It’s been quite an interesting two weeks, and I am not sure where I should start but I’ll try and make since out of all of it for you. We are now through weeks five and six and going into the seventh week out of I believe to be eleven or twelve total weeks!!
So to start this madness off, the Sunday of the end of the 4th week I was in church, kind of day dreaming while Pastor Al was giving his sermon (don’t judge me it’s in a different language!) and while I was looking over the people and how this ministry got started I started to think of what I was going to do and what kind of ministry would I start?
If you know me very well, you will know that the Philippines is where I’ve always wanted to do my ministry but I’ve been up and down about what I am going to do. I have a passion for a lot of things, which can be my down fall, but anyway back, to the morning in church. I was day dreaming and a CLEAR vision and voice spoke to me showing me a building that was shaped like an upside down U (with a straight bottom not curved) then the voice started speaking to me and showing me things about this building and what it was for. At first I was a little confused then I say myself in this vision!! I know I sound crazy but it’s true, and it gets even better. I have this huge passion for kids, but my heart also goes out to girls that are in sex trafficking and or prostitution, but let’s face it, kind of hard to put the two together, and I am not sure really how to start a ministry for sex trafficking or people in prostitution. So this summer I was hoping to find something that I could maybe start for long term ministry, and here it was, an orphanage that was also a safe house! Its all so crazy but I really think it could work, it would be called something along the lined of Saint house (yes this was in the vision). Anyway I could go on and on about what this would look like but for now I will keep it at that and if you have any questions about it or are interested to hear more about the story/experience I had, feel free to facebook me or e-mail me at kfoster@mccks.edu.
Ok for the rest of the weeks, in the 5th week it was kind of slow but fun, we did a lot of work around the house and church, on Tuesday we weed wacked the grass at the church, which I racked into piles and put into a compost pile. Then Wednesday we started around the house. I assumed it was the same drill, but that is where I would be wrong. After racking for about an hour Pastor Al came to me and said “hey racking is not good enough, could you sweep it? To pick up more of the grass blades on the ground”…. I looked at him with a very puzzled look, of course I nodded my head and said “of course” but what I was really thinking was (why in the world did you not tell me this an hour ago? We could have saved so much time and energy! Plus it’s called the blessed winds of God; I think the grass will blow away after I rack it!) But we all know I did not say that I went right to work sweeping the lawn!! But this is something you have to know, to the Filipino having the appearance of looking clean and tight around your house is very important, to the point that you often see people sweeping dirt, just to make it look…. Better. So the blades of grass just sitting there that might (if not blown away) would turn brown and we could not have that, so I went on sweeping, but it turned out for the best cause I wore a cut off and got a good tan on my white arms. J
On Saturday of week 5 a group of people from Wichita KS came on a little missions trip and they helped us with the VBS’s so that was great!! Got to be with some English speaking people, but the funny thing was when they were around the Filipino people seemed to connect with me a lot more, on top of I was a lot more comfortable being with them! I was this kind of bridge between the two groups, the Americans trusted me and the Filipino’s trusted me, so it was a great day! After we got back to the house it was raining which means hang out side and enjoy the coolness, so we played this style of dodge ball, then me and a bunch of high school guys went down to the river (which was running high due to the rain) and swam!! It was a great day to the end of a great week.
Week 6 however proved to test me, we stated to week off by started construction on a welding shop. Which means we were building another hut, just bigger than one you might live in, and it was more of an extension off of one of the neighbor’s houses. Anyway started off as normal, we did clean up, which means I get to move the heavy objects and rack. After that we started building, which also means bringing and moving heavy objects, which makes since seeming I do not know the final plan for the building so I am not that much help when it comes to that area. But throughout this week everything seemed to just be down for me, whenever I would go out to work I knew that the guys were talking about me, now this was not un-normal, but it just really got to me this week. I could not help but put words into their mouths, and they were things that just were not encouraging. So on Wednesday I decided after not feeling very well in the morning to take the day off and just finish working on the sermon that I was giving that night. After a very long day, the service had come; I had prepared another part of the prayer series that I was preaching on, it was about how we might pray and opening the door to Jesus to work through our prayers. It went well, but I was still kind of down, so that night I really went to God in prayer, seeking what I should do, and sure enough the next day, people came to me saying they loved to message and that it really helped them out. That was all I needed, just a little encouragement, and for the rest of the week I worked hard and we finished the hut and are now about to start on building another one, this one is going to be a house for a family.
I’m very excited to continue on, and I know that with God on my team that I can keep my head high knowing that no matter what might come my way, He will be there to help me and lift me up if I am to fall.
Please continue to pray for strength and courage to be intentional with my relationships with the people here, and also pray that I may get some rest, I am putting in very long hard day’s and not getting very much sleep at night, also be praying for my new found mission the Saint house. I know that God is moving in that, and wants me to pros sue it, so please be praying that God can continue to guide me through what seems to be closer to my future and a life time ministry for the kingdom of God.
God bless
Kevin Foster
