My Trip to the Philippines

Hi, sorry I missed last week’s post. If you’ve been keeping up with my posts, you know I missed it because I was on a short-term missions trip working with Kids International Mission (KIM) in Manila. The trip was great. We worked hard every day, mostly shoveling and carrying bags of sand and gravel up multiple flights of stairs, although we also got to do things such as: pass rebar and planks of wood up to the fourth floor of the building, tie pieces of rebar together, mix cement, get sunburned, and be on bucket brigades passing mixed cement to the places it needed to be poured. Thursday morning, we got a break from the work, and during the break, our group went to visit a waterfall in the area where we got to swim, climb up the waterfall, and jump into the water below from about halfway up the waterfall. Our group’s leader was also very intentional about making sure that throughout the week we spent a lot of time with the teenage kids who live at the ministry center full-time.

Having been back from the trip for a few days now, the parts of the trip that keep coming back to my mind most often are not the things we did on the trip, but rather a series of conversations I had throughout the trip. The first was with a man named Pastor Rey. Pastor Rey is a man from a city a few hours north of Manila. He pastors a church there, but his salary is not paid by the church. Because of this, he has to come and do manual labor at KIM about one week a month (hence him being in Manila while we were there) and rely on donations from various churches around the world to help make ends meet. While I was talking with Pastor Rey, he told me that in the area where he lives, there are about 100,000 people. He said that there is nobody to disciple the young people there, and asked if I would be willing to come and spend some time working with them. I told him I would pray about it.

Later in the week, I was talking with Daughin Chan (the leader of our group), Jeff Long (the head of KIM), and Russ Philips (KIM’s guy in charge of short-term teams). At one point in the conversation, either Daughin or I (I don’t remember which) mentioned the fact that I’m still “just an intern.” Jeff—seizing the opportunity—said, “You won’t be an intern if you come and work for us.”I wasn’t sure how serious the comment was, so after Jeff and Daughin left, I talked with Russ for a few minutes about openings they have at KIM. The main one he mentioned was maintaining KIM’s blog, something which sounded a little interesting, but probably not interesting enough to entice me to go work there.

One night during the week, I was talking to one of the boys who was staying in my room. I told him about the offers I had gotten from both Pastor Rey and Jeff to come work in the Philippines, and he responded, “That would be cool, but I couldn’t do it. I’m too comfortable where I am in Hong Kong.” I was struck by his brutal honesty. I was also challenged to not let my comfort level be the determining factor in what I do next year.

Saturday morning, after a long week of work, I was talking with Jeff on the newly poured fourth floor of KIM’s new building (pouring the floor was Friday’s job). I asked him about the position at KIM maintaining the blog, saying that Russ had mentioned it was a possible job I could do if I were to go work at KIM. Jeff responded by asking, “Are you passionate about writing?” I told him it’s not my favorite thing to do in the world, and he told me if I were to come to work at KIM, they would have me do something I was passionate about. He mentioned to me the possibility of discipling the boys at the orphanage KIM runs and the boys in the street gangs that live in KIM’s neighborhood. That got my attention.

When I got back to Hong Kong, my email inbox had the newsletter from Pastor Rey’s church. One line from it caught my attention. As they are asking for anyone who is willing to come spend time with their ministry, the letter says, “We don’t promise comfort while you partner with us but it is a guarantee that you can show the love of Jesus to this lovely people in this part of the world.”

All of that to say: I’m still just as confused (if not more confused) about my future than ever. One thing I do know now is that going to the Philippines full-time is definitely an option. I am praying for wisdom from God concerning direction for next year, and I would love your prayers in this area as well.

(If you want to see pictures from my trip, they are on my Facebook page.)