"Finally. . .Real Filipinos!"
Dear Family and Friends:
Kamusta po kayo!?
Sobrang masaya ako! I can't believe it here. It is just so fantastic. I don't really know how to organize my thoughts, so I think I'm just gonna list some of them out-->
There are people who just literally live on the streets here. Like they just lie down on the sidewalk and sleep. Maybe they have a blanket or towel.
Everyone is so happy here. And it's sobrang mas mabuti that I am finally able to hear real filipinos speak instead of a bunch of white teachers who have been off their missions for years...yeah...
All the water here has to be filtered. Even from the "Filtered" water. We still have to double filter it. But I haven't gotten sick yet. Though it has only been a week.
I thought I would be DYING from the humidity. But I think God really has my interests in mind because I am just fine here. Sure I have dripped more sweat in the past week than in my entire life, but I am just so happy. God truly does lift our burdens.
The food is the best. But I've eaten so much rice my hair is turning black. I'm just waiting for my skin to go dark too ;)
So on Wednesday we actually got to go proselyting with a real missionary in the Quezon City mission right beside us. It was the best experience ever. First we got on a Jeepney, which is just an elongated jeep. They are always painted all crazy on the outside with pictures and bright colors and such. And then you just hop in the back and pay 850 pesos (~$4 american money) and they will take you everywhere and anywhere. When you want them to stop you either flick the top of the Jeepney or they may have a little string that attaches to a little light or something in the front. But It was the craziest and most awesome experience of my life. The way people drive here is completely jail-worthy in America. And the driver is driving a stick shift. And he is handling money, which they hold in all their knuckles, just little bills sticking out. And he is blasting music. And talking to the people in the front seat or outside the window. But we never crash or run into anyone, though we come close. It's amazing and scary.
My in-the-field companion took us to 14th avenue in Quezon and our goal for the few hours we got to be together we were looking for a specific family that moved and didn't tell them more than the street that they moved to. As we walked down the street, she would knock on doors that I never would have guessed were actual residences. Places that had so much junk and old smelly clothing and furniture and metal scraps just piled up on each other were actual houses. It was dirty and so humbling. I just love these people though. The first guy we talked to while we were looking for the family was a nice old man who was selling sweets and such on the side of the road. He didn't know where the family was but he invited us to sit down and we talked about the restoration with him. He told us about his own family and they were all running around the place. You could tell he was so proud of them. All his kids were mostly grown so he had a bunch of grandkids too. They were so cute. But it the middle of the visit my companion looked at me and just nodded. It was finally time to share my testimony for real! And I wasn't even nervous. I just looked at him and said, "Alam ko po na mahal kayo ng Diyos. Alam ko po na mahal siya ng pamilya ninyo. Meron po siya ang layunin para sa inyo at para sa pamilya ninyo." Basically that just said that God loves you and your family and has a purpose for you and your family. That's all I could think to say in my limited tagalog. And even though I knew I probably could have said more, I took the fact that I couldn't remember anything else to be a sign from God that that was all He wanted to come out my mouth at the time. Anyways, the guy thanked us and then gave us this coconut drink thing. It was milky and green, because the filipinos color everything if they can, and it had these little jelly squares that just float around the top of the cup. It was sobrang masarap (super delicious).
My favorite person we talked to was this nice lady that was probably in her 30s cleaning her ashes out of her stove. She was talking to us and then these little kids came around the corner and were staring at me, because I am so white. My companion was even brown so I really stood out. The thing about the little kids here is that they just stare at you with blank faces until you indicate that you acknowledge them. So they were just looking at me and then as soon as I winked and smiled at them they got these huge grins on their faces. It was so cute. While my companion was talking to their mom about who-knows-what, I beckoned to them to come over to me. I held out my hands with some candy in them and they got super excited about it. I don't know if they've ever had starbursts before, but i'm pretty sure they loved them. They just snatched them out of my hands and then ran back over to the corner giggling and whispering "tank yu" in their cute little accents. It was so precious. I got to bear my testimony to all of them too.
The weirdest thing is that as I would walk down the street, I was the only white person. So absolutely everyone stared at me. Everyone. Sure I got some dumb cat-calling from teenage boys and such because of it, but everyone else just stares. So I usually just wave and smile. My companion said, "Oh I love when I have white companions because everyone wants to talk to you because you are Amercican. We get so many more people that way!" So even though my family would tease me relentlessly for how white I am back home, it has proved to be one of the biggest tools so far in getting people to not only let me talk to them, but to approach me themselves.
Out of all the cool things that happened that day, the feelings I had were the best part. When I got on that first Jeepney I felt the Spirit so strongly. Here I am crammed in with a ton of Filipinos basically on my lap, the Harlem Shake blasting throughout the vehicle, and the most dangerous driving on the planet. But I just sat there in amazement with tears in my eyes and a grin on my face so big it hurt, praying, "Thank you God for giving me this opportunity." I have never felt such a love before for complete strangers. I never thought I would love the smell of dead things and "digested food" so much. I never have had such confidence in what I was doing in my entire life. This is real.
Salamat for all the prayers and love. I think God totally mastered the whole satellite thing a long time ago because I think I can feel all the prayers all the way over here;)
Never be afraid to open your mouth and let the Spirit of the Lord fill it.
