Go Tell It on the Mountain

After a few train rides, a 4-hour flight, and a 2-hour drive (one of our easier travel days), my new team and I arrived in Cainta, Rizal, Philippines in mid-May! Our squad has been split up into different teams for this country. Now I’m serving alongside Elijah, Alex, John, Coby, Brice, Areonah, and Ella. Here we are!

In this country, we served with an organization called Kids International Ministries (KIM). Their heart is to empower the children and youth in the community and give them the opportunity of a brighter future. We were able to serve in multiple ways including giving out meals, sharing devotionals at children’s homes, doing prison ministry, speaking at youth group, among other opportunities. (Spoiler alert: I did get to bake as a ministry again in this country! Stay tuned for my next blog post!)

One of the most impactful opportunities we had was to be the first team launched by Kids International to visit a tribal village in the mountains of Pampanga and start to build relationships on behalf of KIM with the existing ministries there. They haven’t given other teams that come through their base this opportunity, so to be the first trusted with this responsibility meant a lot to our team. We got in the van with very little information beyond “pack your tent” and we were off! We were joined with a team of four boys from KIM’s youth group, and getting to know them turned out to be the greatest blessing! They are on fire for the Lord, and our teams meshed together well. We worked alongside a pastor who usually does this ministry by himself, so to have a team of nine people was a game-changer. We hosted basketball ministry during which our team had the opportunity to share the Gospel and a testimony. After praying about who should do what, most of our team felt that God wanted Brice to share the Gospel and me to share a snippet of my testimony of how I came to know Jesus. We did so, then the pastor opened the floor for anyone who wanted to give their lives to Jesus for the first time and over thirty of the youth raised their hands! Praise God for their eager hearts to know Him! My prayer is that one small decision will impact them for the rest of their lives and into eternity with Him!

After sharing the Word, the guys on our team helped to lead the basketball workshop while Areonah and I played with the little girls. They were so cute and so excited to talk to us! We played a couple of hand games and jump rope with them. At one point, the pastor brought the two of us over to a group of about twenty teenage girls and told us to share anything on our hearts, any encouragement or wisdom we had to share. As intimidating of an ask as that was, we jumped in and spoke whatever Holy Spirit brought to mind! We prayed into that space and did our best to share what we wished we had known at that age. We bounced off of each other well, sharing about everything from identity in Christ to family relationships. My prayer is that some of them, if not all, heard what they really needed to hear and will remember they are loved by their Father in heaven.

We walked around the community and did a door-to-door “feeding”. That’s how they refer to sharing lugaw, which is a chicken and vegetable rice porridge, with the kids and their families by ladeling it into any container they’ll bring us. Tupperware, pots, plastic bags, anything will work. We prayed for many people as we gave out the soup, and made the most of every opportunity to smile and simply say “God bless you” or “Jesus loves you”.

Our second evening there, the pastor’s car got a flat tire as we tried to leave for the day, and praise God for that because it bought me time to get to know an amazing young woman who leads their worship team! For the sake of this blog, let’s call her Melody. Her English was excellent (even though she wouldn’t say that herself) and we got to know each other well in only a short time. It was easy to keep conversation with her as she was so excited about what God is doing in her community. I prayed for her and we ended up spontaneously worshipping on the side of the road while the tire was being changed, and some more kids jumped in! It was a beautiful moment I’ll never forget. We sang “Goodness of God”, “One Way”, and “10,000 Reasons” on a dirt road in the mountains of the Philippines. I can’t even believe this is my life! God is so good!

Thank you all for your continued prayer for me and my team! We couldn’t do this without you! I am so blessed to have you as my team of supporters. Praise God for you!