My squad and I left South Africa this past Wednesday, and after our layover in Hong Kong, we made it to the Philippines on Thursday afternoon.
For the next month the 12 guys on my squad will be doing manistry together at the Children’s Garden of the Philippines. The Children’s Garden is located just outside of Manila, and it houses about 15 boys between 12-18 years old. The boys living at CG come from orphanages, the streets, or from unsafe families. The staff at CG house the boys and provide them with education and discipleship in order to empower the boys to be independent one day. The boys at CG in turn go out and minister to other street kids.
The Children’s Garden also has a “second phase” house where the boys who are no longer minors can stay and continue to be discipled as they finish school. The “second phase” house currently houses four guys between 18-20 years old who are either finishing up high school or are studying in college.
This month most of our time will be spent hanging out, discipling, and tutoring the boys at CG who we are living with full time, but we will also be helping build a basketball court at CG and doing children’s outreach in some of the villages near CG.
I’m super excited for all the relationships which will be built with all of the boys living at CG. Basketball is super popular here and so I have already been able to create some good relationships through our mutual love of the sport. I have been here for less than a week, but I can already tell it’s going to be hard to say goodbye when we leave CG.
If you want to learn more about the Children’s Garden and the amazing things they are doing here is a short video: https://vimeo.com/108660824?ref=em-share
