SO…reading the title to this blog may leave you wondering why I’m writing about guitars, girls and jacks…just trust me. Over the past month in the Philippines, I’ve had the opportunity to come into a home for more than 30 orphaned and abused girls and play guitar, fellowship, and worship with them. Not many male figures have came here because of some of the trust issues that the girls have with men, so I was extremely nervous the first time I came into the home along with the girls on my Passport team. All I had with me was my guitar, my worship...

Finding joy in immense poverty found here in the Philippines can be tough sometimes. The other day I was introduced to a twelve year old girl named Crystelle. a local pastor’s wife had met Crystelle a couple of days earlier at a feeding, noticed she looked malnourished, and followed her home to meet her family. Two days later, Andy (one of the guys on my team) and I were invited to take some groceries to the family and meet them. We parked the car outside of a gated community and walked through a hole in the fence into a squatter’s village. The further we walked back into this...

  There are two very distinct parts of my brain. One part was formed primarily by my engineering father. “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.” Everytime 2+3=5. The other side lives is a constant state of disarray. I have 100 colored pencils spread out all around me to use 10 in my picture. I write and rewrite the same line of a song for 3 days. There is no reason to the chaos. Ministry has been unexpected here in the Philippines. I wake up in the morning with quite literally no structured plan for my day, even if it is structured its not. This...

  There are two very distinct parts of my brain. One part was formed primarily by my engineering father. “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.” Everytime 2+3=5. The other side lives is a constant state of disarray. I have 100 colored pencils spread out all around me to use 10 in my picture. I write and rewrite the same line of a song for 3 days. There is no reason to the chaos. Ministry has been unexpected here in the Philippines. I wake up in the morning with quite literally no structured plan for my day, even if it is structured its not. This...

its become apparently obvious to me this week, that i am not good at this. This whole Christian thing, this whole missionary thing, this whole leading thing- im not good at it. i’ve questioned myself over and over again this week, trying to figure out why i am here. Why am i even following this Jesus guy. Maybe i came here with too much pride. Maybe i came here with too many expectations. Maybe i came here too broken. When i became a Christian, I thought that as i grew in my relationship with Him, i would become less broken. That somehow he would piece me back together so that i could...

its become apparently obvious to me this week, that i am not good at this. This whole Christian thing, this whole missionary thing, this whole leading thing- im not good at it. i’ve questioned myself over and over again this week, trying to figure out why i am here. Why am i even following this Jesus guy. Maybe i came here with too much pride. Maybe i came here with too many expectations. Maybe i came here too broken. When i became a Christian, I thought that as i grew in my relationship with Him, i would become less broken. That somehow he would piece me back together so that i could...