Opening my heart

Hello there! We are in Cagayan de Oro! We left yesterday and saying goodbye was the hardest part of this trip so far! Our friends from Davao are already emailing us and telling us what a great time that they had with us :-)

I made one special friend in Davao. Her name is L L. We met the first night that we got to the Philippines and I immediately fell in love with her. Thank God that she knew some English :-) When we ate dinner together on the last night she told me that about a year ago a girl came to the Philippines from Japan. L L and this girl became friends. The girl stayed for about a month and then left to go back to Japan. It was very hard for L L. She cried a lot and shut out other people for a while. When people would come from other countries L L would not befriend them because she was afraid of getting hurt again. That changed when she met me. She told me that God opened her heart again. God is good!

I did not want to leave Davao. I wanted to stay there the whole time. When we got to Cagayan de Oro I wanted to be like L L and not make any more friends because saying goodbye was not easy for me. Since L L told me her story I decided that I needed to make the same decision that she did. I am not going to cheat myself of any experience that I can have here.

Proverbs 3:5 keeps coming to me. Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart and lean not to your own understanding. I have realized that I need to trust in the Lord with all of my heart! He knows what's best for me and he can see the future! Please pray that I will be able to trust in him!

Last night when we got here we were all so tired. A lot of us were miserable from sunburns and car sickness. I was stretched last night. It was very hard for me to keep a good attitude and I was very happy when we got to the base and were able to get some sleep.

Today I woke up feeling refreshed, still sunburned but refreshed. We did some more house visitations after lunch. The people here do not seem as poor as the ones in Islaverde. That made it a lot easier to go into their houses and talk to them.

Please be praying that I would be able to open my heart to other people. Also pray that I would be able to catch up on sleep and journaling.

Thanks for reading and keeping us in your prayers! They are very needed!

Lots of Love,

Kona Estes