On my way home!

Just really quick, sorry I wasn't able to respond to anyone's emails or facebook messages the last couple of days - the internet has been down at Sankey.
I am in the Manilla airport right now waiting for my first flight to Korea. Not too excited about the fact the the next 30+ hours will be spent on an airplane or in an airport, but excited to see many of you when I return home!
To all of my new friends and family in the Philippines, thank you for a wonderful last 5 months, I will miss you all very much!! Don't know when yet, but I will see you again!

August 6th

I know I said I wasn't going to post another update until midweek, but this isn't really going to be an update. I do however, while I know people are still checking this blog, want to share something with you all that I think God has taught me within the last couple months.
It started when a couple months back I was reading the book, "The Shack," which overall I thought was fantastic, and quite insightful - but there was one thing that when I initially read, it didn't go down so easy. I had to reread it a few times just to make sure I was reading it right because it was so contrary to the way I thought what being a Christian was about and how I should be acting.
I know it is rather theologically simple, but it has to do with the idea What Would Jesus Do - I'm sure many of us can recall when the WWJD bracelets were almost like a fad within the Christian community. And up until recently, even though I ditched the bracelet many years ago, I still tried to act accordingly to that principle. In a given situation I would try to determine, 'okay, if Jesus was in this situation, what would he do?' And not to sound arrogant, but based on the premise that Jesus acted out of love, I think I was fairly successful at determining a Jesus-like response for most situations; whether or not that was actually how I ultimately chose to act, that's another story, but I at least knew how I should be acting.
As a matter of fact, I came here to the Philippines with the mindset that I was going to be an example of Jesus here. Preaching and verbal evangelism has never been a strong point of mine, so instead of telling about Jesus, I would show them Jesus; I would do what Jesus would do. And for the first couple of months here, that is what I tried to do. Sometimes I was successful, but sometimes, as much as I hate to admit it, my personal shortcomings, limitations, and selfish desires got in the way and I didn't do what Jesus would do. 'I will try harder next time,' was often the thought that followed those instances.
And then I read The Shack; and the following is what I read that made me question what I was doing:
"You mean," Mack interjected a little sarcastically, "that I can't just ask, 'What Would Jesus Do'?"
Jesus chuckled. "Good intentions, bad idea. Let me know how it works for you, if that's the way you choose to go." He paused and grew sober. "Seriously, my life was not meant to be an example to copy..."
Wait...what!? I had to read this a couple times to make sure that that is actually what it said. So I'm not supposed to try to be like Jesus? After reading on and spending much time in thought over this, I began to understand the logic behind this statement. The paragraph continues:
"Being my follower is not trying to 'be like Jesus,' it means for your independence to be killed. I came to give you life, real life, my life. We will come and live our life inside of you, so that you begin to see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, and touch with our hands, and think like we do. But we will never force that union on you. If you want to do your thing, have at it. Time is on our side."
(The Shack, William P. Young, pg 149)
It doesn't say this, but this is what I have drawn from reading this and spending much time deliberating how this could be so. It's not that our lives shouldn't look like Jesus', it has to do with the way in which that happens. There is one thing, and only one thing, that we must do on our own that Jesus did - and that is surrender our lives to God. Forfeit our own desires and will to the desire and will of God for our life. Jesus did this, and this is the only thing that we need to do. Consequently, our lives will look like the life of Jesus.
I hope this makes sense. Both WWJD and the surrendering of one's will to God produce a similar outward result, however there are a few significant differences that I should make note of.
Previously I mentioned that even though my goal was to act like Jesus, I wasn't always successful. My own desires and limitations got in the way, sometimes something as simple as being physically and mentally tired. I have limitations, we all have limitations. But, if our lives are surrendered to God, and like it says in The Shack, "We (God) will come and live our life inside of you...", then our limitations are no longer a factor. A God who has no limitations and does not grow weary or change, is now living His life in and through you and me. Our actions still are still what Jesus would do, but it is no longer our efforts to do so, but Christ himself living through us.
I spoke at youth group at Bethel last night and this was the meat of the message that I shared with them, plus or minus a few things. One of the last things I challenged them with, was are they willing to surrender everything to God - there is no half way, or even 99.9% of the way - its all or nothing. I could have asked for a show of hands of who is ready and willing to surrender completely to God, but I told them I wasn't going to do that because the 30 seconds they would have taken to think about it wouldn't do the magnitude of this question justice, and their answer likely wouldn't be sincere. I want to challenge you all with the same thing, and actually think about it - what is the one thing you desire to do most in life, what are your goals, dreams and aspirations? Now, could you forfeit pursuing those things I order to surrender completely to God? Now maybe those desires will still be fulfilled with God in control of your life, but would you be alright if they weren't? Different things have come up at different times that I will admit, it has taken me days to finally decide that I am truly willing to surrender it over to God. Do I still hope that it might happen, sure, but it's no longer at the forefront of my mind and it is no longer something holding me back from what God's will is through me.
Maybe this made sense, maybe it didn't. If it didn't, I apologize because this turned out to be rather lengthy and I therefore just wasted a decent amount of your time...haha. If it did make sense but you don't agree, that's okay, hopefully it at least made you think a little bit about what you do believe and why. Lastly, if this struck home with you like itdid with me when I first read it and began digesting the idea, I would encourage you to think about the challenge above that I gave to the youth group at church. And as I am learning now, surrending the one or two big desires in my life was only the beginning. Granted those might be the most difficult things to surrender, but I have found that surrendering must become a daily, or maybe even bi-daily routine. And I say that from a hypocritical platform as I myself am not surrending each day to God. But I hope that despite the hypocrisy on my behalf, any truth of the matter will not be affected and that if this is something that God wants you to hear, what I am doing or not doing will not be a hindrance.

