Day Two: The Work Begins

Rise and shine! The day began with a 7am start as we all sat down and enjoyed breakfast together. We began with a tour around the Kids International Ministry centres, children’s home and schools with Norman Denler telling stories about the development of the ministries and schools in the neighbourhood. For many of us, the orientation with Norm was encouraging and motivated many of us to put all we have into this trip and do it with an open heart. We then split into our teams (red, yellow and blue) to begin rotations in construction, feedings and visiting the children at Journey for Hope and the children’s’ home. Yellow team began with construction which involved mixing and laying concrete…manually. For many of us, it began as a physical challenge but became a worthwhile experience once we saw the difference we were making. Red team went to the children’s home, building relationships with the children and looking after babies. Blue team headed out to Tent City where they ran a feeding, and on the way home enjoyed singing Taylor Swift’s Love Story, for Rona (KIM’s nurse) and Pastor DoyDoy . For many of the team it was challenging as food is something we take for granted and seeing the living conditions of the impoverished Filipinos was shocking and an emotional experience for many of us.  

After enjoying a lovely home cooked lunch of Massaman curry, we continued our rotations with yellow team going to Journey for Hope where we did a devotion and craft with the kids and formed relationships with them. Red team went swimming with some of the children from the neighbourhood and then went out for a feeding and blue team did construction.

Throughout the day, each team encountered various challenges but also many highlights such as Yellow team becoming stuck outside Journey for Hope with a flat tyre (thankfully Smokes played the ‘Damsel in Distress’ and some of the locals helped us out).

Our night activity introduced us to some of the Filipino culture as we took a trip to Tay Tay (a shopping centre about 20 minutes from KIM). We began by cramming as many people on to Trikes and then transferred to Jeepneys which are both forms of local transport. Smokes gave each team 1000 pesos which we were to use to buy snacks for the rest of the trip. After a quick trip to Starbucks, we headed home on trikes. We ended off the day with a debrief, discussing each other’s highlights and challenges for the day. Mr Butson once again encouraged us to ‘lean in’ and give our all, have a new perspective on the challenges we face and ‘Love God, love others and do stuff’.

Thank you for all your prayers and ongoing support, here are some shout outs from the yellow team who were in charge of today’s blog post.

Gloria: Miss you Mum, Dad and Paul and extras. Love you all <3

Rachael: Hey fam, everything’s going well just a bit tired but the experience is going well. Lots of love to Mum, Dad and rest of fam.

Josh: everything’s great, making the most of every opportunity. Miss you all, love Josh

Matvey: *insert something in Russian

Keziah: Hope you like the post, don’t mind my grammar mom. Love and miss you all xx

Richmond: Hey all, (especially Mum) I’m having the time of my life and there’s nothing you have to worry about. J Love you all so much, God Bless!

Thanks for reading,

Lots of love

Yellow team