Well it is here, my halfway mark of my year in the Philippines. These past 6 months have been stuffed with school, holidays, teams, my family, exploring, prayer and food. These months have been filled to the brim with laughter and tears, bright smiles and tight hugs, exhaustive days and sleepless nights, goofy times and loving moments. It has been the hardest 6 months of my life. But the sleepless nights, difficult days, and bouts of homesickness have been used by God to strengthen my faith in Him.
I could never explain everything I have learned, experienced and gone through. But I am going to try to explain what has broken my heart, what I have learned and scriptures that have come alive for me.
A Broken and Humble Heart
- A few weeks ago, we gave the Sunday school kids little goodie bags. A little girl took out a used Barbie doll, it was plain to see she had never had a doll before. She cradled it and treated it as if it were made of gold. Her little eyes would light up when she looked at it as if she had never seen anything so beautiful. My heart broke for her.
- Seeing swollen bellies from hunger, scars from bug bites and neglect and half naked children who have nothing else.
- The maternity ward at the government hospital where women are cramped together waiting till they can pay exit fees.
-Bamboo houses with no running water or electricity. Where families are bundled up tight in small cramped rooms.
Lessons Learned (the not so serious)
- How to help dogs give birth.
- How to take bucket baths, live without electricity or running water.
- Lots of patience whether its with a language barrier, dealing with Filipino time (late) or poor internet connection.
- How to make lumpia.
- How to say a dozen or so Ilongo words.
- How to keep kids entertained by being completely silly and funny.
Lessons Learned (the serious)
- Love has no end. I don’t know why I thought it did. But love abounds here. With every child that becomes a Rosmarino, my heart and my love grows. It isn’t like spreading jelly on bread where it becomes increasingly thin, but expands. I am so thankful love grows. I think my notion of love was totally skewed before I came here. I saw love as a personal desire. Yet 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a has radically changed my view of love. Love isn’t for yourself, it is meant for others.
- Humility and selflessness – the manangs who take care of the kids, the kitchen, the animals, the office, ect. serve without regard to themselves. They truly live thinking of others before themselves. There is no complaining or thinking of themselves first. I am doing my best to follow their example of selflessness.
- Having faith and trusting completely in God. Without my family or friends here, God has been my constant companion. When I am lonely and feeling far from home, He is there to comfort me and satisfy my longing heart. In the beginning, trusting him just to get me through the day. Trusting Him with my anxieties, my meltdowns, my desires, my plans; keeping my life open for him to work through me.
Scriptures Come Alive
-‘For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul’ Jeremiah 31:25
-‘These things I have spoken to you, that in me, you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world’ John 16:33
-‘When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other’ Ecclesiastes 7:14
-‘He gives power to the tired and worn out, and strength to the weak’ Isaiah 40:29
-‘For I knows the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and pray to me and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore you fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you’ Jeremiah 29:11-14
-‘To everything, there is a season, A time for every purpose under the heven’ Ecclesiastes 3:1
-“You have put gladness in my heart, more than in the season that their grain and wine increased. I will both lie down in peace and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell safely’ Psalm 4:7-8
-‘Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails’ 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
What God has in store for me over the next six months, I have no clue. But I can guarntee you, it will be filled with sleepness nights, tears, laughter, silliness, homesickness, little arms wanting a hug, bright smiles, prayers and plenty of love.
God Bless,
Kelsey
No comments:
Post a Comment