Community

The sting of each goodbye is a reminder of the depth of our connection. These connections are important parts of our lives because we are all created for community. Living in community with others is challenging as we are all imperfect people. However, living in community is also full of rich, deep blessing. When we live in community with others we more fully realize how God created us to live in community with Him. I began writing this at the airport just after saying the last of a long long stream of goodbyes.  I was fully feeling the sting of detaching from dear relationships. Goodbyes hurt because they are a detaching  of the connections and community God has provided.

We've now been in the Philippines for 10 days and we are fully submerged into the new connections and community God is providing for us. While the goodbyes still hurt there is healing in the hellos. New connections and new purpose is healing. We have met all the staff and volunteers at all 3 houses and gotten to bond more deeply with many of them, built a relationship with our house's caretaker and family and reconnected with old friends. We have woken up every day feeling so blessed to be here.

Here in Baguio at Helping Hands Healing Hearts, we have been blessed with a beautiful wooden home to live in.  This home will not just be our home but also a large part of our ministry as it will be the mission house for Helping Hands.  We will plan, coordinate and host mission teams who come to work with the ministry.  We will also have Bible study and dinners with the teens of the ministry at our home. The house is a 1956 wooden home with a yard that is 95% garden/ plants/ herbs/ fruit bearing trees.  It is surrounded by a high locked gate (very typical in the Philippines) and has screens in all of its windows (a big blessing when you have no air conditioning). We have 3 bedrooms upstairs for us, our long term German volunteers (2 teenage girls that will arrive in a weeks), and another room that can house up to 5 other female volunteers.  Downstairs we have space for 4-6 male volunteers. The home has a lovely porch with a view. We have already hosted 1 team of 4 medical school students and it was awesome to host and care for them for 2 nights while they were here to do training for the ministry.
Here are some pictures of the house:

Front door

View off the porch of the neighborhood.

panoramic of the back yard from the porch

inside the front door: dining room

just inside the front door to the right: living room

Guest room #1

stairs in guest room #1 up to a tiny loft where extra guests may stay

We still have a lot of work to get everything guest ready but we're getting there. I can't wait to have this house filled with people here to do ministry with us. Pray with us for the community of this home to be filled with love,  grace and rich fellowship.