Break my heart for what breaks Yours...

Let me just start by saying that yesterday was hands down the best day of the trip so far. It's been hard, because I've been really discouraged by my school placement, since I'm not really doing a whole lot of anything in my classroom yet. It's also really hard for me to communicate with my teacher because while her English is pretty good when she's teaching, it's really hard for her to talk to me one on one. So that's been really discouraging. Yesterday I lead them in their memory verses and explained the new one for this week. After that, I sat in my chair in the back of the room for most of the morning, and then once math time came I helped out one of the kids that was struggling with his long division. That was really great, because I could actually see him coming around and understanding the problems. After that though, I sat in the back for a while, went to lunch, and came and sat for the last half hour of school.

After school is where my day started to turn around. I came home and relaxed for a couple hours (as usual), and then around 3 or so I went with a group to the children's home. We stayed there until about 4:30 or so, and it was really great! The kids loved having us there, and we loved being there with them! Around 4:30, Jillian & I decided to head back. On our way, we heard some little girls behind us that were walking with someone calling to us and trying to ask what our names were. So we stopped, and both girls grabbed our hands. We walked down to the gate of where we're staying, and by the time we got there, there were about 5 more kids. Before we knew it, close to 10 or 15 kids were hanging all over us. Soon, more members of our group had joined us, along with about 20 more kids. These were all the street kids that live in the squatter camp surrounding our house. These kids don't go to the children's home, because they technically have families. What they don't really have though is someone to love on them. There was a little boy that literally attached himself to me for a good hour. Anytime I tried to put him down, his hands instantly shot back up and he was grabbing at me to let him back up. I spun, bounced him, sang with him, and he had an enormous smile on his face. I don't know his name, because he was too young and didn't speak enough English to tell me. At this point, there were probably around 8 or so of us from Taylor, a few members from other groups that are here, and at least 20 or 30 kids hanging all over us. There was one point that we all (and I mean ALL) started singing "Baby" by Justin Bieber...I'll never hear that song and not think of that! Even my little boy was "singing" along with everyone, and it was so sweet.

My heart absolutely BROKE for those kids. I was journaling yesterday, and as I was praying I realized that this is why I'm here. Sure, I'm observing in a classroom and I'll teach a lesson or 2 while I'm here. And sure, I have my kids in my classroom who need me to love them and praise them, because even though they're pretty well off, they don't get praised enough. Even the kids in the children's home constantly have people coming in to play with them and love on them, and they're used to having people coming in and out of their lives. But those street kids...they have no one. They have families, but those families are so big that there is no one to keep track of them and care about where they are. They don't have people to pick them up and carry them around. They don't have people to spin them around and bounce them and sing with them. They have no one who will come and spend hours simply loving them. So I've decided that that is where I'm investing my time here. I want to pour all of the love that I possibly could onto those street kids. Even though I leave in 2 weeks, and I don't know if the other groups that pass through will even acknowledge them, I still want to plant seeds. I don't know if the kids I play with while I'm here will even remember my name when I leave...but what I do remember is that they'll remember that someone took time out of their day to love them.

The other night we had a corporate worship night with the 2 other groups that are staying in the house. One of the songs we sang was Hosanna, and the bridge hit me REALLY hard. So I'll end with that. Again, thank you so much for you prayers...and thank you for listening to me rant. :)

Love and miss you all,

Kristen

"Heal my heart and make it clean. Open up my eyes to the things unseen. Show me how to love like You have loved me. Break my heart for what breaks yours. Everything I am for Your kingdoms cause. As I walk from earth into eternity."     ("Hosanna" by Hillsong)

Mega-Church, Mega-Mall, Mega-Tired.

Cheesy, I know. But that title totally sums up my day.

We went to a mega-church, which is pretty much the Filipino equivalent to Willow Creek (for those of you who know what that is). It was HUGE. The worship was amazing - during one of the songs they sang a verse and a chorus in Tagalog...and it was so amazing to realize that even though we were singing a different language, we were still worshipping the same God. SO COOL! The pastor talked about prayer, which smacked all of us right in the face. He talked about prioritizing your prayer, and it was really incredible. Message/e-mail me if you wanna talk more about it. :)

After church, we went over to a mega-mall, which is definitely the biggest mall I've ever seen. Ever. In my life. The exchange rate is a beautiful thing - everything is a lot cheaper here! I'm exhausted though, because we spent about 4 hours there. :/

In about half an hour, we're doing worship with the other groups that are staying in the house, and I'm so excited! I'll put up something about that tomorrow.

Sorry this is so short, but I have some homework and a little bit to prepare for tomorrow! Love and miss you all!

