Manang Kelly

Dearest Friends and Family...

        It's been almost three weeks since I arrived at Noah's Ark. Life here has gotten better and better every day, with new opportunities to serve popping up everywhere, and new relationships forming and growing deeper!

     I am amazed at the chances God has given me to serve. I now have the opportunity to teach in an elementary school that is a 20 minute walk from Noah's Ark every Monday and Friday. I teach sixth grade Christian Ethics. Yes, me. Kelly Braun. Is teaching Christian Ethics. To breathing people. This is a heavy responsibility for me. Most of the kids in my classes do not come from Christian homes, and I can present the Gospel throughout the class in my teaching. I have a few ideas to go off of for my lesson, but I form it myself. I am BLESSED.

On Friday nights, we go to "Young Peoples" with our high school kids. There is a tendency here for people to ask you to speak at a moment's notice, even though they know that us Westerners prefer some prep time. This past Friday, Bethany and I were sitting in the pew, listening to some of the kids talk in the local dialect. Well, sort of listening. I zoned out pretty quickly. Somewhere in my trance I realized that everyone had stopped talking. I looked up, and everyone was staring at us. I realized they probably wanted us to speak, but they hadn't asked in English. I told them "I'm sorry, but I didn't prepare anything." They responded with, "It's okay!" And waved me forward. So I said a quick prayer and was able to whip out a mini sermon about Jesus walking on the water. Thank you, Lord!

I am still teaching preschool every morning as well. This has proven to be extremely challenging, every day. The children we teach know very little English, and misbehave almost the entire class. This is a perfect example of "rejoicing in trials" though, because it makes me feel like I can now handle anything in childcare!

God has also blessed my heart in working with our special needs children. I love passing a ball with them in the afternoons, tickling them and seeing their smiles, and bringing joy to them in any other way that I can.

At Noah's Ark, the children call me "Manang" Kelly. This term is like a polite nickname, meaning "big sister." It's a common thing to be called in the Philippines, but I know that God has much more in store with this title. I am a big sister here. I have been given a chance to bring smiles, to bring hope, to speak life, to bring laughs, and to show love. I do not take my title lightly. 

Us with our little brothers and sisters, on Valentines Day. We surprised them with a big cupcake heart!

Noah's Ark

Oh, the Philippines. 
That's one of the first things I said to myself with a sigh when I walked into the airport in Manila. I knew this country was going to be a lot for me to handle. 
After a sad good bye to Thailand and a quick stop in Malaysia, we landed in Manila. We were greeted by our missionary host, Linda. This woman is incredible. But, I'll get their later.
Unfortunately, my first night in Manila I got INCREDIBLY ill. I had one of the highest fevers I've ever experienced in my life. It was clear that a flu was coming on. Luckily for me, our visa plans kept us in Manila for a few days so I could recover.


Manila is a terrifying, fast-paced city. We spent most of it cooped up in our hotel room resting. After our visas were sorted out, we began our journey to Banaue, a town in the province of Ifugao. Banaue is only 321km away from Manila, but it was a ten hour journey. As you can imagine, it was a winding road.



When we finally arrived at Noah's Ark, the children were all praying in their common area. We waited outside for them to finish and turned the corner. My eyes welled up with tears at the sight. All of them came towards me wanting hugs. Some of the most beautiful children I had ever seen stood before me, and they were in my care for the next few months. I swallowed back my tears and held as many as I could. 

