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Little Sisters
6/30/09
“The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow…” (Psalm 146:9)
We have now been in Manila for one week. Our team spent Monday and Tuesday doing city orientation. Wednesday we sadly said goodbye to each other as we went to our ministry sites. Jen, Kat, and Jess set off to work at Samaritana, and the rest of us went to our Onesimo sights.
We are living in pairs in four different house centers, entering into life in these slum communities: washing laundry by hand, eating rice three times a day, fighting mosquitoes and cockroaches, playing lots of basketball (the boys) and attempting to learn Tagalog.
This week our hearts are breaking, hearing the stories of the people we are working with. Friday afternoon Tammie led an art activity for our fifteen teenage girls. It was a simple activity- making birthday cards for Mama Norma. Each girl got one piece of colored paper, and we had crayons, paints, and glitter to use to decorate.
I was amazed that 21-year-olds can be unfamiliar with making cards. Some struggled to know what to write or what to draw.
I looked up and noticed one girl sitting quietly apart from the group. She sat with her knees to her chest, clutching the folded piece of paper. There was nothing on her paper.
I asked her, “Don’t you want to draw or write something in the card?” 
I noticed she had tears in her eyes and one escaped and rolled down her cheek.
“Ate,” (term for older sister) she said to me, “I do not know how to draw. Or write.”
Another tear of shame. I wanted desperately to make her smile, to somehow communicate that her self-worth is not tied to her ability to write or to draw. I shared my card with her, and she dictated Tagalog while I penned the words into the card.
Her face finally lit up and she said, “Maraming maraming maraming maraming maraming salamat, Ate!” (Translation: many…thanks, Ate!)
We definitely miss being together as a team but enjoy swapping stories. Emily and Amerae cooked pancakes for their girls this week. Mike, living with AJ and Aaron V, celebrated turning 21 by eating balut! Chris and Aaron R. are roughing it at their Payatas center, showering outside.
We are learning that Christ’s love crosses cultural and language boundaries. In moments when we have no words, somehow we are able to communicate. We are working with very broken people with awfully tragic stories: prostitution, drug addiction, alcoholism, rape, incest and physical abuse are just some of the many things that these kids have dealt with.
And we are learning to hold onto hope.
May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)
Amen.
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