Hello everyone!  I’m so glad I get to give you an update.  I love and miss you all!  When I heard that each person on our team is able to post blogs, I was super excited but unsure what I was going to talk about.  I didn’t even write it out before hand like we are supposed to because I didn’t have any ideas.  I eventually settled on talking about wealth and what it really means, but God blessed me with an awesome expereince about an hour ago that I am bursting to share.  It started this afternoon at about two o’clock. . . Everyone was...

Hello everyone!Just wanting to let you know that we are all having an amazing time together. God works in strange ways and that is exately what he is doing on our trip. By the grace of God we are all so close already and able to surrender up our past and be vulnerable for one another. However, to really describe our times together is impossible, but here is alittle of what we are all going through. The first word to mind when thinking of our trip is far is humbling. You never really know how well you have it until you are brutally confronted with reality. The first night in...

Culture Shock – (n) a state of bewilderment and distress experienced by an individual who is suddenly exposed to anew, strange, or foreign social and cultural environment. It hits everyone at different times. For me it took four days. It didn’t hit me as I walked out of the airport and into the Cebu humidity for the first time. It didn’t hit me the next day when I saw dirt, trash, and broken huts for homes on the side of the Cebu City streets. It didn’t...

It’s impossible to know the definition of poverty until you experience it firsthand. Surrounded by people who are thankful that they have a gravestone to sleep on instead of a mud puddle, I decided, as my teammate put it, that I needed to rethink the meaning of wealth. Lorega is basically a group of shacks built in a cemetary. It is inhabited by people who have lived there for their entire lives and don’t know what it means to consume 2,000 calories in 24 hours or to have a clean pair of underwear every day. Since it’s illegal to live in a graveyard in...

One of the most exciting things about coming back to a country that you have already been in is meeting the people that you met before and seeing the ways that ministry has progressed.  As we made our way to Riverside for the first time this year, I couldn’t help but smile.  I was so excited to see the children.  They do not dissappoint, and they definitely don’t forget. As we stepped into the community children began appearing out of everywhere yelling for us and running in our direction.  I and Joy are the only ones that they recognize, but they are so...

The adventure began one week ago and here we are, finally in Cebu, Philippines! Here’s a short snap shot of our first week through our own eyes… Katie Ruh :: “We are already having such an incredible time. During training camp God brought all of us together. Feeling emotions from every extreme left us vulnerable as God steadily worked through us. Training camp ended and we were physically, emotionally and spiritually ready for Cebu! Over 20 hours of flying left us all quite tired; however, arriving in Cebu safely was such a relief and blessing. We are now ready to work...