home sweet home

i've been home for a couple of days now. what a change. I'm still processing everything, i'm sure that will continue for a while.

saying goodbye to those precious kids was the hardest thing i've ever had to do. one image i will forever have in my head is one of angel, a sweet 6 year old girl, standing outside the girls dorm holding hands with ate lizelle while sobbing. she didn't say anything but a little whisper of "i love you" the entire morning as we said goodbye. our team was at the orphanage longer than any of visitors have ever stayed. the children are used to visitors and saying goodbye, but not used to this deep of a relationship with them. the fact that i may never see them again is heartbreaking. i will always remember each one of them, and i pray that is in God's will that i get to see them again.



one of the team Bible studies we did together this summer was about excuses. as we talked about it i realized that each of those excuses i had believed at one time. the enemy uses those lies to keep God's children from following his command to go. after going and knowing the truth that the Great Commission is a task that will be completed before Christ returns, i no longer know how i can stay.



this is a summary of the excuses we went over in one of our Bible studies:

excuse #1: "i don't feel called"
this excuse is probably the one i told myself and believed the strongest. when you look at the Bible the majority of the time the word "called" is used is in reference to someone being called to salvation. if we are called to salvation then we are commanded to "preach him among the Gentiles" (galatians 1:16) because the two go together. when you become a follower of Christ you are also expected to accept the responsibility to go to others and share the Good News with them.

"it will not do to say you have no special call to go to China. with these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rater to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home." -j. hudson taylor

excuse #2: "but my parents wouldn't let me go"
everyone makes mistakes and your parents have seen you make every one of them. some crazy mission trip to the middle of nowhere on the other side of the earth may sound like another one of those mistakes in the making. but typically there are two types of parents, the one who immediately says no and that they will disown you if you go and the type of of parent that says no as a smoke screen. they want to see if this is something you are serious about and are willing to work towards or just a whim of an idea that has no meaning to you. most of the time the parents isn't what is keeping someone from going, its the excuse to hide behind.

"obedience to the call of Christ nearly always costs everything to two people, the one who is called, and the one who loves that one." -oswald chambers

excuse #3: "i'm not spiritually ready"
often what we are waiting for is to become sinless, to have completely pure motives, and to love people the way Jesus did. if we wait for that, we will never go. missionaries are real people who have real problems. there is not a single person who is in a specific spiritual state that qualifies them to go. K.P. Yohannan, director of Gospel of Asia, says if someone has been a Christian for longer than 8 weeks they are ready to go. what about the people out there that have been Christians for 10, 20, 30 years and never gone? if the goal we have before us is small, our dependence on God is small.

"all the resources of the Godhead are at our disposal!" -jonathan goforth

excuse #4: "i don't have that kind of money"
it may be true that you do not have a lot of money but the Bible teaches us two things; He is the owner of everything, and whoever He wills to go, He will be their provider. lack of money is never a reason, it is an excuse!

"God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supplies" -j. hudson taylor

excuse #5: "what about the needs here?"
think about triage. if someone comes into a hospital with a sprained ankle, another person comes in with a leg cut off. what person is taken priority? obviously the person with their leg cut off. do doctors love the person with their leg cut off more? of course not, but his need is more urgent and therefore takes priority. is there need for believers to spread the word of God in America? absolutely. but since America has only 5% of the world’s population, then only about 5% of the believers would really be called to stay in this country as a witness (that’s only 1 out of 20) while the rest of us should go into parts of the world where there are almost 0% believers. in reality, 95% of believers will stay within the United States. are there needs within the US? without a doubt, but we need to look for those where the needs are not being met.

"a tiny group of believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story." -k.p. yohannan

excuse #6: "isn't the mission field dangerous?"
the Israelites were faced with an interesting choice after leaving their slavery in Egypt. as they got to the edge of the lad god had told them to possess they began to count the cost of obedience. all of the sudden disobeying God and returning to slavery seemed more appealing than danger and possible death. “tonight all the people of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. all the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “if only we had died in Egypt! or in this desert! why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? our wives and children will be taken as plunder. would’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” (Numbers 14:1-3 ). it’s a matter of our priorities. do we look at temporary or the eternal in making our choices? the question should not be, “will i be kept safe wherever go?” but rather, “what is on the Lord’s heart for me to do?” if Jesus has chosen the least painful path, He would have never gone to the cross. the measure of a man is what it takes to stop him.

"some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell, i want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell." -c.t. studd

excuse #7: "i am not ready for that kind of sacrifice"
this is the root of all excuses--abstaining from sacrificial living. basically remaining selfish. it is easy to simply add Christ to our preexisting plans and say to ourselves, "well i was going to become a teacher, now i will be a Christian teacher". Jesus becomes Lord to guide us in HIS agenda, not just to offer council about OUR agenda. “suppose one of you wants to build a tower. will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? for if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘this fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple," (Luke 14:28-33).

