Wednesday - CCS

Today was day three at CCS, and we were back at the same projects: a rusted out swing, main fence along the property, porch work, and one of the upstairs toddler rooms.

After lunch we toured the Business Office of the Lutheran Church in the Philippines, and the old Lutheran Hour Ministries building across the street.

On that same campus is Gloria Dei Lutheran Church and School (yeah I know I talked about it a few days ago, but it was more in depth today).  We walked around and met some of the 83 students on site and the principal.  Tuition is roughly $500 per year per student, including books.  They don't have the best technology, but they're still getting a wonderful Christian education.  God bless them and what they've been doing for 41 years!

When we got back to CCS, we presented the staff and kids with a couple baptismal gowns that Alice Anderson had made.  They were beautiful and painstakingly made with love.  The Lutheran Church in the Philippines has a special partnership with CCS, and they often baptize the orphans, so we hope these gifts to be a blessing.  While we gave them away, we read through Ephesians 1:3-8, and talked about how each of us was lost and without hope before God.  We were adopted (v.5) through our baptisms into God's family, when He chose us, and saved us from sin and death.  What an awesome picture of God our Father adopting us...as we sat in an orphanage!

Then we had a birthday cake for Rachel (Happy 13th!), and moved outdoors to hang out with the street kids.  Today we talked about David and Goliath, and how God uses us even if we don't feel worthy or strong enough.  Big thanks to Tom Anderson for playing Goliath and falling from a 3 foot ledge onto the ground when little David took a shot at him.

Then it was back to the Hospice to eat some dinner.  This time we had some local foods, and a great Mexican dinner made by our missionary Sean Harlow.

Devotion tonight dove into John 13:5-17 and how we have a God who's very nature is that of a servant.  Jesus constantly took it upon Himself to serve and love, despite being the eternal God.  We can serve, because God first served us.  Matthew 25:40 reminded us that whenever we show the love to others that we have in our hearts, we're ultimately showing that love to Jesus.  What an awesome blessing!  Great day, great memories.  Tonight marks our halfway point of the trip.  Everyone is in great spirits and happy to be here.  It's a reality check and God keeps working wonders.  Happy Wednesday!

Tuesday - CCS

Awesome day!  We headed out from the SIL again around 8:30 this morning, and jumped right into some of the ongoing projects at CCS.  Today was primarily spent painting the main entrance, part of the retaining wall down the driveway, taking down their old rusty swingset (held up with rope from the tree above it), and scraping off old paint from one of their main fences.  While much of our team worked on these, many of us still managed to get upstairs in the orphanage to play with the kiddos.  

While painting today, I (Pastor James) looked over the front wall onto the street below.  I had to do a double take, because something seemed to be off.  There was a gentleman standing inside of a box.  I later asked our local missionary, Sean, what the deal was, and sure enough, there are random stations set up throughout Manila that act as restrooms.  There's a 5-gallon bucket and 4-foot walls to hide you.

We also worked again with the street kids, this time talking about Daniel and the Lions Den.  We sang a few songs, colored some more sheets, passed out some Jesus Bracelets, and played basketball with them.  They've been great kids to get to know, and you can tell the impact that CCS has had on their lives and their faith.

Meet JJ.  He's eight years old and lives at the orphanage as the only child that's not a toddler or baby.  He's partially blind and deaf.  When he sees us, he runs to us and leaps in the air expecting to be caught by whoever's lucky enough to be chosen by him.  He's got so much love in his heart and it's impossible not to love the little guy right back.

Around lunchtime today, a Lutheran pastor and his family visited from Sweden.  Nine years ago they adopted a little one-year old boy named Harold from CCS, and they came back to reunite and recap the last few years.  Now think about that - you wouldn't actually expect a family to come back to the orphanage just for a friendly visit.  But truthfully, that's the kind of ministry that CCS is running.  They really do care for these kids, reflecting Jesus and loving with all their heart.  It was really cool to see!

When we were done working for the day, we had to find a ride home.  In Manila, each vehicle can only be used for 6 days of the week in order to reduce smog in the air.  They randomize its day off, and our van isn't allowed to drive on Tuesdays.  So our driver, Bong, negotiated a Jeepney to veer off its normal route and take us back to the SIL.  We jumped in, and the guy took off like he had just robbed a bank.  He veered, dodged, and tossed us Americans around in the back seats, all the while "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper was blowing through the numerous subwoofers under our seats.  At stop lights, random guys would jump in the back with us and Mary and Sean would have to kick them out because we weren't on the Jeepney's route anymore.  It was crazy!