August 2nd

We are back up and running here, so that's good. We have had a couple out of the ordinary events the last couple days that I can share with you - starting with Sunday.
I didn't go to Bethel like to I usually do on Sunday, I ended up going to the church in pagbilao that all of the kids go to because they were celebrating their 10 year anniversary as a church. They had their usual message, but in addition to that they had several dance and singing performances - many of which were by the Sankey kids. That was the reason I wanted to attend that church, and the kids did not disappoint - it amazes me how multi-talented so many of these kids, or young adults, are.
After service they provided lunch, and then families with kids stuck around and they played some games and hung out for a while.
And then Tuesday was a pretty eventful day. They ended school about an hour early here at Cugley, and we walked down the road and did a feeding program at the public elementary school that is about a half mile away. The Cugley kids did a few songs for the kids at the other school, a few of the teachers said a few words, and then we passed out chicken soup and bread to well over a hundred kids (I would guess). We didn't get to spend much time hanging out with the kids like we do during normal feeding programs with the church - most of the kids got their food and then went back to their classrooms. It was still raining on and off, so that was part of the reason, but pretty much as soon as we were done we made our way back to Cugley, trying to avoid all the huge puddles in the dirt road that the previous 2-3 days of rain had left.
That evening we had a birthday party for one of the Sankey girls who turned 18. In the Philippines they don't do much to celebrate most birthdays, however they do celebrate the turning of certain ages, and for girls, 18 is one of those. They call it a Debu. So we had a party in the gym for Mary Rose - she had one of her classmates escort her in to her seat which was in front of everyone, and then several people sang songs to her. She also had to dance with 18 of the guys there - each one of whom brought her up a flower when they were called up for the turn. It was kind of funny to watch because you could tell it was many of these boys first time slow dancing.
Then we had dinner and cake, and by then it was 8:30 or so, so some of us stayed and cleaned up, but most of the kids went back to their dorms because the next day was test day for the high schoolers, so they had to study and head off to bed.
Well, I am coming down to the last few weeks. It's really hard to believe that almost 5 months has already gone by. I probably won't post anything until the beginning or middle of next week since things are fairly routine and I will be seeing many of you again within the next month and we win catch up then.