Below is an overview of what’s happened these past 2 days, Thursday and Friday. God is constantly connecting people and teaching lessons, both for me to learn and for me to share with others.
- Foundation Meeting
- Meeting girl in Makati and story
- Incident with Moina and Dad about Truck
- With Dennis going to Quiapo
- Inefficiences in public systems
- New Friends
- Seasons
- Testing from what has been learned
- Miracles in Africa
- Priority with Him
THURSDAY
Extra Mile Foundation
The first is my friends from Victory Church at UPFI (University of the Philippines, Film Institute). We met at Trinoma mall off of EDSA North in Quezon City and ate at Kamay Kainan, literally Hand Food although I don’t know what the local translation is. It was a buffet with really good food. Today was Bimbo’s birthday, but today is the first time I met with them to talk about the Extra Mile Foundation, a foundation that I am going to be part of to do community development projects. Present were Zandro, Pons, Bimbo, Jan and JP.
Extra Mile Foundation will concentrate on Philcoa (Philippine Coconut Authority) first , it’s in an area near UP where there is a community of poor. We talked of what we each can bring to the table, what are our priorities, and a little bit about the vision of the foundation. Zandro has experience in community site development, Pons in Foundation program management, Bimbo in business, JP is studying law, Jan in research, and me in Marketing and teaching art/computer/business skills to kids and adults.
Zandro says we will first talk to the Barangay captain, the neighborhood’s local representative, to see if they can talk to the neighborhood’s representatives to see if they will be accepting of help from a foundation like ours. I learned that there has been times where the community did not accept help for one reason or another. The next step would be to do surveys or meetings with locals of the neighborhood to find out what is needed. There are several different programs we can do from education for kids and parents, livelihood aid, sports/activities, medical, etc. We will find out what’s the immediate need. This Sunday we will be visiting the area, just to see.
Going out
Later Thursday night, I went out with my roommate to visit a club that his friend was DJing at. I was able to see and experience the difference of witnessing how people act when I do not drink. I am still able to enjoy the time talking with people and the music, but an interesting incident happen was a girl came to talk to me and we quickly got into personal details. From now on, the people I meet that are not Christian I will not mention names or go into full details of what they disclose. I will just touch upon the Godly lessons learned and share with you all.
I learned that difference of priorities that people have when God is close to their centers, and how if we don’t have God close to our hearts, we can end up on paths that are dark and lead to more darkness and despair. I was able to see how in comparison how I live my life now and how much I love God and want to stay close with Him.
FRIDAY
On patience and listening
Early next morning I get a phone call about my Dad wanting to borrow my truck back in the states. I told Moina that I don’t want anyone to borrow it, not even family, so that nothing happens to it so I can sell it. I forgot to tell Moina to tell my Dad that it’s okay to borrow it. Four lessons learned: 1) when we are in altercations or disagreements, we should not be quick to assumptions. 2) we should listen to what the opposing party has to say so that we can come to an understanding or compromise to what the situation is, 3) that we should have a patience and not be quick to lash out in anger for possibility of making it worse and 4) that there is wisdom in weighing your reactions or replies. A lot of miscommunication, time wasted in anger and misunderstanding can be avoided if we just listen and don’t let our emotions get the best of us.
Quiapo and hygiene kits
Shortly after that, my cousin Dennis came over to the new place I’m staying in Mandaluyong with my friend, and we went to Quiapo and a used car dealership today. Quiapo is an area with a street market and famous church for the Black Nazarene statue that local Catholics come to pray to. The Black Nazarene is a statue of Jesus Christ carved in wood, that ended up turning black from age. Locals including my late Grandmother would be on their knees praying at one end of the church at the start of the seating, and would proceed forward on their knees in prayer until they got all the way to the front, believing that if they do this that the sins of all the past year will be forgiven and that God would bless them for the rest of the year.
My cousin and I were looking for deals on shampoos and conditioner for the hygiene kits that we’re putting together. We didn’t find any good deals so we will go back to Divisoria next week when we do our first purchase of the kits and see if there are little travel size containers to put shampoo in. Visiting the used car dealership confirmed that used cars here are ridiculously priced and I will not find one there and most likely will get from a private party. One other thing I saw was a guy taking a bath in public, as well as an elderly woman walking in a street market with no clothes on. It is common that the poor take a bath in public because their shanty homes have no shower or toilet and I think the elderly woman could have been suffering from a mental disease. I would not know about the elderly woman though because I did not hear what she was yelling about. Lastly there was yet again another little boy just on the sidewalk, playing in the dirt of the street.
Inefficiencies in public system
Earlier today we visited the bank to get some money. Going to the bank and just trying to get money and ask questions of why the ATMs card are not linked up to your checking account showed how much disorganization and inefficiencies exist here, not just in the banks, but in a lot of other areas such as businesses in food, malls and even public transportation. There are long waits, even when there are no lines, and there are long lines when a system like fast food is supposed to be efficient. Public transportation is inconvenient with the number of people that use it and that’s just because of the density of the city.
New friends and miracles
A new friend from my small group/church, Camille, introduced me to a couple that just arrived back from missionary work in Africa. Their names are AJ and Dominique. The miracles they told me about were just amazing: the blind and deaf being healed, healing of the crippled child that could now walk freely without a cane, and the number of people that came to know Jesus Christ from just a movie and pastor giving a message. God lined up even this late meeting of the new people from a last minute planning with Camille and there were several lessons learned. I later hung out with Camille and a new sister in Christ named Maradee and we all shared a little bit of our views and our experiences as Christians. A few main topics were: seasons in the faith, culture between Philippines and the United States, culture between genders, and the role of the husband in a Christian family.
As I was sharing my day with Moina, I was brought to awareness by God that I will be tested again in my faith because of all the talk of "seasons" with Camille and Maradee, as well as with my talks with AJ and Maradee. It happened last Sunday where I was distracted with all the commotion of trying to find a place to live, find means of transportation, and to deal with accounting for my business. In all that we do, it’s important to keep Christ in our heart as priority. Everything else is secondary, and if God is in our centers, there is never any commotion, never any worries and all that we do will be blessed by God in learning and loving.
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