-Sister Allyson Lefebvre
Kamusta po kayo!?
Sobrang masaya ako! I can't believe it here. It is just so fantastic. I don't really know how to organize my thoughts, so I think I'm just gonna list some of them out-->
There are people who just literally live on the streets here. Like they just lie down on the sidewalk and sleep. Maybe they have a blanket or towel.
Everyone is so happy here. And it's sobrang mas mabuti that I am finally able to hear real filipinos speak instead of a bunch of white teachers who have been off their missions for years...yeah...
All the water here has to be filtered. Even from the "Filtered" water. We still have to double filter it. But I haven't gotten sick yet. Though it has only been a week.
I thought I would be DYING from the humidity. But I think God really has my interests in mind because I am just fine here. Sure I have dripped more sweat in the past week than in my entire life, but I am just so happy. God truly does lift our burdens.
The food is the best. But I've eaten so much rice my hair is turning black. I'm just waiting for my skin to go dark too ;)
So on Wednesday we actually got to go proselyting with a real missionary in the Quezon City mission right beside us. It was the best experience ever. First we got on a Jeepney, which is just an elongated jeep. They are always painted all crazy on the outside with pictures and bright colors and such. And then you just hop in the back and pay 850 pesos (~$4 american money) and they will take you everywhere and anywhere. When you want them to stop you either flick the top of the Jeepney or they may have a little string that attaches to a little light or something in the front. But It was the craziest and most awesome experience of my life. The way people drive here is completely jail-worthy in America. And the driver is driving a stick shift. And he is handling money, which they hold in all their knuckles, just little bills sticking out. And he is blasting music. And talking to the people in the front seat or outside the window. But we never crash or run into anyone, though we come close. It's amazing and scary.
My in-the-field companion took us to 14th avenue in Quezon and our goal for the few hours we got to be together we were looking for a specific family that moved and didn't tell them more than the street that they moved to. As we walked down the street, she would knock on doors that I never would have guessed were actual residences. Places that had so much junk and old smelly clothing and furniture and metal scraps just piled up on each other were actual houses. It was dirty and so humbling. I just love these people though. The first guy we talked to while we were looking for the family was a nice old man who was selling sweets and such on the side of the road. He didn't know where the family was but he invited us to sit down and we talked about the restoration with him. He told us about his own family and they were all running around the place. You could tell he was so proud of them. All his kids were mostly grown so he had a bunch of grandkids too. They were so cute. But it the middle of the visit my companion looked at me and just nodded. It was finally time to share my testimony for real! And I wasn't even nervous. I just looked at him and said, "Alam ko po na mahal kayo ng Diyos. Alam ko po na mahal siya ng pamilya ninyo. Meron po siya ang layunin para sa inyo at para sa pamilya ninyo." Basically that just said that God loves you and your family and has a purpose for you and your family. That's all I could think to say in my limited tagalog. And even though I knew I probably could have said more, I took the fact that I couldn't remember anything else to be a sign from God that that was all He wanted to come out my mouth at the time. Anyways, the guy thanked us and then gave us this coconut drink thing. It was milky and green, because the filipinos color everything if they can, and it had these little jelly squares that just float around the top of the cup. It was sobrang masarap (super delicious).
My favorite person we talked to was this nice lady that was probably in her 30s cleaning her ashes out of her stove. She was talking to us and then these little kids came around the corner and were staring at me, because I am so white. My companion was even brown so I really stood out. The thing about the little kids here is that they just stare at you with blank faces until you indicate that you acknowledge them. So they were just looking at me and then as soon as I winked and smiled at them they got these huge grins on their faces. It was so cute. While my companion was talking to their mom about who-knows-what, I beckoned to them to come over to me. I held out my hands with some candy in them and they got super excited about it. I don't know if they've ever had starbursts before, but i'm pretty sure they loved them. They just snatched them out of my hands and then ran back over to the corner giggling and whispering "tank yu" in their cute little accents. It was so precious. I got to bear my testimony to all of them too.
The weirdest thing is that as I would walk down the street, I was the only white person. So absolutely everyone stared at me. Everyone. Sure I got some dumb cat-calling from teenage boys and such because of it, but everyone else just stares. So I usually just wave and smile. My companion said, "Oh I love when I have white companions because everyone wants to talk to you because you are Amercican. We get so many more people that way!" So even though my family would tease me relentlessly for how white I am back home, it has proved to be one of the biggest tools so far in getting people to not only let me talk to them, but to approach me themselves.
Out of all the cool things that happened that day, the feelings I had were the best part. When I got on that first Jeepney I felt the Spirit so strongly. Here I am crammed in with a ton of Filipinos basically on my lap, the Harlem Shake blasting throughout the vehicle, and the most dangerous driving on the planet. But I just sat there in amazement with tears in my eyes and a grin on my face so big it hurt, praying, "Thank you God for giving me this opportunity." I have never felt such a love before for complete strangers. I never thought I would love the smell of dead things and "digested food" so much. I never have had such confidence in what I was doing in my entire life. This is real.
Salamat for all the prayers and love. I think God totally mastered the whole satellite thing a long time ago because I think I can feel all the prayers all the way over here;)
Never be afraid to open your mouth and let the Spirit of the Lord fill it.
-Sister Allyson Lefebvre