Hello, Ate

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” —Matthew 18:3 (NIV)

“Ate Sunny, Ate Sunny!”

It is late afternoon in Kaytitinga, and the light falls soft and slanted through the dust that small feet kick up. A little girl comes running toward me with nothing to ask and nothing to show. She only says, “Hello, Ate,” and sits beside me, close enough that I feel the warmth of her shoulder.

Something in me gives way.

I came here with a plan: Bible stories, songs, games, each chosen to make a child smile. I believed I was the one who had something to give. But the children keep rewriting my plans. Last week I spent an hour preparing a game with careful rules. Within two minutes the children had thrown out the rules and invented their own, which seemed to involve running in circles and shouting. I tried to call them back in my halting Tagalog, and a boy patted my arm kindly, as if I were the one who needed help.

We laughed until none of us could breathe. Often we can’t fully understand each other. Somehow we laugh together anyway, and I am learning that love doesn’t always need words.Then a question found me, and it ached: had I been so busy teaching about God’s love that I forgot what it looks like?

These children never try to prove they deserve anyone’s love. They come as they are, glad over the smallest kindness, honest about every feeling. That is how God loves us. Missionary life is not always easy. Some days the language leaves me struggling. I wonder whether I am doing enough, whether any of it makes a difference. When things don’t go my way, I grow so caught up in my difficulties that I forget He is right beside me.

But God is teaching me that serving Him doesn’t have to be big or extraordinary. Remembering a child’s name, listening to a story, sitting together, sharing a smile—these can be small ways of showing His love. More than anything, the children showed me that I am a child before God. Despite every weakness, He never stops loving me, not for what I accomplish, but simply because I am His.

I came to Kaytitinga to share God’s love. The children helped me feel it first.

Name: Sunny Hong | 66th Batch | 1000MM

Hometown: South Korea

Mission Field: Kaytitinga, Alfonso, Cavite