Mabuhay!

Today concludes the month of June. It has been quite a month! The American Nehemiah teams arrived on June 10th. I had very specific and wonderfully detailed instructions from the better half of my missionary supervisors. However, not even Ate Wendy could have anticipated the nonsense that happened. Despite missing pick up vans, extra passengers, one semi-temporarily-missing student, one too many people and not enough beds, and slow moving airport delivery vans, everyone made it to the ten-plus Filipino ministry sites! Grabe! (That’s Filipino for “ goodness gracious!")

However, I did get a little present from Kuya Jess and Ate Wendy, a TRAVEL BUDDY!

HAAAAAL – LEEE – LU – IAH!!!!

I mean I’m glad they know I’m tough enough to hack it, I’m strong enough to endure it, and I’m brave enough to face it, but…but...dag nabit, I was lonely!… :(

My sojourning companion, Malloree, is the media team member for the four Luzon (northern-most island of the Philippines) based Nehemiah Teams that I’m supervising. She will travel around with me, taking pictures and writing blog entries about the teams we visit. Check out her work:

Urban Rescue (Ft. Bonofacio, Manila)

Manila Nanny – New Faith Family (Antipolo, Manila)

Manila Nanny – Open Door (San Pablo)

Manila Nanny – Ruel Foundation (Mindoro)

The two of us started with our delightfully unique and most hilariously distressing team in Ft. Bonofacio, Manila working in the red-light district, ministering to prostitutes. They are four joyfully spirited girls with beautifully willing hearts. No four girls were more perfect for this ministry. There is not work already being done in this area, it’s pretty much a start from “scratch” kind of gig. They spend their days hanging out in front of bars looking for girls who look like they could be…well…accepting money for sex. In case you weren’t aware they don’t exactly advertise it proudly, especially not to foreign student summer missionaries, so it's not an easy task. Nothing has deterred them. They have encountered bar owners who are snide and have the most unwelcoming darkness in their eyes, the kind that makes your arm hair stand on end and makes you desire several showers after even the most brief encounters. They have witnessed at least one demon possessed woman who stalked them in route home one evening and warned them of the “Satan” that lives in name of bar (left out for the girls privacy). They’ve been stood up on dates with the bar girls for Bible study, but they keep knocking on the doors! Yesterday morning, when Malloree and I went out praying walking with the four, we found all the bars had signs of being closed by “city ordinance,” and after questioning the lingering witnesses, we were informed that complaints had been made and permits had not been paid and they would all be closed until things were cleared up. This has given the girls a wider time-slot for ministry because they have nothing to do and no where to go. Last night during a Bible study, that most likely would have most likely been interrupted sooner by customers, four of the bar girls accepted Jesus! Praise God for picky political officials, unpaid permits, and lack of Filipino need to hurry – business may not be back for a while – pray with us for that!


Next on Andrea’s Agenda:

July 2-7 up river in Eastern Samar
July 8-12 Working at New Faith Family
July 13-18 Working at Open Door
July 19-24 Working at Ruel Foundation
July 25-26 Fairwell Philippines in Batangas
July 27-28 Back with Urban Rescue, just because…
July 29 IMB Guest Units, last minute details to get everyone back to the US
July 30 Plane to USA
Aug 1-3 Nehemiah Teams debrief in Ft. Payne, Alabama

...can you keep up?! :)


***Please don’t stop praying! I need you! This last month will probably be my hardest yet.***

A Faithful Father

To this day, my parents love to joke that I was raised by wolves. This is mostly because of my somewhat fearless and absolutely bold nature, but truth be told it was all, my father’s fault! (busted!)

From day one I was a daddy’s girl! When I was in the first grade, my parents had enrolled us in an extremely conservative Independent Baptist school; conservative in the traditional sense of women not wearing pants and such. I recently remembered our career fair from that year and when my class finally got to interview the Pastor, I have no idea what question I asked him, but he looked at me sternly and in the most crusty nasty voice (or as my 7-year-old mind chronicled it at the time) told me, “Girls cannot be pastors!” I was crushed, because I wanted to be just like “Daddy.”

As I was growing up, I did everything my daddy told me. He taught me how to swim, climb, hike, ride a bike, shoot a basketball, and hang on to any kind of life preserving instrument. I jumped when he said jump. No questions asked, and no doubt that my daddy would not let me fall. Ever since I could remember I was climbing rocks that seemed like mountains in Contoctan State Park, sliding down waterfalls at our North Carolina family reunions, boogey-boarding on big waves, rafting down whitewater rivers (even when I was technically too small based on park regulations) - Daddy, just always said, “Hold on!” With his excited tone and loving eyes, I knew a few bumps or bruises were a possibility, but ultimately I would be ok. My daddy would never leave me, and I definitely didn’t want to miss out on a new adventure.

All through my life my family has had struggles in the Church. My father has been a Pastor at four different churches in my lifetime. At almost every one of these, like at any job, there have been problems and conflict – It’s just a part of life. It’s so much harder when things like this happen in churches because these people aren’t just your co-workers; they are your church family. However, no matter how bleak the circumstances or how cruel the individual, my father has never become bitter or angry with anyone or even God. He says, he was called to a task, he was going to faithful and he would never compromise the truth, even if it meant losing his job. Not once in my life have I had to go without, even when my father was without a job and we were without a home. God always provided, and I am fully convinced that it is because of my father’s steadfast faithfulness.

You see at an early age I learned what it meant to desire to emulate a father and even more so what it meant to trust a father. I know in the hard times, while my father never let me see it, he had doubts – we all have doubts. But like the lyrics from one of my favorite songs says, my father’s heavenly Father said to him,

“Hold on, hold on

When the current pulls you under

And your heart beats like thunder

Just give me your hand

And hold on, hold on

Until the storm is over

And I'll be fighting for you

Just give me your hand

And hold on” -33 Miles

In this life, on our journey to make the Gospel known and glorify Christ with our goings, we will get some bumps and bruises but listen to your Father, “hold on!” He will never leave us nor forsake us. He will gives us wings like eagles. He has a plan to prosper us and not to harm us; a plan to give us a hope and a future.

That is why it is my firm ambition, that in all circumstances, I will put my hope and trust in God and I will “hold on” to my heavenly Daddy! Because if I’m too afraid to jump, I’ll never learn to fly and I’ll miss out on the new adventure and an abundance of blessings He’s been preparing me for.

Let’s go skydiving! :)

Happy Father’s Day to the most amazing father a girl could ever have!

I love you Daddy!

My New Pal Mal

Around April 1st, after I moved out of my beloved home in M'lang, North Cotobato, Mindanao, I became... homeless-a tireless trekker. I have since then been traveling all over the Philippines living out of my wonderful, efficiently designed, perfectly sized yellow backpack, which I just so happened to have purchased in the Philippines during my first ever summer as a Nehemier in 2005. Over the past five years the yellow backpack and I have had many adevntures and these past two and a half months we have become especially close.

Now despite my growing attachment to my lovely yellow backpack, I'm happy to announce I now have a living BREATHING travel buddy! No more talking to myself or inanimate objects; I have someone to laugh with, cry with and hand squeez in times of excruciating cultural frustration.

Don't get me wrong, I very much appreciate the loyalty of my yellow backpack; that little guy and I have been through alot and still have two more months to tough it out before either of us gets a break!

...but I have to admit Malloree is a serious improvement as far as a conversational companion is concerned - the yellow backpack, not so chatty...