t done that in a very long time. That started me on a slow course to changing and living for him instead of living for myself. Right when I was ready and felt a little better with God and like I can follow him and live for him and was ok with it, my best friend died in a motorcycle accident that I was there to witness. Then right after his burial I left for the race.
That sent a whole new waves of pain and anger in my life without me knowing it. I thought i was ok and at peace knowing that I’m going to see him again and he is in a better place and that it was supposed to happen that way. But i wasn’t complexity because one of my team members called me out on being very angry with God and not letting him in anymore. I didn’t even see that I was doing that but I was. Once she called that out that one day I knew that that wasn’t a good place to be with the Lord. Yea, I know that I could have just quit and just kept it right there and no one could say anything to me because no one my age has ever been through that or seen the things I have seen. But i knew that I had to do what my dad has always sought me to do when I fall. I had to get back on the horse! When life pushes you down and your in a hard spot and you think that you can’t get up after it, you have to try your hardest to get back up because when you do you will realize that you are even taller now than when you got pushed down!
Now that i have been working on it I feel like I am no longer angry at him and actually love him more than ever! I want so see whats next and work for him continuously! I feel like I have been great and just getting better and better with every day that comes around. I have been reading the word and just trying to create sermons and everything like that. There is always room to improve but just know that spiritually I feel like I am doing better than ever.
I guess it did turn out to be long haha oops. Thank you all for praying for me and just the continued support from everyone. It really means very much to me. I feel like God is calling me to continue with going out in the world and spreading the world. I have no idea what exactly that means for my future but thats all that I know now. Thank you all again and Happy new year!!
