I have started helping with a local magazine called the Jeepney a couple days a week. The Jeepney is a street magazine, modeled similarly to homeless newspapers sold in many major cities in the U.S. The concept is inspirational-it is a magazine featuring local homeless, raising awareness of issues facing the multitudes of Filipinos living in poverty. It is then sold by homeless vendors as a way for them to make an income and support their families.
The Jeepney office is located on the property we are living at, so it was a natural fit for World Racers to start pitching in. We have opportunities to help with everything from photography to graphic design to editing and layout to promoting, and more. I have been working with a few other girls to promote the magazine and search for homeless people on the streets that want to sell the magazine as a source of income. This morning we left for Chinatown at 6:30 am to assist with some street promoting. We visited Chinatown once last week. While promoting the magazine Jeanne and I ran into a firecracker named Annie, a spirited Chinese woman in her early 50's. Actually, she found us. She approached us and asked if we were tourists. She seemed alarmed and told us it was not safe for us to be in Chinatown walking around by ourselves. We assured her we had a local assisting us nearby. We explained to her why we are in the Philippines and then told her all about the Jeepney magazine. Then we parted ways.
We learned later that Annie sent a text message to the Jeepney a couple hours after our encounter saying "I met a couple young Caucasian women in Chinatown today and I want to help them". This morning when we went back we contacted her on the off chance she would have some tips for us. She was available and offered to meet with us. She gave us some great insight into the area from a local perspective and directed us to an area she felt would be our target market. A couple hours later through an amazing series of events, which I will spare you, Annie managed to get us on stage at an assembly at her children's high school, where students and parents were gathered for their final day of school. Had we continued street marketing this morning we would have only contacted a handful of people, but thanks to the help of a complete stranger who was willing to sacrifice half her day to help us we were able to reach hundreds and encourage them to support the local homeless community. Annie also invited us into her home and offered us a place to stay if we ever return to the Philippines.
It's cool to see how God opens up opportunities sometimes. We got connected to Annie randomly on the street. We wouldn't have been able to get into the school if it weren't for her personal connections. If we had gone out any other day we couldn't have reached that audience because it was the very last day of school. Sometimes things add up way too much to be coincidence, even a skeptic like me must accredit days like today entirely to "a God thing".
Written By: Jillian Hensley
A copy of this article can be found at http://jillianhensley.theworldrace.org/?filename=how-i-ended-up-on-stage-in-front-of-600-chinesefilipinos&bookmark=true#comments
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