Once we got back to the SIL, we relaxed a bit and ordered in some Pizza Hut.  Ed Strohschein, LCMS Business Manager in Asia was visiting from Hong Kong, and he stopped by to join us for dinner.

For devotions this evening, we talked about Psalm 103:1-16.  Each of us really is like a flower in this life that blooms for just a brief time, and then we fade away.  Flowers never grow beautiful for their own sake.  They're planted, grow, bloom, and express beauty solely for the purpose and by the encouragement of the Gardener.  Each of us needs to realize what we're living for, and what sort of beauty we're trying to show.  Is it lasting beauty, or beauty that fades like a flower?  We also talked through Psalm 63:1-5.  The context there is King David fleeing for his life from his son, Absalom.  David finds himself in a dry desert.  He's hungry, thirsty, and his life has been drained out of him.  But in spite of all this, he still praises God.  He knows that even though he's hungry, thirsty, and tired, that God is still the God who always provides him with what he really needs in life.  Our team is tired today.  But as flowers we know where we've been planted in life, and we can praise God throughout whatever physical hardship, because we bloom for the glory of the Gardener.  Blessings on your Tuesday!

  

      

   

Monday - CCS

After our first real night of sleep, we woke up Monday morning ready to tackle whatever God had in store for us.  Our driver met us at 8:30 and took us over to Concordia Children's Services (CCS), the orphanage we'll be at this week.  It takes us a good 40 minutes to get to the site, as traffic has been redirected throughout the city.  Good old Hollywood producers are here making a movie sequel in The Bourne series.  Once we got to CCS, we jumped right in to caring for the kids.  It was awesome to see team members showing love to kids who certainly don't get what they fully need yet.  CCS does a great job at caring for them, but there's no love like what a parent could give them.

The CCS building is very old, and in drastic need of a facelift.  Our team spent much of the morning painting the commons area, front porch/door, columns, and a wall running the length of their driveway.  The team worked quick and shocked CCS staff with what was done in just a few hours.

This is Sean Harlow, currently the only LCMS missionary in The Philippines.  He's our guide this week, and also serves as assistant to the LCP (Lutheran Church of the Philippines) president.  Great guy with a big heart.

After lunch, the urban street kids stopped by.  Due to such a huge population, Manila runs two different sessions of school each day.  Half of the kids attend school from 6am-noon, and the other half of the kids attend school from 1pm-7pm.  These kids had just gotten out of school, and they always stop by CCS for whatever ministry is going on that day.  CCS funds their school supplies and uniforms, as well as transportation to and from school.  It's a much needed ministry and outreach!  Our team helped another team from a local college make Valentine's Day cards with the kids, which they'll in turn sell to help fund this ministry.  We also ran a VBS-type program and taught the kids the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  The kids had fun coloring the characters on paper, and playing with their new kazoos.  

Here's Ate (Ah-tay) Beth, the director of CCS.

Something of interest is across the street from CCS is the old Lutheran Hour Ministries building, along with Gloria Dei Lutheran church and school, which currently serves as the headquarters for the LCP.

We left around 4pm, and headed over to a market near the Lutheran Hospice where the LCMS office is located.  It was about the size of 3 football fields, and was absolutely buzzing with activity.  You can buy fruits, veggies, fresh fish, fresh meats (very very fresh - like alive), and other goods.  We were warned not to bring much cash and to hold on for dear life to cameras and wallets, because the market is a pick-pocketers dream.  

Then it was back to the office to grab some dinner.  Mario made another incredible mixture of filipino foods - prawns, fish, veggies, three types of lumpia, etc...

A few of us even tried Balut - a local delicacy that makes most people cringe.  I'll spare you the pictures, but just know that balut is a fertilized duck egg that's way older than a typical scrambled egg.

For our devotion time, we looked through Philippians 2:14-16.  Every single mission trip I've (Pastor James) ever been on has had some sort of internal conflict amongst team members.  We're in tight and stressful situations, and people tend to get irritable at times, so this passage encouraged us to act in love and humility towards each other all week long.  We also realized that we're "holding out the word of life" by showing genuine love to everyone we encounter this week.  We also looked through Galatians 6:2, 9-10 and talked about how we can carry each other's burdens this week.

