Puerto Two!

This post continues my narration of our trip to Puerto Galera this last weekend. We did to much to fit it all into one post and still be readable!

Waking up to a rainy morning, we ate an early breakfast, and we put on our hiking shoes to finally meet the women who made all the bracelets we sold. The resort we were staying at, Tamaraw Beach, was just a short jaunt to the village by way of a nicely paved road. Uncle Alex, our guide and the man behind Threads of Hope, was recognized and greeted by almost everyone we passed on the way there. He travels to Puerto about twice a month to pick up orders of 20,000+ bracelets. When we arrived at the actual community, we came upon their huge community center/church building that was still in process. It had a floor and a bball court, but no real walls yet. All the women who were expecting to get paid that day were gathered in the building, and we were introduced to them. 

Shortly after being introduced to them, we traveled up a steep, muddy and narrow path to Alona's house. Alona is the woman Uncle Al and Aunt Chris met when on vacation in Puerto and who inspired the ministry of  Threads of Hope. Alona now takes all the orders from Uncle Al and distributes them to the women who make bracelets. Not all women who want to make bracelets for Threads of Hope are able to, as Uncle Al can only buy so many per month. So, Alona makes sure that the women in the community who need money the most get larger orders, and then when women complete orders they bring the bracelets back up to her and drop them off for Uncle Al to pick up. When we traveled up to her house, we were picking up the bracelets that were being bought today. 

As we were reviewing the bracelets and beginning to pack them all up in order to cart them back down the mountain, Alona surprised us by giving our team a bundle of bracelets that she said were a gift to us from the community. She had collected some from each of the women and then gave them to us. There were roughly 100 bracelets, including some flat style bracelets with 'Puerto Galera' written in them, as well as some with beads. We were all incredibly blessed by their generosity.

Walking down the mountain, we arrived back in the ministry center and Uncle Al began to dole out money. It was a very interesting process to watch: At a round table, Uncle Al would sit in the center, with Pastor Al's wife on one side and Alona on the other. Each of the women had record books, and Uncle Al had the money. When each women's name was called, she came up to the table, and Alona said how many bracelets she had made (+dollars) and Pastor Al's wife said how much thread they had received (-dollars) and the left over amount is how much the bracelet maker was finally paid. All in all, the whole process took about 3+ hours for all the women to be paid. 

During the time Uncle Al was buying bracelets, we were meeting and talking with all the women. They all had very diverse and interesting stories, however the overriding theme was one of poverty and struggling to make enough to send their kids to school. One woman had a son in Engineering school (a 5 year program) and another entering a different school as a freshman, and one more who is a senior this year. The senior might have to take a gap year or two in order for the family to afford to send them to school. 

After talking for a while and noticing that the rain had lessened/stopped, we asked if we could help them out by painted part of the bball court upstairs. We had thought that we would just be painting things like lines on the cement court, but no - we literally painted the court floor. They had this white rubbery type of paint that needed to cover the whole court. But, in order to lay down paint, we first needed to sand the cement floor to smooth it over. So, half the team was down on their hands and knees sanding, and the other half was rolling the floor in paint. We applied 3 gallons in 2 hours and covered about a fourth of the court. 

Then, we headed back to the resort, then traveled over to White Beach (a 15min walk) for lunch and a little beachside shopping. Apparently since it is off-season, there were not so many shops and restaurants open, and the one we ate at only had about half the foods that were listed on their menu. 

But the shopping was cheap and fun, I purchased a sundress, some earrings and a gift for my sis there, and all in all spent less than $12. We wandered back to Tamaraw beach, and went for another swim in the ocean, minus the rain this time! We seem to swim in the rain quite frequently around here...

Dinner this night was a fancier affair, as we went next door to a higher-end resort that had excellent food. I might have ordered the fillet mignon... It was a fun experiance and we took lots of photos that evening. It was wonderful to sit outside, where it was warm, yet there was a breeze from the ocean, watching the night fishermen travel out to the water. I also tried a bite of grilled squid at dinner, which kind of tasted like the grizzle on a piece of beef. 

I must admit, one food I am really ready to go home for is potatoes. I miss my potatoes and do believe that it would take a bit of time to get used to eating rice all the time. And yes, we have rice almost every meal, though I've only been served it twice for breakfast. 

Sleep came easily, and we went to bed praying that the next day would dawn calm and sunny, as we were to go snorkeling and scuba diving! However, there were more adventures in store that all began when we got up the next morning....

But that's tomorrow's story!

Puerto, Day One

The last few days have been super fun and super full with lots of changing schedules. I think over the course of our stay in Puerto Galera, we only kept to the orginal plan for half a day...

Day one (Thursday) we left really early in the morning, at 5:15am, to catch a ride to the bus station. Once at the bus station, (after a 45min drive) we hopped on a charter-type bus, which was super cold because of the air conditioning. We drove on that bus for a good 3 hours before arriving at Batangas, which was the pier from which we would catch a banca boat to Puerto Galera. The waves were quite choppy and the boat was moving up and down rapidly and catching a lot of wave. It was not a confidence-inspiring picture, to say the least. When our boat was finally called for boarding, we loaded up and started off. It was okay at the beginning, but got rougher out on the open sea. Sometimes, if the waves were too high, the engine would get cut so we could ride the wave out more gently. Banca boats are about the only form of water transport in the area, as ferries do not go to the island any more, and sailboats are owned privately. After about 1.5 hrs on the rough sea, we finally made it to our port. Then, after a short trip by car over to the resort, we finally checked into our bungalows. 