-Kristen

"Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph." (Amos 5:14-15)

Weekend!

Just realized I'm a day behind on this whole blogging thing...whoops!

Let me just start by saying that this is probably up there with one of the best weekends that I've ever had. Here's what my yesterday (Friday) looked like:

Woke up early, went to school. Nothing surprising there. The school day was wonderful...the girls in my class wrote me a letter, and they told me that they loved that I was there "playing" with them, and they wanted me to be their teacher forever. They also told me that they hoped I would miss them when I leave. :/ The school day was really great though - I definitely feel so blessed by the class I was placed in! After school, I came home and did some skyping and catching up on e-mails and what not. Around 3 pm, the teachers from Valley View (the school that about half of us are placed at) challenged our team to a volleyball game. I didn't play, but I watched. And BOY was I glad that I did. A little girl named Alexandra pretty much attached herself to me for a little more than an hour. She just kept hugging me, and looking at me and smiling. (If you look at my facebook pictures, she's in my profile picture right now and I have a bunch of pictures with her.) It absolutely broke my heart. The only English she spoke was enough to tell me that her name was Alexandra, and she was 5 years old. She was absolutely beautiful, and my heart absolutely broke for her. When I finally got up to leave (long after the game was over), she gave me a HUGE hug and a kiss, and left me with a really big smile. After I got home, I went with a group of 7 girls to go to the mall and to dinner. We took a trike and a jeepny, and it was SO much fun. I haven't laughed that hard or had that much fun in a really long time. It made me realize how blessed I am to be on this trip, and that I'm definitely here for a reason.

Today (Saturday), we went to an absolutely BEAUTIFUL waterfall that was about an hour and a half away. It was seriously stunning, and I've never seen anything like it. And not only did we just look at it, we swam in it. Yep. Today, I swam at the bottom of a WATERFALL. I couldn't even handle it. I was just so in awe of God's creation and the fact that I was getting to experience it. I'll be sure to put pictures up soon...I took a ton!

I still miss home a lot and I'm still struggling with jet lag a little bit, but I'm definitely finding my purpose and I'm definitely realizing that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be right now. My attitude towards this trip is SO much better, and I can't wait to see what got has in store for the rest of this trip. Thank you so much for all of your prayers!!

Love and miss you all.

"Follow God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." (Ephesians 5:1-2)

Day Two

Jet-lag is probably my least favorite thing in the whole entire universe. Last night, I was in bed and asleep by 8:15...and was awake and ready to go for the day at 5 AM. Adjusting is hard on all of us...basically the whole team is struggling. Things at the schools, as great as they may be, are not what we expected them to be. Jet-lag is getting to all of us; we're all exhausted all the time. A lot of us are homesick and kind of discouraged....so prayer would be greatly appreciated.

On a brighter note, here's what I did today:

After I woke up with the sunrise (Actually it was BEFORE the sunrise), I left with the group of 11 that are at Valley View Academy with me to start our first day of school. We got to school around 6:50, and things got started right away. I'm in a 3rd grade classroom, and I absolutely adore my teacher. In this school, and in the Philippines in general, the students refer to their teacher as "Teacher _____." I'm Teacher Kristen. Actually, I'm more teacher Kristine, because with their accent Kristen is difficult for them to say. I figure I'll answer to pretty much anything! My teacher's name is Teacher Ruth, and she is absolutely wonderful. She has so much energy and so much passion for these kids, and you can tell that she loves her job and she loves God. The kids in my class are wonderful as well. There's 19 kids in my class, and I'm already picking up on their extremely distinct personalities. Almost everything in the school is taught in English, but my teacher will go back and forth between English and Tagalog, which is the language of the Philippines. That makes it a little difficult to follow, but the fact that she goes back and forth makes it easy to pick up on. After school today, I was waiting with some girls from my class for their rides. They were asking me all sorts of questions about where I was from and what I was doing here, and they asked me if I knew any Tagalog. I told them that the only thing I spoke was English, and they told me that they were going to teach me, starting tomorrow. I'll let you know what I learn as I learn it...this should be interesting! Tagalog is a very interesting language- it's almost Japanese/Chinese sounding but with some Spanish influence. I can't wait to learn some of it!

I got home from school around 1:30, and relaxed & did some skyping for about an hour. After that, a group of about 6 of us walked up to the Children's home and hung out there until about 3:45. I already know that I'm going to have a REALLY hard time leaving these kids in a couple weeks. The second we walked in, we had children hanging all over us. I carried a girl around (her name is Princess) for about half an hour...my arms are still sore! The kids all call us "Tita," (pronounced Teeta) which means "big sister." They'll all run around yelling "Tita! Tita!" and want absolutely all of your attention. It absolutely breaks my hear that these kids don't have families, but at the same time, they are all so happy and have so much joy. I didn't bring my camera today, but I'll bring it the next time I go and take a lot of pictures.


