The missionaries we ministered along side of in the Philippines
have a blog site called Multiply, you may have heard of it. Today I was reading
one of their blogs and it broke my heart… well more like broke my heart again.
In the near 6 months that I’ve been back home in my sheltered American life I have
almost forgotten about the poverty I saw. The memories of street children on
drugs and people living in places we wouldn’t even let our dogs stay slowly
fade away. Even after seeing it firsthand it’s still hard to believe that that
some people in this world have never been to a fast food restaurant and would
do anything just to step inside one. Here is a story that broke my heart all
over again for the children of Basak (a poor community in Cebu, Philippines)
and definitely reminded me of the poverty that millions of people face every
day.
It is our special ministry where we bring children, youth,
& adult who have never been to Jollibee (McDonald in the Phils.) in their
whole life. The first child we brought to Jollibee was Charlene (inset) with
her elder sister Ariene. While we were riding on the Jeepney going to Jollibee
the two sisters are talking to each other with excitement. The older sister
told her younger sister “Hala Ling, natuman na gyud ang atong Wish
ko lang” (“Our dream is now a reality”) When we
arrived at Jollibee, after Charlene entered the door, she dropped on the floor
and kissed it. Then she rub her hand on the floor and on the door and smell it
and raise her hand to her sister asking her to smell it too. We bought them
Spaghetti, chicken, burger, & ice cream. It was an overwhelming sight to us
watching a kid so really happy that her wish has become a reality.
We brought another group of 4 young people and 4 children.
One of the children was Junior.
This kid has been abandoned by his
mother and he has been stereotyped as a black sheep or stubborn kid. He doesn’t
like to take a bath but when we ask him to take a bath because we are going to
bring him to Jollibee, he took a bath twice a day until the time we went to
Jollibee.These children we brought to Jollibee belongs to our Children’s
Ministry every week.We teach them Bible stories and good values.
We brought another group of 24 youth last week as rewards to them for helping
us cooking the food every week in our children ministry. Most of them are first
time to Jollibee. Some of them shared to us their feelings that they are so
grateful for the opportunity we have given to them to eat the food that they
are craving for & to be in the place that they dreaming to go since their
childhood and now it become a reality to them because someone cares for them.We
are looking forward to bring more than a hundred poor children this year who
have never been to Jollibee.
You can be a part of this cause and make a difference to this deprive children
by sponsoring one or two of them to eat their dream food and a dream place to
be.
Please pray for Sharon, Ruben and Joy, the missionaries, there wonderful ministry, and everyone they share the love of Jesus
Christ with.
Great post… thanks for sharing. I can remember eating Jollibee when I was there nearly 2 years ago. Great stuff!