We took it easy today because the building had two inspectors coming to approve the work we have done so far. We got the green light to move forward from both of them (praise God!), so tomorrow we pour concrete! That will be a two to three day job, and will definitely be the most intense labor so far.

For their “easy day”, the team was taken snorkling! It was a fantastic few hours of exploring the reefs on the other side of the island. I had no idea how THIN this island is… we walked from one side to the other in about ten minutes!

This afternoon we went to another neighborhood to hang out with some children and play some basketball with the adults. What our students DIDN’T know was that this was an entirely Muslim neighborhood. Our missionaries knew that, and so did I, but just about every one of the kids had no idea. We were invited to come and hang out because the church has done a fantastic job of building relationships here on the island, even with people outside of the church! So… here’s where it gets good. Our students are AMAZING with the children, so naturally they decided to play with them right away. So on one half of this common area in the neighborhood you have a hundred kids and their moms and our students all having fun. And on the other half (stick with me here for a sec), you’ve got a handful of us playing basketball. There are probably a hundred Filipino men out by the courts watching us play (by the way they were amazing, and by the way again WE WON THE GAME). So picture all of that happening in an exclusively Muslim setting. Got it? And then the students decide to teach the kids a new song, one that they learned during their training before they came to Boracay. Here are the lyrics in the native language Tagalog:

BUHAY, BUHAY,BUHAY KAILAN PA MAN
SI HESUS AY BUHAY
BUHAY KAILAN PA MAN
BUHAY, BUHAY, BUHAY KAILAN PA MAN
SI HESUS AY BUHAY KAILAN PA MAN.

Seems innocent enough, right? Well here’s the translation:

ALIVE, ALIVE, ALIVE FOREVERMORE
MY JESUS IS ALIVE
ALIVE FOREVERMORE
ALIVE, ALIVE, ALIVE FOREVERMORE
MY JESUS IS ALIVE FOREVERMORE
SING ALELUIA, SING ALELUIA
MY JESUS IS ALIVE FOREVERMORE
SING ALELUIA, SING ALELUIA
MY JESUS IS ALIVE

Our students were smack dab in the middle of a Muslim community singing about Jesus being alive forevermore!!!!!!! Are you kidding me? Does it get any better than that? I’ve got to be honest— I was a little nervous when I heard them start the song. I looked around at the men watching the basketball games and was waiting for someone to get upset.

But nobody did.

Our students sang songs to Jesus, claiming that he is “ALIVE, ALIVE, ALIVE forevermore”- and my hope is that our Muslim friends felt a little bit dissatisfied with Muhammad (who isn’t alive any more) as they listened to our kids (and their kids) sing, and saw the joy of it all. You see, prophets don’t live forever… so hopefully that song sparked some thoughts and conversations about who Jesus is. We’re going to see all of those men again this Friday night for a basketball tournament. Don’t worry (Lindsay), they aren’t upset with us!I’m nervous to play them again though. They are amazing athletes! I am about a foot taller than every single one of them, EXCEPT one of them, who somehow is like 3 inches taller than me. He’s a beast.

In other news: John Nellessen is leading a house church with some adults from the church tonight. He’s a stud, and I’m so glad to have him and Tom and Jessica with me leading the trip.

Seven of our students (plus Dan our missionary) are going into a public high school tomorrow to hang out in some classrooms and share their stories. Dan will facilitate a Q&A session between our students and the Filipino students, and then our students will have a chance to just hang out and have some fun with them. This is just one more amazing door that is open here in Boracay. What public school invites missionaries in? This one does, since the principal comes to the church!

It turns out that I’m teaching in the church this Sunday. Pray for me if you think about it, as I consider what to share over the next couple days. And pray for Eric from the college team if you think about it. He’s our first one to not feel very well. He’s doing fine, we think he just got a bit dehydrated.

I uploaded a handful of pictures down below, go take a look! I think they loaded twice… but that’s better than not at all!

Things are going great! Today we tied together all of the rebarb (sp?) and got ready to pour the concrete which will be the floor for the second floor. We had a crew at another feeding site, and I heard that went really well too. The feeding site we went to yesterday was pretty amazing. Tucked away RIGHT BEHIND this main strip of shops and luxurious hotels for all of the tourists is this little community of maybe 150 people. Within a stone’s throw of luxury is intense poverty… but that doesn’t stop these people from being absolutely lovable. They were so kind and grateful for our visit… I wanted to kidnap a few of them (in Jesus’ name of course) and take them home. I’d betcha a million bucks that each one of those people will benefit from having this community center in their town when it is completed. I can’t say it enough how amazing it is that this sort of thing will be available to these people. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of these students will want to come back and work there! Consider yourself warned

I’m relentless with the water drinking- I ask the kids about every 12 seconds if they’re drinking enough. We’re being fed very well, mostly from a group of women that take care of our meals. Eating out here is VERY affordable, so we’ve gone out a couple times. The students have walked 4 miles every day to go get a shake at “Jonah’s”. I don’t think the shake is worth the walk, but we love the journey together.

We start pouring the concrete tomorrow! It’s going to be hard work, but these students are amazing. We’ll be taking lots of breaks away from the sun, but this will probably be the most tenuous day yet. Please be praying for health and energy and JOY for our team! Everything has been amazing so far, and I’d love to see it stay that way!!

