Philippines #4

Over the course of this trip, I’ve been thinking: “How easily do we become so focused on ourselves, our circumstances, and our schedules, that often we miss God’s hand working right under our noses. We live in an entertainment driven world, that is only feeding us more and more stimulation every day?”

Fortunately, here with CURE Philippines, I have been witnessing God’s hand in a plethora of ways. A smile to a child bringing them joy. A wave to a nurse providing them encouragement. A kind word with a mother to bring them hope. All of these have become plain in my eyes as the obvious work of God. God has been using us on this trip to pour fathoms of joy into the hearts of the children through singing songs together, doing crafts, or even just giving a child a fist bump or a high five before they go in for their surgery, and God has been returning the same joy back into our hearts from the gratitude and affection of the children.

After a busy morning spent in the Hospital, we spent the afternoon at one of the nearby rest homes where there are patients. This was a truly amazing opportunity, as we were all forced to slow down our busy minds and have fellowship with these recovering children in an incredibly personal environment. This very well may have been my favorite experience of this trip so far as I sat down with a boy who had had cleft palette surgery some time ago, and was scheduled to go back to his home which was 20 hours away the next day. He had been playing with one of our team’s guitalales (mini guitars), so I picked up mine, and we spent much of our time without exchanging words, but communicating through music. I think that we would not have felt so connected as brothers in Christ even if we had said 10,000 words to each other rather than spending our short time simply loving each other, sharing each other’s company, and being united through God’s wonderful gift of music

- Jeremiah for the team