Missions trip to the Philippines

This was my second trip to the Philippines.  I went to Davao in October of 2026 to help with the launch of our church location there.  This time I was in Manilla and Santa Rosa.  Saddleback Church opened their Santa Rosa location in 2019, so this time I was working with a larger more established location.

Sunday, June 7th and Monday, June 8th

We left Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) just before midnight on Sunday, June 7th on a direct flight to Manilla.  We cross the international date line on the way, so after about 14 hours we arrive in Manilla at about 5:30 AM local time on Tuesday, June 9th. 

Lake Forest Team At Airport

Tuesday, June 9th  

Our hotel is in Bonifacio Global City, and we get there about 8AM and drop off our bags and head out for breakfast in Bonifacio High Street.  When we get back to the hotel we do an early check in and wait for the rest of the team coming over from the Santa Rosa campus.  By 2PM the team coming from the Santa Rosa location arrived and once they had settled into the hotel we went over to the offices of Generations Home for an orientation into the event we will be supporting.  Generations Home is a licensed, non-profit child placement agency. The organization facilitates adoption and foster care placements and also runs crucial orphan prevention programs, including support for pregnant mothers in crisis and independent living programs for youth.  The numbers are staggering.  There are more than 1.8 million orphans in the Philippines, yet there are only around 400 adoptions per year.

Combined Lake Forest and Santa Rosa Team

The event we were supporting is a youth conference called The Send.  The conference is held at various dates in about a dozen different locations in the world.  This is the first year they've done it in the Philippines.  Part of what the conference hopes to achieve is to get youth involved in taking action, and to facilitate that there is an Action Hall where various ministries have set up in order to share information about their particular focus.  

There were a number of stations there dedicated to helping vulnerable children.  The folks from the Lake Forest and Santa Rosa teams were assisting with four of those stations.  The one I was supporting was intended to get people to watch a screening of a movie called "The Sound of Hope", or perhaps even get their churches to host a screening.  The movie is about a church in Possum Trot, Texas where the 22 families in the church adopted every one of the 77 children in the foster care system in their area.  The producers of the movie (and Generations Home) hope to inspire other churches to do the same in order to mitigate, if not eliminate, the adoption crisis.

Wednesday, June 10th.

We head out for a local shopping center to purchase the supplies we will need to set up our stations for the conference and then head back to Generations Home to start working on them.  At 5PM we head over to a nearby church called Victory BGC.  They are hosting a "Justice and Worship" night where they (among other things) encourage the attendees to get involved in activities that help vulnerable children.  We assist in putting on the event, including Pastor Max giving a 15 minutes presentation during the service.

Justice and Worship Night

Pastor Max speaking at the Justice and Worship Night

Thursday, June 11th

We go back to Generations Home in the morning to work on our booths some more, and then in the afternoon we take them over to the Christ's Commission Fellowship (CCF) church which is the main venue for the SEND event to set them up.

Prepping the booths for the SEND conference

Friday, June 12th

We're at CCF the entire day for the SEND conference.

Attendees of the SEND conference at our booths

Saturday, June 13th

In the morning we check out of the hotel in Manilla and go back over to CCF to do follow up calls to the people who made commitments to help vulnerable children during the SEND conference.  In the afternoon we head over to Santa Rosa, check into our hotel there and then head over to the Saddleback Santa Rosa campus for Fun on Purpose training for the events we will be doing later in the week.  Fun on Purpose is a TBRI strategy designed to disarm fear, build attachment, and shift a child's brain from a state of survival to connection.

At CCF preparing to follow up on leads from conference

Sunday, June 14th

In the morning we attend worship services at Saddleback Santa Rosa, which included the commissioning of four new pastors.  Three are with Saddleback Santa Rosa, one is from Saddleback Davao.  It's they guy we primarily worked with when we did the launch of that campus in October of 2025.  He's been commissioned as the pastor for the church they've set up within the men's prison in the Davao area.

Commissioning of four new pastors

In the afternoon we head over to Sitio Hemedes.  It a community that got it's start in 1999 when 150 farming families were granted land certificates.  Because of a dispute with the original landowners, the families were almost immediately blocked from taking actual, legal possession.  It's been in legal limbo since.  Because the families don't legally own the land, the city has been unable to put in the infrastructure to provide electricity or running water.  And with the transition of the surrounding area from rural farming to urban industrial, the families lost their livelihoods.  We put on a Fun on Purpose event in the community and then provided all of the families that attended with dinner from McDonalds (fried chicken, not hamburgers incidentally).

One of the Fun on Purpose Stations

Monday, June 15th

Originally we had planned to visit an orphanage in Manilla and do another Fun On Purpose event.  The government decided to schedule an audit of the facility that day, so they needed to cancel our visit.  We had originally scheduled to take a day off to rest up on Wednesday.  Instead, we took Monday off and scheduled a visit to another orphanage on Wednesday.  We did have lunch at a restraint called Balay Dako which is on the edge of Taal Lake and gives a nice view of it.

View of Taal Lake from Balay Dako

Tuesday, June 16th

In the morning we went over to Hope House, a coffee house/gather place under construction.  

The team praying for the founder of Hope House

In the afternoon we headed over to Victory Pasig for a screening of the Sound of Hope movie.  The team helps facilitate the showing, including serving food to the attendees.

Sound of Hope movie screening

Wednesday, June 17th

We host a Fun On Purpose event at he Joshua Care International orphanage.  Posting pictures of the children under care is prohibited, so there aren't any to share.

Thursday, June 18th

Thursday is our Cultural Appreciation Day, where we try to learn a little bit about Philippine history and culture.  We go to Villa Escudero, go through their museum, have lunch at the waterfall and then attend the cultural show.

The dining area at the waterfall is in the river

After lunch we head to the Rizal Re-Creation Center.  It's the church camp that the youth from the Santa Rosa team are now at for a camp.  It's also a location that is being considered as a site for a future Royal Family Kids Camp, a TBRI based camping experience for children that have experienced trauma.  So we wanted to check out the location while we were there.

Friday, June 19th

We have a morning flight (11 AM departure) but with travel time to the airport and arriving three hours early to ensure we get through security in time we have to leave the hotel by 7AM.  The return flight is roughly the same time as the flight over, and yet we arrive in Los Angeles at 9:30 AM on June 19th, 1.5 hours before we left Manilla (insert Doctor Who theme song here).