Gotta wrap this up and hit the sack. Keep the prayers and comments coming

Holy cow it is HOT! Coming to Boracay is an amazing weight loss program.

Right now I am on an hour break so I thought I would run over here and say hi. Our high school team is split in two for the rest of the day. We spent the morning together (with the college team too) working on the building. We were moving TONS (literally) of rock, cutting wire, sweating, digging trenches, sweating some more, working up on the second floor, avoiding creatures that we’ve never seen before. This place is as tropical as tropical gets. I think we should be able to start pouring concrete tomorrow for the second floor, weather permitting. We let the students take an extra hour of break today because it was so hot. (I promised to take care of your babies.)

Half of the team is headed back to do some more construction while the other half heads over to a feeding center to love some people like Jesus. I get really excited to see ministries that have such a holistic approach. There is a tremendous amount of beauty here on the island, but we can also see a tremendous amount of brokenness. Your kids are playing a huge role in the Kingdom of God by building this center and serving these people.

Energy is still high! Thank you so much for your prayers. I will try to get some more pictures up here for you guys, and maybe some videos if I can get it to work.

Gotta go! Thank you for all of the comments. I’ll try to find a way to print them for the kids to see. They’ve been a huge encouragement!

Today was a fantastic day! Almost everyone went to bed by 8:30pm last night, and then a whole bunch of us woke up at around 3:00am because that’s what our bodies wanted to do! I went back to sleep, I don’t know about the rest of them… We started off the day at church. Sean Miles played in the worship band, and then a handful of people from the Calvary crew sang a song for the congregation. We were shown lots of love from the community- they are so grateful to Calvary Church for sending another team!

We split into three teams today and went to three different “feeding centers”. I haven’t seen the other two yet, but mine was smack dab in the middle of a village and hundreds of people came out. I forgot to bring my camera with me to the internet cafe tonight, otherwise I would treat you to some of the pictures. We sang a few songs with the kids, played a handful of games with them, bandaged up some scrapes and cuts, and then served them some food. All of the food from today was donated by a local restaurant owner who just recently started following Jesus. He was there, and you could in his eyes that he was a new man. All of the kids that came today had parents or guardians to go home to. The pastor of the church recently found an abandoned child at a feeding site, and that child now lives with the pastor and his wife. Know that I’ll be doing the same thing if we come across another.

The Calvary students were phenomenal today. All of the neighborhood kids fell in love with them, even before we went down to the feeding site. They treated everyone they came across with love and respect, from the street vendors to the moms and dads on the sidelines all day. If you’re a parent, you should feel proud!!

The highschool team starts construction tomorrow on the FOUR-story (not three) hospital/school/medical center. I can’t tell you how amazing it is that something like this is going to exist here. It is ridiculously hot outside, so I’m sure it will be a challenge. I’ve come to terms with my stench, and I think most of the students have to! They’re drinking lots of water, so hopefully we won’t have to deal with any illnesses!

A few of the students handed me notes that they wanted me to pass along via the blog:

Sarah Norton: “It’s hot! Love you all very much.”

Chantelle Gibbs: “Mom, you’d be so proud. Someone asked me if I was FIL-AM! Mahal kita to you and Gabby.”

Christian Maietta: “Hey Ryan, tell my grandparents I said hello, ok.”

Micah Nellessen: “Hi everybody, thanks for praying for us! We’re here safe and healthy.”

Allee Wolfe: “Hi mom, dad, Steven and Victoria. I love you!”

Ryan Guard: “Holy cow I miss my wife!”

That’s all for now! I have no idea how to make phone calls from Boracay, otherwise we’d be calling you all. We’ll keep you as updated as we possibly can!

Hey everybody, Ryan Guard here. We arrived safe and sound after something like 17 hours of travel time. I can NEVER sleep on planes, but I slept through 8 straight hours of the first flight. We just unloaded and hit the beach for a few minutes, and we’re about to have dinner together as a team. The fun begins tomorrow, starting with church and then… whatever we can do to help!

Keep thoise prayer coming! We’ll try to keep you guys updated as often as possible. We found a little hotel with internet access not too far away.

Oh by the way, some of the kids were elated because we ran into a Filipino movie star at the airport. People were all around her taking pictures, and she stopped to hang with our kids for a few minutes. I have no idea what her name was.

We’re meeting at 4:00 and heading to LAX to embark on our journey to the other side of the planet! Everything is bought, everyone is ready, and heeeeere we go!

It looks like its going to be raining pretty hard our first few days there, which will test our flexibility right away.

today is sunday and most of us got back from hume yesterday. we had a commissioning this morning and the youth group prayed over us as we all stood up on stage and held hands. as the departure day draws closer, i’m realizing that as cliche as it sounds, life as i know it is about to change. i need to prepare my heart for the things God is going to reveal to me. I am so so so ready to go on this trip with the most amazing group of people I have ever met, spearheaded by some freaking rad pastor who stepped in at the last minute. so as i get ready to hit the sack and get ready to pack, i just want to ask that everyone continues to pray for us as we get anxious and nervous and excited these next 4 days and get ready to see some transformed people when we return.

<3chantelle

Here’s a video that another youth group put together after visiting First Love. We’ll get our hands dirty doing many of the same things!