“If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.” –c.t. studd




“missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. worship is. missions exists because worship doesn’t. worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. when this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. it is a temporary necessity. but worship abides forever!” -john piper

folk songs

a filipino folk song says, "planting rice is never fun, is never fun, is never fun
planting rice if never fun, is never fun, is never fun..." this week i changed the words to "being sick is never fun..." because really it's not. lizzy, kristin and i have all been sick all week. i was in bed sunday, monday and tuesday. lizzy was there sunday and monday, and kristin was yesterday. sinus and ear infections are not good. i am very thankful for the medicine i brought. we are all feeling much better now.

i missed being away from those kids just for those few days. the girls were begging me to come upstairs to play with them before bed and help them get ready in the mornings again. not much begging was needed.

lizzy and i got a sunburn thursday afternoon. that night everyone was confused about why we were so red. we explained that this is what happens to white people when they get in the sun for too long. we said we just wanted beautiful brown skin like they have; they thought we were crazy. our cultures are so different. we go to tanning salons to get dark skin, they use bleach to get their skin white. it makes me so sad when these gorgeous girls get so ashamed if i want to take their picture because they are so "lowi," ugly. they go on and on about how beautiful we are and just keep repeating "lowi, lowi" about themselves. if only they could see themselves how we see them.

we are printing pictures as "remembrances" today. remembrnaces are very imporatant here. people i have met once will give me something random to remember them by. pictures are their favorite thing, but i gotten magnets, bracelets, stones, anything works.

i am cherishing every minute i have left with them. i think i still haven't realized i only have a week left with them.

overflowing

saturday:
other americans arrived at the orphanage! it was strange not to be the only "whites" around. 30 something teenagers and college students stopped by. it was odd in a way because we almost didn't feel like americans around them, we felt more like filipinos. they are in the philippines evangelizing in schools. they are in another part of the country but came down for the day. uncle b. and kuya p. brought wanted them to see the orphanage and meet all the kids. so we had a huge lunch together, played for a little while, then we went to kcc (a mall type thing in marbel) with all the kids. we each paired up with a kid and went shopping. 1500 pesos worth of new stuff! this is really exciting of course, because the kids only get to do this maybe twice a year. i was with b-chay, one of the college girls. we shopped and shopped in the department store which i didn't mind at all. she found some skinny jeans, a new top, two pair of shoes, and a purse. she wore all her new stuff a couple of days later, i made her model for me.

sunday:
the americans had an interesting night meeting the ugly bumper bugs. those bugs are huge and dumb. they fly around and run into the wall, bounce of it hit you, bounce of you, hit the wall, repeat. not the cutest bugs around. we've gotten used to them, but apparently they kept all the americans up all night, along with the geckos, spiders, and rats. oh the things we've gotten accustomed to. the group left a little bit after breakfast. and we were supposed to go to church, but there wasn't enough room for all of us on the jeepney so we were told to have church there. lizzy, nathan, kristin, and i gathered the kids on some stumps on the yard and had church. we finished in about an hour. shortest church service any of them have ever been to.
sunday was also alberto's birthday. we had some clothes for him as a birthday gift so lizzy and i went to find him when we woke up. he came running up to us as we sang happy birthday. then lizzy pulled the clothes out from behind her and handed it to him. it was just a pair of shorts and a shirt but he didn't even look at them. he just immediately hugged her and started sobbing. he let go of her, wiped his face with his shorts then hugged me. of course we started crying too. he just kept saying thank you, thank you, you are my best friends. it was a moment i will never forget. lizzy and i were talking about it later and we honestly doubt if he has ever been given a birthday gift before. i will never forget that precious boy.

monday:
we went to the large high school in surallah. i have never spoken to that many people before in my life. there were over 2000 students and when you looked out for the stage it honestly looked like a sea of faces. you couldn't distinguish one from other. it was so amazing to be sharing the gospel with them that it was almost distracting. we experienced some spiritual warfare with many things going wrong or distracting the crowd. but there were many seeds planted. at the end of the assembly many students wanted to make decisions and some did, but some still have questions. we are going back to that high school this week so we are praying that those who didn't commit their lives will do it then.
monday evening two missionaries came from florida. they know uncle b and his family. they have been back and forth to the philippines around 15 times. they come twice a year for a month. they evanelize in schools and do medical missions. they are two awesome ladies that are passionate for lost people. they inspired us and were really encouraging to us. it's really cool to see two grown women who have families, jobs, commitments at home take at least two months out of every year to go out to the nations evangelizing. i think many americans get caught up in their own lives that they overlook the command that God has for us to go. but these women, thouhg never called to be full time missionaries are insprining to people at home because they are still working to fulfill the Lord's command to go.

tuesday:
we went back to lamsugod national high school. we talked about conduct and had two skits that we performed. one was about addictions and how the Lord can help you overcome them. the other was basically the gospel story. it has a girl trying to lead a perfect life but she falls and then is tied to her sin, but Jesus comes, unties her and ties himself to the cross. after we did our skits and talked, mama l and mama m came up and shared their tesitmonys, then the gospel. we also for the first time has an translator, or as tatay calls them "interupters."
rogin, the boy that has been struggling with drinking and smoking decided to give his life to the Lord. he was so happy.
he came up to us and said "i don't drink or smoke anymore."
then lizzy said, "why not?"
he said, "i gave my life to Jesus."
and she said, "how do you feel?"
he said, "i don't feel stressed anymore. my heart is clean."
he also asked if he could eat lunch with us. so he came back to the orphanage and ate. nanay said that his parents were christians but had gone astray. now they drink often. we are praying that he will influence them in a good way.

