“I will sing to the Lord and I will lift my hands, for you have heard my cry.” –Casting Crowns, Praise You With a Dance

Some days the Lord’s presence is strong and filled within me, it overwhelms me. Other days, I really have to work and push my Spirit to see and try to comprehend what the Lord is doing. Yesterday was more like the second situation for me.

In the afternoon, we were told we would be going into downtown Antipolo, the suburb outside of Manilla where we’re staying, to visit the CICL center in the middle of town. CICL stands for Children in Conflict with the Law. Once we got there, we all introduced ourselves, giving our names, ages, and where we are all from in the states. Then all of the kids stood up individually and did the same, but instead they told us their name, age; why they were there and how long they were there for. It was truly amazing to see how many young kids were here, almost all teenage boys and one 13-year-old girl, were crammed into a tiny classroom. Almost all of them had been arrested for soliciting or theft/burglary.  Which here is so common due to most families’ extreme poverty, it is just a means to survive.

After Kory gave a sermon about the grace of God we all hung out with the kids some of us played basketball while the others hung out and shared their testimonies with the kids and had them ask questions if they had any. Colten and I decided to go out and play basketball for a bit with some of the boys while the rest shared their testimonies. After awhile we came back inside and I caught the end of my friend Sarah sharing her testimony. When she was finished all of a sudden Michael, one of our friends who works at CG, just said, “Okay Sam, I’m throwing you under the bus. It’s your turn, tell us about your life.”

Confused and taken off guard, I couldn’t say no as much as I wanted to so I walked to the circle and sat down. As I began sharing things from my life, I was nervous at first, not knowing where to start or if my story would even matter to these kids. But I realized the peace of God as continued my story. With things that I didn’t want to talk about, I was given both physical and emotional comfort from the kids and my teammates. I didn’t expect to share my testimony that day, but God knew that I had to.

Later that night, once we were back at Children’s Garden, we had a worship night and devotional with the boys at CG. My teammate Bethany shared on truly understanding what it means to love each other, even the people you don’t necessarily want to love, and being Christ-like in our actions of love.

It was amazing to end the night singing praise to my Father God who is also a father to the 20 boys who live here. What an amazing joy it was to be able to watch them pour their hearts out in honest loving worship, more devout and more real than so many adult believers I know. The love for the Lord here is so undeniable and so passionate, it’s thick and overwhelmingly suffocating in the best possible way.