Two Weeks and Counting...

I am excited to start this blog as a tracking of this adventure so soon to come. I will be landing on Filipino grounds in little over two weeks from this day. I remember before I left in January how consumingly surreal this time is, leaving in the not-so-distant-anymore future. I'm not sure if I find myself counting down the days in excitement or fear, but there is a lot of anticipation. A lot of wonder.

A couple of days ago I sorted through the unbelievable assortment of donations that have come in to be sent to Manila. So much of me was caught up in trying to fit everything inside these boxes with precision, I probably packed and unpacked and repacked and unpacked and reorganized and unpacked six times before my dad swept through and made everything fit like a glove.

Before my dad came to save the day, I sat on the driveway taking the packaging off of over 50 glue sticks and over 100 pairs of scissors; stacking and packing over 200 notebooks, 100 binders, 4,000 sheets of construction paper, 200 writing tablets; vacuum packing what would have been at least 2 boxes worth of clothing before the compression; staplers, staples, calculators, tape, dry-erase markers, pens, pencils, graph paper, record-books, and so much more. Over 280 pounds of supplies were before my eyes; an obvious coming together and outpour of a blessed community that I know and love from this world, for the cause and sake of a broken community that I am so soon to know and love from another world.

I pray that in this journey, the Lord will always move in my heart what He moved in the hearts of all the people who have given all that has been prayed for and provided for. And all that is stuffed in those boxes.

In Manila, when I next see those heavy boxes, I will have a crowd of Filipino students and teachers around me. They will be 'practicing their patience' with wide-eyes, twiddling fingers, jittery feet, and anxious squeals...just dying to see and use whatever may be inside. Replacing old with new, bringing fill to what is missing...meeting simple, desperate needs.

That will be glory.