wednesday:
we went to three schools. one elementary school and two colleges. great response. many decisions.
met a sweet boy, julio, that was blind at the elementary school.
also signed my name like 2000 times. i could never be famous. one little boy from the elementary school got my signature like 5 times.
he said, "ma'm, where are you going now?"
i said, "to another school"
he said, "not home?"
i said, "no, we are going to marbel."
he said, "oh, can i go with you?"
i said, "no sorry, aren't you supposed to be in class right now?"
he said, "yes, but i am walking you out. i told my teacher i loved you so
i could not go to class."
then i several other questions.

thursday:
four schools. two elementary up in the mountains, two high schools outside surallah. the elementary schools we went to had never seen americans before. it was absolutely crazy to think while standing up there talking that this may be the only time in their life that they will see an american and hear the gospel. it's at that point where i was completely humbled. why did God choose me to be the person that would share the gospel with them. i am not special, i am a good public speaker, i do not know half as much as i wish i did about the Bible and God. why me?
one of the bible studies our team did was about the excuses people believe to keep them from going on a mission trip. all of them i have told myself, all of them i have believed at some point. but when we believe those lies is when the devil wins, and those lost people die without hearing. how then believe in the one they have not believed in? and how can they call on the one of whom they have not heard? and how can they hear without someone preaching to them? (romans 10:14). one of the worst lies the church believes is that people who have never heard will go to heaven. they claim God is a just God and how could they go to hell if they don't know. but that is exactly where they are wrong, God is a just God. we must pay for our sins or accept the free gift He gives us. we are commanded to go and reach these people, it is our responsibility. so if they die and go to hell without hearing, it is essentailly our fault. how can we not go when we know that?

friday:
all the schools were closed. it is a huge fesitval in all of south cotobato. the school had it 6th annual festival celebration. we were in a parade for the school.
tatay said, "will you be in the parade today?"
i said, "we will do whatever you want us to do."
he said, "it would be an added attraction. we have never had americans in our
parade before."
i said, "great, we will do it!"
he said, "okay, and bring candies to hand out to the small children."
so we walked in the parade and handed out candies. there were also several contests during the celebration. richard was crowned king, borus was 4th prince, joava 1st place poster, mark 3rd place poster. borus also won the singing contest.
when we got back to the orphanage the baby had arrived. he was born may 25. he looks healthy. he has a rash on his face and a lttle cold, but overall we think he is great! he has no name yet, but he is precious.

it may take a week to read all this. but wow, God is good. my heart is overflowing with love for these people.

lessons learned

one thing that we all learned fast was that flexibility is a necessity here. the school visit hasn't happened yet. it is postponed until monday. but now there will be more students there. we went on monday prepared to speak but they said it wasn't a good time. things are much more relaxed and spontaneous here. so please pray for us sunday from 5-6pm as we speak to around 3000 students. we all know God has some amazing things planned for that time.
......



sunday is alberto's 13th birthday. he is he happiest kid. his brother sonny is also here at the orphanage. they came here at the end of april. both of their parents are in jail for drugs. it's sad to think about the kind of life they had to lead before coming here. they probably had almost nothing and were exposed to all kinds of illegal actions.
the other day he was missing all afternoon and when we finally found him he said he had been sad all day. we asked why and he said "kb killed my toys." he almost started crying as he told us. supposedly kb went in and stole his bubbles while he was at school and then spilled them all. so when he got home from school he was upset because his new toy was gone. lizzy had brought some bubbles for the kids so we go him some. the next day at school he told all his friend i was his best friend and thanked us too many times for giving him something so small. we are planning on doing the same thing we did for joava for his birthday. i know he will love it.
......



shawlen is one of the elementary boys. he has only been at the orphanage for about a month. before he came here he had nothing. he owned two sweatshirts and a pair of shorts that were too big for him. he didn't know how to use shampoo, soap, or a toothbrush because he had never owned any. he had to be taught how to bathe. his parents both died when he was really young. he had been living with his older sister and her boyfriend. the boyfriend was a drunk. he would burn out his cigarettes on shawlen's arms. and as he did it the boyfriend would say, "you better not cry or i will beat you even more." he has large scars in patterns going down both his arms. as nanay was telling us about this, we were all crying. it's so terrible to see this precious boy who is so loving and sweet to us and know everything he has been through. all these kids have stories like this. it's so hard to think such terrible things are in these kid's past.
......
some ilongo
ate--older sister
kuya--older brother
nanay--mom
tatay--dad
lola-grandma
lolo-grandpa
mahal kita--i love you
sigi--okay
ohoh--yes
walat--no