The people of the Philippines are some of the most genuinely loving and gracious people we've ever met.  They constantly go out of their way to serve and love us, honestly a drastic difference from our American culture.  We came to show love, but love is being shown to us.  God bless your day!

P.S. We're unaffected by the 6.8 earthquake to hit the central Philippines.

Sunday - Orientation

Our first activity for the day was to head over to Grace Lutheran Church and join them in worship.

Pastor Seth led a great worship service - p. 15 from The Lutheran Hymnal, a liturgy that we still use much of today at Trinity.  It was awesome to see two churches connected by their worship, even though they're 8,400 miles away!  Everybody felt right at home, especially since they threw us a potluck dinner right after worship with local filipino foods.

After we left, we drove through Manila in order to get a feel of the city.  We stopped off at the Intramuros Visitor Center at Fort Santiago.

 ...and drove through some of the squatter communities...

Here's what's called a Jeepney.  After WWII, American armed forces left quite a few Jeeps around when they pulled out, and the Philippine community has taken them, extended them, and they are now the most widely used vehicle in the city.  They operate basically as an informal bus line, where you can just flag one down, hop in, pay a few pesos, and head across town.

We closed out the day by visiting the LCMS support office in the Philippines.  Mario lives on site with his family, and cooked us up a great dinner.

   

With a good handle on what this city is about, we're ready to tackle the projects at the CCS orphanage tomorrow morning.  We'll help with the kids, fix a few things on the building, and run an afternoon VBS for the urban street kids.  

Tonight we looked at Luke 10:1-3, and how Jesus calls regular, average people to work for the glory of His kingdom.  Each of us finds ourselves here because of God's prompting, and He's got great plans for His name this week.  We're humbled to serve Him and other people.  We also looked at 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 to remember that our source of blessing others always comes from the One who first blesses us beyond compare. We'll see you tomorrow, thanks for prayers!

SIL

Our team is staying at the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Manila.  It's a school designated for groups of people to stay and learn different languages, and they also cater to travelers who just need a place to bunk.

We've got five different rooms, all very clean and well maintained, and there are community bathrooms in the hallways that we get to share.  

We all woke up this morning after a restless night with little sleep - really only because it was basically the middle of the afternoon for us and our bodies can't hack it.  We had breakfast together in the commons area, and tried eating "Gamas", a very sour fruit that was growing just outside our building.

In a few minutes we're off to Grace Lutheran for morning worship services and a huge potluck they're throwing for us.  Cindy's dad was the pastor of this church long ago, so it'll be interesting for her to see some people and places she hasn't seen in 40 years.

Our bible study this morning walked through Proverbs 3:5-6, knowing that we can trust in the Lord in spite of the fact we have no clue what this week might hold for us.  But we can take comfort knowing that God is a God who's already going ahead of us, building bridges, forming relationships, and building this week to the glory of His name (Deut 31:8).  Have a wonderful night!  We'll have a wonderful day.  Blessings!

Manila!

Leaving Detroit...

We're here!  After 23 hours of travel and lay-over time, we arrived in Manila around midnight Sunday morning, which would be 11am Saturday in Erie.  The flights were smooth but incredibly long, and the in-flight movies didn't help the time go any faster.  The first thing to hit us when leaving the plane was the humidity and temperature.  It's muggy and warm.  Manila is the fifth largest metropolitan area in the world, topping 20 million people, so the second thing was the immense amount of pollution in the air.  You can almost taste the smog in the air, almost a sour taste on the back of the tongue and heavy on the lungs.  The drive from the airport to the hostel we're staying at took about 40 minutes of weaving and dodging a jam-packed freeway of 7 lanes - completely packed with cars (even at midnight!).  It's obviously a 24 hour city with shops open all the time.  If you've ever been to a foreign country like this, you know how crazy the drivers are.  We could easily have grabbed hold of the sides of buses, cars, and jeepneys (you'll find out more about those soon) as we darted in between them, horns honking, brakes squealing...good times!  We'll get some pictures up and more details tomorrow, but breakfast is in 4 hours and we're off to bed.  Blessings to you all!