Skip to main content

God Worked in Students at Impact Manila

By Anonymous
Trevor Ronning

Eighteen anxious students stood around outside the Dalat front office on the 23 of March. These students were about to embark on an impact trip to Manila, the purpose of which is to learn through service. The group had been preparing to go on Impact for months through weekly 7am meetings and several lunch meetings. They left Dalat at noon to head off to Manila and the unknown. The team wasn’t quite sure what to expect; all they knew was that God would use the trip for his glory.

When the group arrived in Manila at 11pm at night, every student was excited to enter a new culture and leave an impact on people in the area. The team arrived at the guesthouse and crashed in their rooms quickly that night. The next morning, the team went to church next to the guesthouse. After church, the team got together outside of the church building and began playing with the kids in their church clothes. The kids had loads of fun playing basketball with students like Alix Stuart (10) and Tori Lindsey (12), and the kids were quite entertained by Hudson Morgan’s (11) backflips.

By the time the team was done playing with the kids, two hours had slipped by. Over the course of the trip, the students spent a lot of time with kids through serving food to them and devotional nights at the children’s homes. I think the whole team would agree that spending time serving the kids helped us to grow spiritually. This kind of selfless service turned out to be a source of tremendous joy for the team.

Besides spending time with the kids, the team grew spiritually through the morning small group sessions, where a theme for each day guided their conversation. The theme for one particular day—abide—left a lasting impact on our hearts about how joyful we can be when we are in Jesus. The theme of abide included a verse that says when we abide in Christ, our joy will be complete (John 15:11). That day, my small group prayed that our joy would be complete as we went through our day. At the end of the day, God surely answered our prayers—the team was full of unexplainable joy.

Many students shared that night that they came to see how a relationship with God is possible through this verse and theme. Regarding the trip experience, Tori Lindsey said, “It's always eye-opening to go into a country like the Philippines and experience their way of life. I loved every minute of the trip and all the work we had the opportunity to do. I loved experiencing the culture and sharing the love of God with the people. Overall, it was an incredibly fulfilling and joyful trip that I will remember forever.”

In conclusion, the team was able to encounter God in an incredible way in Manila through service and other activities.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DINGBAT DALAT STUDENT SPENDS PRECIOUS TIME CONJURING UP SELF-REFERENTIAL SENIOR SCRIBBLE RATHER THAN GATHERING LEGITIMATE WORK

By Anonymous
Yusoof Monawvil PENANG, MA - As the deadline drew near and the stars aligned in the night sky above the majestic waters of the Strait of Malacca, one particular Dalat student—Yusoof Monawvil (12), despite a plethora of school events to select and report on—opted instead to spend a remarkably well-wasted 24 minutes staring at a blank Google Docs page, fruitlessly drawing up and shooting down brainstormed ideas.  In a moment of sheer and undeniable epiphany, Monawvil deemed it only fitting to self-referentially satirize his own ingrained incompetence and dingbattery. Commenting on the flash of insight, Monawvil quoted himself, saying: “It all just kinda made sense. I went on DISCourse to look at the little rubric thing Ms. Grad and Mr. Hieber posted, and I checked if I was following all of the guidelines... And I technically am/was; [N]ot like there’s any specific direktive [sic] prohibiting self-quoting.”  In a turn of events, Monawvil did come to find his self-quoting en...
6 comments
Read more

"Spikeball, Swimming, and Sickness: The Remnants of Senior Sneak" by Ee Rynn Ong

By
“Guys, I think we’re here,” said Jonathan Ooi (12) as he peeked out of the lorry to catch the first glimpse of our Senior Sneak location. This year’s Senior Sneak was held in Nomad Adventure, Gopeng, and the organizers planned many activities for the Class of 2026, ranging from traditional games like congkak and batu seremban to adrenaline-pumping ropes courses and whitewater rafting. These scheduled activities proved to be some of the best highlights of the trip, but top of that, the seniors were also given some daily free time to chat, explore, and relax. Josh Stevens (12) had come prepared for this with two spikeball nets, which immediately attracted attention from people eager to spend time in the outdoor sun. The next five days saw spikeball veterans and newcomers alike, spending their precious one and a half hours daily around the unassuming circular net, smashing the yellow ball in hopes of a victory.  Caleb Evans (12) was one of the newbies to spikeball, learning how the g...
Post a Comment
Read more

“I Miss Her” by Nikhil Pillay

By
While most people had a fun week for mid-semester break, whether it was spent with family, or with friends on impact trips, no one had a more emotionally confusing week than Judson Kenneth Robert Nosker (12).  In the light of recent events, Judson, despite all odds, had gotten in a relationship with one of his classmates, and as the break started, he had started to spend a lot of time with her. While with her, he started to experience a new level of joy and completeness that he had never felt before. In the words of Judson Nosker, “The first half of the break was good, but the rest of it was horrible.”  The reason for such a quote and the roller coaster of emotion was because half way through the break, disaster had struck. Judson’s girlfriend had gone on a trip with her family to Thailand, leaving Judson all alone. For the rest of the week, Judson was in a state of longing for her presence.  His friends have reported numerous occasions when Judson would be sitting with t...
Post a Comment
Read more