Wow so much has happened. I’ve already come and gone from The Philippines and I’ve been in South Africa for 2 weeks now. I am so excited to share what God revealed to me while I was in the Philippines. There is a lot I won’t be able to fit in this blog but I am excited to have sweet conversations with you all when I get back home in a few months.

I’m not going to spend much time on the logistical side of things because I want to focus on what the Lord did during this time. As a quick overview, I spent most of my time staying at a ministry center in Cainta. This city is within the greater metro Manila but still outside of the big city. I got to live in great community and experience the great hospitality and friendliness of the local Filipinos! They are seriously some of the kindest people I’ve ever met and it really minstered to my heart. For ministry, my team and I joined the local elementary and high schools for their school days. It often looked like sitting in the back of the classroom for hours ocasionally talking to students and playing with them. This ministry grew me a lot and I actually came to really love it. I made many, many connections with 2nd or 4th graders and was greatly impacted by all the Filipinos I met. At the end of my time here, we had what is called PVT (Parent Vision Trip). Racers parents got to fly across the ocean and join us for a week of ministry! It was so sweet to see my parents again. Such a blessing. We did ministry in a different place, Angeles City. This is a place in The Philippines well known to foreigners for its large red light district full of over 200 bars and strip clubs. Over 12,000 women are currently being trafficked there. We partnered with a ministry that aimed to get the women out of the bars and offer them housing, eduction and a relationship with the Living God. This ministry was extremely impactful on my parents and I and I could truly do another blog all about it. Realistically, with my schedule in South Africa, that probably won’t happen so I look forward to telling you all in person!

As I mentioned, the ministry I did for most of this country looked a lot like sitting in the back of classroom doing absolutely nothing for hours. It was a struggle for me for a while. I wanted to be useful, to serve and quite frankly I was not needed in the classrooms. The teachers had it covered. God turned this is a beautiful testing of my faith and growing of my understanding of Him.

For many weeks however, I was stuck on one question:

What even is ministry?

God revealed to me after weeks of prayer that ministry is giving your time and services for the advancement of the gospel. Sharing Christ’s love through conversation, action, prayer and tasks. Ministry is enjoying Jesus and sharing His love with others so that they might enjoy Him. It can look like a thousand different things but if God isn’t in it, it becomes volunteer work. Ministry can be your 9-5 corprate job if you allow Christ to be the center and purpose of everything you do. Ministry can be going to the grocery store and being slow enough to let the Holy Spirit point out someone you should talk to. Ministry can be sacrificial and also extremely life giving.

I had a lot of preconceived notions about what ministry was before I came on the Race. The ministry in the Philippines really challenged what I viewed as “true” ministry and how I viewed myself as someone who was supposedly there to serve.

