Bahala na

These are Eveleigh and Russell’s pen pals through Compassion. Like Arwen and Yna, we have sponsored these children and written back and forth for 5 years. They are from a region that everyone warned us not to visit, so they came to us in Davao instead. Irene, her mom, and her case worker drove for six hours, then took a two hour flight. Xian, his mom, and his case worker drove for 14 hours on a bus to get here! It was the first time any of them had been to Davao city – some common ground to start from! The plan from the Compassion staff who organized the visit was to meet them at a mall. More on this in a bit, but it was perfect. As expected, Compassion staff hopped out of the van that picked us up and introduced themselves. We were thrilled when the kids barrelled out of the van next! They ran up to us, grabbed our hands and put them on their foreheads: “bless”. It seems to be a Filipino greeting of respect. Then came the biggest hugs! These tiny kids almost bowled me over – physically and emotionally. You never really know how sponsorship of a child across the world is received, or how they will react to meeting us. But it didn’t take long to see they were super-grateful, and genuinely excited to meet us. It was humbling, exciting, and rather overwhelming. Next we got to meet their moms. Again, it was immediate friendship! Then we hopped in the van and drove to the mall.

We initially thought a mall was a weird place to go and meet them, but I’m glad we trusted the locals! First of all, it was air conditioned:-). Secondly, it was something totally new for them. Thirdly, this mall had an entertainment section – we spent a couple hours in a children’s play area that is hard to describe without pictures. First a shot to show how quickly the kids became friends:

And now for play and get to know each other time

After working up an appetite, we headed to Jollibee for lunch.

After lunch we shopped for some clothes, then played a bit outside before saying goodbye to our friends. Our tummies were full, our hearts were overflowing, and our hopes were set on continuing the relationships.