I can already tell that this is going to be a very testing experience for me, but I'm ready for the challenge. I'm trying to find joy wherever I can, because I know that if I don't I'll be miserable. I'm definitely annoyed by the fact that I'm tired all the time, but I'm hoping that within the next week or so I'll get used to our routine. Again, thank you so much for all your prayers!

Miss and love you all,

Kristen

"Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." (Psalm 90:12)

Day One!

1 day down, 19 ish more to go! Jet lag started to kick in this afternoon, which has caused most of us to be absolutely EXHAUSTED all day long. We started off the day by most of us waking up between 6:30 and 7:30 (all on our own...thank you jet lag), ate breakfast, and took it easy until around 10. At 10, we met with the education professor that came with us, and we got a lot of information on the school that is next door to us that a good portion of our group will be at. I'm not at that school - there's 11 of us that are at a school that is a 5 minute walk up the hill, called Valley View. It's a K-12 Christian school, and from what we got to see so far it was really great! The school starts at 7 and for the 1st through 3rd grades ends at 1:10, and for 4th and up it ends at 2:10. I'm in 3rd grade, which means my day will start by being at the school around 6:45 and I'll be done by 1:10! Afterwards at around 2:30 I'll head to the children's home to just love on some kids for part of the afternoon, which I'm so excited for! We stopped by on our way home from the school today, and I already know I'm going to love it! 

After we got back from all of our excursions today, we just hung out and relaxed before dinner. A group of us, in an attempt to keep ourselves from napping, played Taboo for a while, which turned out to be entertaining! We definitely proved that things tend to be funnier than they actually are when you have jet lag...

After playing Taboo for a while, a group of 14 of us went to a fruit stand...market...thing that was about a 7 minute drive from our house. We took this thing that they call a "trike," which is extremely popular in the Philippines. It was really cool...they fit 6 people, and it only cost 8 Pisos! (The exchange rate is 43:1...not too shabby!!) It was kind of scary, because the driving here is pretty crazy. But it was still really fun! I bought a green mango (which apparently in 3-4 days will turn yellow and taste delicious) for 30 pisos, which is less than 1 american dollar! 

After the fruit stand, we came back, hung out for a bit, and ate dinner. After dinner, people started the shower lines, and already at 7:30 pm, people are sleeping. The jet lag definitely hit all of us like a brick wall today, and everyone is struggling. Prayers for strength, stamina, and energy would be greatly appreciated!!

My internet was going REALLY slow tonight, so I'll post some pictures of today when I have some free time tomorrow. Again, thank you so much for all of your prayers and support! Love and miss you all.

-Kristen-

"For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say "No' to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age..."     (Titus 2:11-12)

WE MADE IT!!

As I type this, I'm sitting in my room (which I'm sharing with 8 other girls) in MANILA! I still can't totally believe that I'm actually here. The drive to the house was great (windows down the whole way!), and Manila looks like a really interesting city - unlike any I've ever seen before. The trip here seemed to take almost forever...and it kind of did! We left Monday morning (Indiana time) at 11:40, and we arrived in Manila at 12:10 AM on Wednesday (Philippines time). It's pretty crazy that it's technically 2:37 AM right now and I'm not tired. Jet lag is definitely going to be a struggle I think!

Tomorrow is when we'll do our orientation. We'll see get the official tour of the house we're staying in, a tour of the neighborhood, and we'll also get a chance to talk to the people we'll be working with. So tomorrow, I'll most likely get to meet my teacher!!

Well I should probably take a shower and head to bed at some sort of "reasonable" hour. :) I'll write more tomorrow!!

Thanks so much for all of your prayers :)

Travel Info!

Tomorrow is the big day!! Here's my flight information...I probably won't be on my computer again until Wednesday or Thursday. Thanks so much for your prayers :)

Monday, January 3

DL 6448   Depart Indianapolis (IND) at 11:45am

                 Arrive Detroit (DTW) at 1:06pm

DL 629    Depart Detroit (DTW) at 3:35pm

                 Arrive Manila (MNL) at 12:10am (January 5)

Sunday, January 23

DL  630    Depart Manila (MNL) at 6:15am

                 Arrive Detroit (DTW) at 10:40am

DL 2576   Depart Detroit (DTW) at 1:45pm

                 Arrive Indianapolis (IND) at 3:03pm