Sunday, May 27, 2018–Arrival to the Philippines, Subic Bay Children’s Home
Psalm 133:1, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”
Time spent with family is always exciting , especially when it’s family you haven’t seen in a while. It was a wonderful sight to arrive at the Subic Bay Children’s Home and to meet and see the smiles on Pastor and Mrs. Fulfer, Pastor and Mrs. Valbuena, Pastor Ronnie, and all the staff and children’s faces. For several on the team (Rachel, Sami, Cortnie, Brennan, and Cave), this 
was their “homecoming” as members of last year’s team. New team members Tim, John, Sylvia, Katie, Josh, Coty, and Sam had no trouble instantly bonding with the children and teens.
We arrived safe and sound in Manila around 6:30 am. Praise the Lord that all our luggage arrived safely as well–thank you for your prayers. After we collected our luggage, our driver Joseph wisked us away from the airport to the Olongapo City/Subic Bay area. It was amazing watching Joseph merge in and out of traffic – a collective mix of vehicles, jeepneys (Google them!), motorcycles with side carts, and pedestrians. It was quite like the video game Frogger in reality TV mode! On the way to the children’s home, we stopped at a freeway stop for breakfast. (Normally eating at the local Shell gas station is not the order of the day UNLESS it contains a strategically-placed Cinnabon!).
We arrived at the Children’s Home during their Morning Service and got settled in. Throughout the afternoon, we spent quality time loving on the children and the guys played basketball with the teens (which they loved!). During the evening service, we were treated to several songs that the children had prepared for us including one entitled Welcome to our Family.
Just before Pastor Ted preached a message on getting victory over jealously and envy, Rachel introduced our group to everyone, we sang our team song “Ligaya ng Buhay,” and we each introduced ourselves in Tagalog (or at least tried to). As we introduced ourselves, several people were smiling in the crowd which meant one of two things: 1) we blessed their hearts by what we said, or 2) more likely we butchered our Tagalog pronunciations–but overall they showed their love and appreciation to us for being here again this year. In order to get our bodies adjusted to Filipino time, we stayed up until around 8:00 and then drifted off into some well-needed sleep.
It is amazing what God is doing at the Subic Bay Children’s Home (see https://www.sbchome.org/ for more information). They take in orphan children with open arms and show them the love of Christ. Truly, they have lived out the verse in James 1:27, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” Although compared to America the Filipinos do not have the life of financial and personal ease, but in this part of the world it is ok–there is a peace, there is a quietness, there is depth of Christianity–there is “pure religion.” Ultimately, in God’s kingdom simplicity brings about the sense of sacredness where one can “Be still, and know that I am God…” It is wonderful to be spending quality time with the family!
Our Love From Our Family to Yours,
Team Philippines
