After more than 30 hours of flying without sleep I skip my usual nightly hot shower and crawl into a hotel bed. Four hours later I wake up, my body in a time zone between home and here. My eyes ache, my nerves hum just under the skin. The familiar discomfort of the first day in-between.

I take an in-between shower: cold water rains down on marble floors and polished silver fixtures.

I brush my teeth in-between: I avoid the illness carried by the tap, rinse my mouth with bottles water and spit into a granite sink.

I sit, try to still my buzzing brain and read a reminder from Paul.

And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written: “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures forever.”

Forever. Neither here nor there but in all places at all times. God is with me in this in-between.

I pull back the blinds. The sun creeps up over the horizon and into the gray of downtown Manila spread out below my window.

I’m surprised at the skyscrapers flanking me. And the mall next door. And the smoothly paved streets. As if I woke up in America.

I snap a memory.

I lower my lens and steal another.

Zoom in.

By tomorrow morning my body will be on Manila time. My nervous system will comply with the clock on the bedside table. I’ll sleep until the front desk rings my room. I’ll wake up at 7 refreshed, take a third world shower in a first world bathroom, and walk out into the in-between below.

To discover gifts scattered among the poor.

Please join me on-line this week as I do my best to document the generosity of God and God’s people here in the Philippines. Please pray. Grab a banner below. And read along as my new friends and I live in the in-between.

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