Are we there yet?

Sept 10, 2024

Yesterday, as I rode in the taxi with my friends through Manila, I pondered what i was looking for. Something familiar? Something exciting? Something good that happened since I left in 2002? What did my three year stint in this city do in me or how did it help others?

Turned out to be very isolating since my cochlear implant surgery had not taken place yet. It wasn’t possible to hear most co-workers even with lip-reading. It was like never learning the language. In Manila, I had mostly resorted to striving to dull that pain. At the ministry I worked on records, balancing the petty cash, joined in prayer times. In my “too much” free time I watched movies, read the news, played online games. I was asked by leaders if God wanted me to stay here long-term, and I planned to keep going. But God almost had to drag me screaming and kicking into a new phase of my life, which began when I arrived at YWAM Kona.

Yesterday it felt depressing when witnessing the snarl of traffic outside the cab window, the workers enduring heat and awful smog inside the jeepneys, or bringing only a day’s worth of food home for family. Yet hope churned inside me too. God will change these cities into places of awe and wonder.

This existence is being changed now, with about a million Filipino Jesus followers discovering who they are in Christ. Kindness, gentleness, patience, and more growing inside. Love. And hope carries them forward just like it does for each of us. We look beyond to perfect cities, perfect bodies, perfect government with Jesus. And the kingdom exists in our hearts now and one day we won’t be asking: “Are we there yet?”