I expected to spend the afternoon handing out a few toys and taking some photos.

That's not exactly how it went.

The place is called Duyan ni Maria — "Maria's Cradle" — a children's home in Angeles City run by the Sisters of Mary of the Eucharist. A group of us stopped in during a trip through the Philippines, the same trip where I finally went back to see the country I'd been stationed in decades earlier instead of just serving in it.

Within a few minutes of walking in, a boy about 12 years old challenged me to arm wrestling.

I sat down across from him at a plastic table with a floral tablecloth, boxes of donated supplies stacked behind us, and shook his hand like it was the World Championship. He beat me. Fair and square, in front of everyone, grinning the entire time. He still brings it up every time I think about that day, which tells you something about the kind of impression a 12-year-old can leave on a grown man who thought he was just there to help out.

After that, it turned into an afternoon of basketball in a run-down gym with Winnie the Pooh painted on the wall, a jump-rope game with a kid who kept climbing onto whoever's shoulders were closest, and enough laughing and shouting that I stopped keeping track of who was "helping" whom.

At some point, I got to sit with one of the Sisters — an elderly woman who has spent her whole life caring for children who needed somewhere to land. She was tired in the way you can tell someone's earned, and she was still smiling wider than most people I meet who have every comfort in the world. I don't know how many children have passed through her care over the years. I know it's a lot. I know she'd probably tell you it still isn't enough, because there's always another child who needs a place to go.

There was a poster near the entrance for a fundraiser called "A Gallery of Hope" — raising money for a new building, because the current one has clearly seen better decades. It's a reminder that places like this run on very little, and keep going anyway, because the people inside them show up regardless.

I've written a lot lately about places I've seen since retiring — Bataan, Boracay, the Philippines I never got to experience at 18 the way I finally did at 49. This one is different. It's not about seeing anything.

It's about how much joy shows up in a room full of kids who have very little, the second you actually sit down and pay attention to them. It's about a boy who could probably use a lot of things, but decided what he wanted from me that day was a fair fight at arm wrestling — and got one.

If you've never volunteered somewhere like this, I'd encourage you to find a way to. I went in thinking I had something to give. I left with a lot more than I brought.

I'll keep sharing stories like this from my travels — along with the lighter, adventure-driven ones — here on the blog and in my VIP Vacations newsletter. If you want to follow along, I'd love to have you.