“Without Beauty Inside, What Good is the Brain?”

This last week has been such an eye opener, I have seen things you only read in books. We get so wrapped up in our lives of convenience that we forget or neglect to see what is going around us. We fail to see the needs of others, no matter how big or small, and sometimes tend to turn away hoping that someone else will take care of it.

Well, this week we didn’t turn our heads, we faced those needs head on, opened our hearts and arms. God used us and worked through us this last week for some very special people here in the Philippines. I will never forget the faces of the starving children, who would go without food because their family could not provide for them. I didn’t think I would ever see an elementary school room with only 1 light bulb, which was plugged into an extension cord and hung from a hook in the middle of the ceiling. The wounds on a small boy’s leg, that was in serious need of attention, left due to lack of funds for medical treatment.

Through it all, I also seen more unconditional love in the eyes of these young children than ever imagined. They played together with a stick and a rock or the umbrellas they had to use to stay out of the rain, for fear of getting sick. They did not have the types of things we have in America, which we take for granted each and every day. But they had each other… something I will keep with me forever.
This barrio is in need of so many simple things, which we take for granted every day, that by our small contribution, it was so big to them! I think our team has learned so much more from them, than they learned from us! God has a wonderful way of working his magic and making his plan ours.
“Without beauty inside, what good is the brain?” A quote from a little girl named Glenda, who told me this, followed by, “God loves you and will work through you, he will bless your family as he has blessed us with you!”

Ginger Larsen