One of the best nights of the week is game night. Charades brings the house down everytime. The first question before any other clues are communicated is always, tagolog or english? You can probably learn a lot from how someone communicates cheese flavored ice cream without words. Mostly what I learned is that it isnt easy, but it is hilarious.
Parties and the like are always super fun here. Everyone is laughing, dancing or singing. I havent much questioned why, I’ve just enjoyed it. Our director here the wise and beautiful Becky has said to me on more than one occasion that the girls never got to experience these kinds of things as kids. It never really clicked in me what that meant; until recently. Becky took one of her many trips to do home visits with some of the girls families. She communicates with the parents and siblings to help them understand what their daughters are doing. It is a hardship on the families financially and relationally to have their daughters in school. Becky brings a message of hope and restoration for the whole family by explaining the benifit of having a restored and educated sister or daughter. Jesus never saves the one person to only benifit the one person, the whole family will benifit from the resotation of one amazing girl.
What clicked with me was the photos Becky brought back of the girls families and homes. Most homes were litterally a little hut. Some not even tall enough to stand up in. I could imagine staying in a place like that for a couple of weeks, but not my entire childhood. The homes were along the coastline of beautiful beaches or breath taking rice terraces, a total paradise. In these places is a very hard life to support and feed a family. There is no hope of affording an education. It is a guilded cage in a way.
Understanding now these simple things that have truly not been experienced by some; I am taking things a lot slower. On nights like game night I’m in no hurry to move away from the moment. I can really endulge in this resotation story. I wonder, God who are we that you are so mindful even to restore a small thing and keep restoring until everything is fulfilled.
