Yesterday we headed back to the green box for some time to hang out with the church out there. We walked around the community to pay some house visits to some of the people that had been attending the crusades for the past couple of nights. If I am honest, I hate doing house visits. It would be cool if I could speak the language or if we had some really good translators but instead we just go there smile and let them stare at us as the Filippino's do all the speaking. Who knows what they say, I just pretend like I understand. At one point we were sitting on the porch of a woman who was sharing some of her story. I was bored because I understood nothing and so my eyes began wondering around the porch. I spotted this huge brown, hairy 8 legged creature that was making it's way towards me on the porch. One of the little kids saw that I had spotted it and decided it would be funny to try and scare the spider in my direction. This beast of a creature started sprinting towards me. I screamed like a little school girl and ran the other direction. Nothing like being the American that can't handle a spider but this thing was so much more than a daddy long leg. It had hair and it had a body that was as big as a golf ball. With legs and all it was bigger than my hand. Eventually the kids killed the thing but then they found it to be funny to run over to us with the legs that they pulled off of the body. The legs continued to move and twitch.
Later that afternoon there was a concert back at the blue box. Our students were able to perform and once again did a fantastic job. The team from frontline has some incredible talent and between their dancing, the band, and their singers, the concert was a huge success.
After the concert we decided to hit the streets of San Pablo once again. This time we had 6 adults and took our 7 oldest students so they could experience some of the life of living on the street. Although the risk was big, I think we thought that it was important for our students to get the full perspective of what FTC (the refuge orphanage) is really doing. It was a good night on the street. We did not get out there until around 9 so most of the kids were already asleep on the sidewalks and in some of the bushes along the streets. We woke them up and offered to get them food. Before the night was done, we had about 30 street kids with us. Some of the kids were the same as the night before but some of them were different. We ran across two of the students who used to live at FTC but have recently run away. Not sure if they will go back but needless to say, I am sure that it made an impact to see them. One kid, Sunny, was curled up on the steps when we came across him. He ran away from FTC a little while ago but left his sister "Bam Bam" (not her real name but what she goes by) at the camp. He took a long time to wake up but when he finally did, it was incredible to see him recognize some of the students who have come here before. We was cool and has the best smile. We bought the kids Shopow and then took them to a bakery where we were able to by bread for them all. (It was about 12am so all the other restaurants were closed by then) For 6 dollars US money, we bought 6 grocery bags full of bread. It was almost like a Mary Poppins bag the way the bread didn't stop flowing out. We had so much bread left over that when we left the kids, they took a couple bags to share with their friends that we didn't find. Before we served the kids the meal, we broke down into small groups. We asked the kids their story and a little bit about what it was like to live on the street. Most of the stories were similar. Some of them sent to live on the streets to beg and were not allowed home until they had money, others were abused physically and sexually and didn't want to be home, some didn't like having to work at home so they left to be with friends, others were left alone because their parents took off. When we asked them if they didn't want to be on the streets anymore most of them didn't want their lives to be different. They didn't want help. One of the kids told us about a guy that was coming around and taking kids. They were scared to trust a lot of people. The way that FTC works now is that if a child wants to come into the camp, they have to go through a government organization to get approval to take them. They used to be able to just bring kids in but now the process is a little tougher. I suppose it is a good thing. After watching the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" I think I would be nervous if any random person could take kids.
Overall the street experience was good. It was a little different than the night before for me personally because I felt like I had to wear my "leader/protector" hat. Instead of just letting myself just engage in the streetkids, I had to be real intentional about surroundings and and be looking first for the safety and protection of our students. If I am honest, I didn't like that role. I wanted to jump in and surround myself with giving 100% attention to the kids but I knew I couldn't. I am thankful for the night I got out into the streets with just the leaders to allow me to really dive in and just immerse myself in the moment.
No comments:
Post a Comment