The Philippines ministry is moving along. Let’s see how God is moving through me.
We went to a different town to be with girls in a safe house. We looked after their kids, did art with the the girls, and did dance lessons the girls. I thought the time went pretty well. The girls seemed to like us.
I’ve been able to do a little bit of independent food distribution. I bought some bags of nuts and gave them to the homeless on the street. Honestly, the people seemed more excited about the prayers and conversations than the actual food. I guess being treated like a human being rather than being ignored feels good.
The first person was a kid who was selling something. He started out like a salesman. I gave him the food and talked to him a little. His mask started to wear down. When I asked to pray for him it seemed like he was holding back tears when he said “yeah”. Second time was with a mother and her child. They didn’t speak much English. I gave them one bag and told them to split the bag. Of course the mom gave them all to the kid, because that reaction is what moms do. The last were two women, one of which was hyped about prayer. They wanted to know more about my faith background. I hope to do more of ministering to the homeless, maybe build relationships with the same people.
We also did some food preparation and distribution in the bars for ministry. The big takeaway was that the distribution was so fast because there are so many girls in the bars. We made 300 meals, but we were done distributing in about 15 minutes because there are about 12,000 girls “working” at the bars. There sure was not a lot of clothing on each of those girls, and they certainly were lined up in those bars. The men had some glares like I needed their approval to do stuff. Most of the security guards were pretty cool about the situation though.
I guess I was doing a good job at the breakfast last week, because a lot of people recognized me and remembered my name was Aaron this time around.
There was a church service with a lot to unpack. The service was about healing, so I can talk about that without being crippled by talking like a man in a cave. In short, God can heal, but he doesn’t want your faith to be too dependent upon materialistic results. There was a guy who went up and said he knew his family got healed, he didn’t need to verify. If true, awesome. If not, don’t be discouraged. That service also had this whole play about how your family is going to hell and their salvation is on you. That information is not really how salvation works. Also there was a female pastor. There has been a lot throughout the race and our team finally had that conversation.
In terms of other shenanigans, I went out to a bar (not involved with the trafficking) with the other boy on my team and we ministered to some men. We talked about Catholicism and shared our testimonies, in addition to other conversations. There is trike transportation which I have taken. The transportation is cheap, but cramped and they driver will try and up-charge you. There was a coffee place where I got a ripoff Chick-fil-A sandwich and a strawberry cheesecake drink. So that experience was pretty hype.
I went to a mall where I distributed the food independently. There was a merry-go-round, so I went on it. I also saw a Catholic pastoral edition of the Bible and in addition to the seven other books, many books were in different places. Psalms was the weirdest change, as it was the last book of the Old Testament. I wonder what happened during the reformation. There are other things at the mall, so stay tuned for any other shenanigans.
As the days keep going around, may you continue to be merry!
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