Ministry Day 1.18.12

This day would change my attitude for the future.  I’m so thankful for what I have.  This day was amazing in every way.  I want to thank God for letting me experience such poverty. 

In my studies I learned about slums and people who were stuck in a life with little hope of escaping poverty, but experiencing it first hand is so much more than studying about it.  We started our ministry day by going to an orphanage, Christ for Asia.  At the orphanage we we’re able to connect well with several of the orphans and play with them while preparing for the evening activities. 

The orphanage houses a boys and girls home of about 100 kids from 4 to adult age; also part of the ministry is to feed those in the community who cannot feed themselves.  A group of six of us prepared a meal for the many mouths in the Philippians that otherwise would have gone hungry that night.  We served a local dished that required a lot of preparation, but we knocked it out quickly amongst all the volunteers, (there were several others working with us from the orphanage).  After the meal was prepared we planned to go to 2 sites to distribute the food to the hungry.

We as a group from Logos Hope live onboard a ship that has everything a typical household would have.  It’s like camp but on water and we move all around the world connecting with the local community.  What I’m trying to say is that we have “our bubble” the ship and don’t experience much of the true culture until we step off the gangway and embrace it.  We don’t see the real aspects of life because we’re not there long enough for the people to open up to us to see it.  Busy working onboard sometimes forgetting I ever left home.  Going through the local orphanage we were able to see things only few outsiders encounter; although the poverty is everywhere in the Philippians.  This was on another level. 

For the next several hours we embraced the young Filipino kids and shared with them our love.  We played, kissed, and hugged on these kids who had little to nothing.  Some barely were clothed some were not clothed.  We did a drama, sang songs, told Jesus stories and more all with a joyful heart and laughing with them.  I connected well with the kids and loved the whole thing, realizing maybe this would be something God would have me direct in the future. 

After we feed the kids we played with them a bit longer before we left to go to our next site.  This was near center city and was very chaotic part of town if you could imagine.  (Another part of the Filipino culture is that it is very chaotic.  They have few traffic lights and that makes for chaos getting through an intersection.)  There was a group of homeless men at this site and several kids.  Again we played games doing sport and face paint and such.  I connected with the kids but also well with the men.  We gave a lesson to the men and more, I was able to talk with one of the men inviting to the ship the next day.  This was an awesome experience as I could feel a strong connection with him and could sense the Holy Spirit moving.  As he came to the ship I gave him a shirt and a Bible in the local language.  This was so cool! I invited one of the volunteers to pray and talk to this guy.  It felt amazing, I tell you God is doing great things.