We spent the next day settling in and getting to know the area. I was amazed to awake to my backyard view.
Banaue has hand carved rice terraces that were once a World Heritage Site. 
The next day we began our duties. At 8am, Monday to Friday, we teach a sort of preschool class, to a group of about 7-8 children. They are all around 3 years old. We help them go through some work books on English, Science and Math, and then we play with them until lunch time. Our first few days were total nightmares. The children got the "new teacher" attitude and acted out. It is difficult to get them to cooperate because their English is very lacking. We have developed some ways to communicate, but it will definitely take a lot of work. On Monday mornings, we will also be teaching VEP (Values Education Program) to elementary aged students at a school. This class is similar to a Christians ethics class. I teach sixth grade all by myself!
After preschool every day, we eat lunch with Linda. Our meals here consist of government issued rice, and usually some sort of local vegetable cooked. It was very hard to get used to at first, but it's starting to become very easy for me to eat. In the afternoons, we have some time to ourselves. The high school kids who live here go to school from 7am-5pm every day, and spend their evenings studying. The younger children nap in the afternoons. At about 2:30, I can usually find a job with the special needs children, the babies, or in the kitchen! I am SO thankful that God has given me a place to use my gifts in the kitchen. I was feeling DEPRIVED! I also have the chance to bake cookies for the children on Friday afternoons. God surely knows the desires of our hearts!!
At 5pm every day, we eat supper together, and then have devotion time. We start with some time of worship, where everyone loves to sing 10,000 Reasons, Happy Day, and Here I Am to Worship. Then we have a devotional and prayer time. I get to lead this once a week.
On Friday nights, we walk down the slippery, dark steps down the mountain to the Jesus Church, where the youth run "Young Peoples." I love the opportunity to hang out with the youth, so we go and share, sing a song with no music, or just encourage them as they run the program. Saturdays usually involve basketball (PRAISE GOD!), hiking around the mountains, jumping on the trampoline and chatting with the girls. I am so excited.
At the end of March, the kids who live at Noah's Ark will be going home to their families for the summer. Yes, most of them do have at least one parent. We will be helping host missions teams that are coming, and running a VBS and Youth Camp during this time. Looking at the timeline for the next few months, my head spins thinking about how quickly it will all go.

 

The busy lights of Manila.

My backyard view! Not bad. 

My little basement room.

Preschool in action!

Taking a rest at a waterfall.

Sunday morning at Jesus Church.

             
           Me and one of the girls on our Saturday hike.                One of my favourite little guys, Jojo!

The rice terraces of Ifugao.

God is proving his faithfulness to me daily in spite of my doubts. I have been battling home sickness with some new  extra time on my hands, but He is opening my eyes to the thrills around me. Noah's Ark is my home for the next two and a half months- He is the Potter, I am His clay!

In Your City.

My time in Bangkok has come to an end. Tomorrow morning, I fly out to the Philippines. It's been a hard day, knowing Thailand will soon be a memory, but I'm incredibly expectant of what is to come.

The last two weeks have been awesome. Two weeks ago was "Personal Week." We took the DISC personality analysis, a spiritual gifts test, a conflict resolution class, a class on integrity, and others. It was definitely a week of soul-searching and growing in my identity with Jesus. We also got the chance to take a class on loving Muslim people, and a Muslim man came in to speak to us. We were able to ask him whatever we wanted! Such an amazing opportunity.

On Sunday, we ran the children's ministry at Life Centre Church. We were going to tell the story of the fall of man, do a craft, play some games and love on the kids. We were thinking there were gonna be some Thai children and some English children, because it's a Thai/English church. But when we arrived, there was NO dominant language among the kids. One spoke Thai, one spoke English, one spoke French, two spoke Tamil (they were from Sri Lanka) and some didn't speak at all! So it's definitely challenging trying to get your message across when no one understands what you're saying. But I know that even when you feel useless, God has asked you to serve there for His purposes.

This past week was Ministry Week, which was just incredible. Each day we had missionaries come speak to us about what they're doing. The pastors of Life Centre came and spoke one day. When they were newlyweds, they were kidnapped and held for 165 days. Their story of faith and their amazing marriage rocked me. If you want to read their story, you can google their names (they're pretty famous in Scandinavia- Daniel and Paulina Brolin.) We listened to Annie Dieselberg from Nightlight talk about her work rescuing women from the sex industry. We had a missionary named Celeste come speak to us on gender confusion and the Thai "ladyboys." We even got the chance to teach English to the students we have been eating lunch with every day. By the end of the session, I got my whole class to stand up with me so I could teach them the Macarena. 

We finished today with prayers of blessing and commissioning over each other, and a little graduation ceremony. Tomorrow I will fly to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and then on to Manila, where I will stay the night, and then drive 250km (a 10 hour drive) to my new home, Banuae. 

Thailand, I will miss the helmet-less motorcycle rides, the abundance of "my-kow-jy" (I don't understand), your smiles, the sky train rides, using baht (the currency), a 711 every 30 feet, your grace to foreigners, and so many other things. You have a piece of my heart.. I will be back some day!

Kelly