How am I advancing the gospel if all I do is sit in the back of a classroom for hours at a time? I was so challenged by this. I so badly wanted to be useful, to grade a paper, read a book to the class, etc. I was on this trip to be of service to the people I met and I felt guilty for not doing anything. Country after country, I am amazed at how much I am served. The local Christians I have met throughout this whole 7 months have been extremely giving. Of their time, services and wisdom. God uses His people to bless us. It is within God’s design for believers to all serve each other and to “outdo one another in showing honor”. Christ came not to be served but to serve. We are called to look like Christ. It’s crazy what you think you should be doing as a “missionary” and that you think you must always be giving and always be serving. In reality, God wants to also bless us abundantly. Do we actually believe that or do we think we must live in a state of constant sacrifice to be called worthy? Before we did anything for God, He already blessed us with the greatest gift mankind has ever received; Jesus Christ. That God sent His son so that we might know Him intimately and live in His presence eternally and experience His joy and peace is a gift I will never get tired of receiving. Thank you God. So why is it so common for Christians, especially missionaries, to feel guility when God blesses us? Christ died so that we would have abundant life!! Not that you might have it or have to strive for it, but that Jesus paid the price for it and has given to us as our inheritance. That is a radical statement that not many Christians walk in today. John 10:10 says, “The theif comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that you might have life and have it abundantly”. That guilt I’ve felt for having nice things, for being served rather than serving, etc. is just the theif trying to steal what God intended to bless me with. God blesses us all immensely and it is because He loves us! God is unsparing in His love for us. It overwhelms and quiets. All things fade away in the light of His glory and grace. God used the ministry in The Philippines to reveal aspects of His love I had never experienced before. If He so generously loves us, who are we to withold that from anyone? If ministry simply was sitting in the back of a classroom for 4 hours all so that I could have a 3 minute conversation with a 4th grader, then it was worth it. If I could smile at a stranger then it was worth it. If I could tell a woman working in the red light district that God forgives her and loves her, then it was worth it. Anything that allmight know they are loved by the One who is love. God has allowed me to taste and see this radical, consuming, quieting, divine love and I cannot stand the thought of someone not having it too. Despite sin, mistakes, or anything we could’ve done to earn or lose it, God loves us with an everlasting, eternal love that is all we could ever need. God allowed me to dwell with Him in His love in classrooms, car rides, pool slides, everywhere! Psalm 27 (one of my favorites) says, “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple”. That is absolutely amazing. God truly gave me this in the Philippines. Sweet intimacy with Him anywhere, enjoying Him in all moments of my day. What God most desires from us is communion. Not that we would slave away in ministry just to lose Him in the process but that we could enjoy Him always. My question for most of The Philippines was essentially this, “what even is ministry if I’m not doing anything?”. This is silly to me now because I’m not the one doing anything anyway! Psalm 131 says, “O LORD my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore”. Who am I to try and discern God’s plan? He has been showing me what it looks like to just be an agent of His Holy Spirit to others. I am not doing anything. How insane that I serve a God like that? That I don’t have to muster up strength, the right words, or complete the most “humble” ministry so others can be saved?! I am not the one doing the saving. Jesus Christ is the Savior! When living a life of constant ministry, it is so easy to get lost in the work and lose God in the process. When I was in Colombia God gave me that revelation and showed me Luke 10:38-42. He reminded me to sit at His feet rather than get caught up in a life of servitude for the sake of it. God wants and enjoys our service but if we lose sight of Who we are serving, it is a pointless endeaveor. If God is not at the center of absolutely everything I do, I labor in vain. Psalm 127 says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain”. This is pivotal. Because of Christ I get to go from a life of trying to muster up the strength to allowing Him to be enough. Because He is so much more than enough! He is everything. And able to do exceedingly more than I could ever ask or think. Praise God. God is the one doing the “ministry”. For from Him, and to Him, and through Him are all things. He is the only one who should get any glory and God used the ministry here to humble me. To remind me I was never in a higher position than anyone else, to remind me that He is the Savior. Praise God that He is gracious and patient enough to reveal to me where I am spiritually blind.

God used my time in The Philippines to give me a gaze that only wanted Him, to let all other things dissatisfy me, and for anything short of His glory to not be enough. He gave me the hunger for Him and supplied the bread, gave me the thirst and the eternal spring of Living Water. That is a type of love I have never experienced and will never find anywhere else. He has given it to me that my life might be abundant and that I would share it with everyone I meet. That is a call for all believers found in the Great Commission. How could I possibly withold the Bread of Life when I see others starving? People are spiritually starving everywhere. In your home, your job, on your morning runs, even in the church and God asks us to be willing vessels for Him that others may know Him like we know Him! The pressure is off because Jesus bore the weight. We must simply tell people! So tell them!

My experience in The Philippines was amazing and grew me a lot. I am also now fully funded and wanted to express my deep gratitude to you all! God has used this trip to absolutely change my life and I’m very grateful that you all have supported me in that! Thank you so much! I can’t wait to share what God does while I’m in South Africa. So far, it is amazing.

Love you all!

Maddie