Well I can't believe I am posting on my Adventures blog again, but here I am leading a passport trip to the Philippines 🙂 I am beyond overjoyed to be working with this organization again. Here is a blog I wrote about my first 30 hours leading a team in the Philippines…
It is Monday morning at 4:30 am. Jet leg has awaken me from a beautiful sleep like a cruel dream, and I sit listening to the rain fall outside my window. For the first time in a week, I am alone in a room, and finally have time to process what this past 10 days has stirred up inside me.
I landed in Manila 28 hours ago and I am not quite sure what is going on, but suddenly I feel more content, more at home, more at peace than I could possibly have guessed.
I sat yesterday with a 5-month old orphaned girl in my lap. I silently prayed over her little lungs as she coughed and breathed with raspy noises. I played ispy with a sassy 10-year old. I ate rice. I sat in several ant hills. I even watch now as those pesky ants crawl up my computer screen.
When I abruptly decided to leave the states, I got some weird looks at that sudden change of plans. Even in my small community, where people are all about missions, they looked startled as I said I was moving here for the semester.
I don’t think its normal to in less than one month suddenly be living around the world. But it is crazy to me the amount of “normal” I have already ran away from. “Normal” means being able to figure out your cell phone. “Normal means not having to sit under a table in the rain on the back porch to get wifi (please picture how ridiculous I look right now J)“Normal” means air-conditioning when it 90 degrees outside. “Normal” means a paying job, a stable future, a plan.
But when I am here, normal feels like feeding the poor. Normal feels like loving the orphans. Normal feels like making disciples. Normal feels like loving my neighbors.
Here… normal feels like Jesus.