The bungalows were fantastic. About the 2/3 the length and width of my dorm room last year, our little room held a small armoire, two twin beds, a table and two chairs in the corner underneath a wall-mounted TV. Through the door on the other side of the room was our little CR (that is Filipino for 'bathroom', and it stands for 'Comfort Room'), which had a sink in the middle, toilet on the right, and a shower head on the left. There was definitely no shower curtain, or shower lip, the water and sand just ran down to the corner where the drain was. Effective, but a little strange. About 50ft outside our front porch splashed the ocean on the beach, and halfway there was a bahay kubo (a little hut thing where we can sit) that we used quite frequently.

Also on-site is a relatively inexpensive restaurant where we lunched. I ate garlic rice and fried chicken. Most everyone had mango shakes, except for me, as they are a speciality of the beach (and the Philippines in general). I don't really like mango. After lunch, we all jumped into the ocean and went swimming. And it was raining. It rained almost the whole weekend, but as it was still warm outside and the water was super warm, we didn't mind. Never have I swum so much in the rain as I have here in the last week. After splashing in the waves, half the group walked the beach over to White Beach, which was just 10 minutes away. The other half of us stayed a played a game of scrabble (Alex won, Chris lost, and I was somewhere in the middle) until dinner. 

Dinner was a wonderful affair. Apparently, you can get either Italian or Filipino food on the beach, and there is one particular Italian restaurant on the very end of the beach that has excellent food. It is literally the last building on this stretch of beach, right before the bend where the beach runs out. We had delicious pastas and pizzas, the helpings were huge, and they were in no rush to see us off, so we sat and chatted for a decent couple of hours. It was a 20+ minute walk from where we were staying, and we were in no hurry to get back. Quite a memorable meal.

Also note: they don't apparently serve much ice cream in these parts, as when one orders a chocolate shake (for $4!) all you get is blended ice and chocolate powder or sauce, depending on where you order it from. Not to great if you ask me. I was really craving some ice cream, and fortunately in the mall where we catch public transport home, there is a DQ where I have gotten a Blizzard or two...

And after a short team meeting, we ended our evening early, needing a good night's rest for day two, which would include painting a basketball court and meeting all the women who make the bracelets that our team sold these past months. 

Here are some pictures of the day:

Back Early...

Due to and impending storm, we traveled back to Manila today at the last minute from Puerto Galera. Literally we got the last boat back of the day, and then it didn't even take us all the way to where we wanted to go. But more on that story tomorrow, when I have enough sleep in me to write cohesively. Tonight, I am just going to shower and get all the saltwater and sweat off from the day and hit the sack, as they say. 

To tide (no pun intended) you over and whet your appetite, here are some pictures from the trip: 

Offline Again...on a Beach

We are off to another adventure where there is no internet connectivity, so this will be my last post until Sunday evening, or Monday, it depends on how awake I feel after hours of traveling...

This time, however, we are headed to Puerto Galera (or something spelled like that) and will be meeting the women of Threads of Hope! Thanks to everyone who supported that ministry by buying bracelets from us - we'll still have some when we come back if you want more... We'll be both serving and relaxing on the beach, and I'll be snorkeling for the first time! I can't wait and I promise there will be lots of pics when I get back! 

I'll leave you tonight with pictures of my classes that I helped teach this past week and a half at Cuatro Christian School, they are great kids!

400 Paso?

Monday was a day off for the team from working, partially because it was a national holiday and the school we help with was closed for the day. Probably the best part of the day was getting to finally have time to skype with my family and Kali at a decent hour of the day in both time zones. 

We took public transportation all day and that was kinda fun, but also very different from Seattle Metro: the first part of our trip we took trike-like bikes, but these were all pedal pushed by the driver on a bike, and there was only a colorful table umbrella for cover, not the little seater thing. Not all drivers pedal equally as fast, and Alex and Chris' guy was by far the fastest. 

Next we hopped on a ginormous bus that looked like one of the greyhound buses, but inside the seats were squishier and all vinyl covered. We watched a Filipino talk show in Tagalag along the way. We took FXs the rest of the trip, so those were the only real new experiences of the day.

Where did we go? We went to a place called Greenhills, which is like an indoor flea market/swap meet where you can bargain with prices. And the majority of booths were comprised of pearl sellers, embroidery/pashmina sellers, woodcraft sellers, and fake designer bags/watches sellers. It was amazing to see everything, and to see how close each booth was to another. And all the pearls were beautiful! You could buy just strands of pearls, necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, and in white, black, or a variety of colors. I bought a few gifts here, but spent relatively little in US dollars because I had a master bargainer, Mrs. Jones, at my side who helped me out. 

Megamall was next, via FX, and we were going there to eat at this restaurant that supposedly had things like balut, crickets, and frog legs, but when we got there, none of that was on the menu! So, we decided to go to a Chinese noodle house, but a different on from last time. My beef and rice came in a bowl that was sort of slanted in shape, and I want some for our house to eat from. Dessert was found elsewhere: I was really craving ice cream, and we had seen a DQ in the mall earlier, but to our dismay, it was not listed on the directory map, so I had to settle for a mama bear sized Arctic Freeze from a place called 'Spike's'. It was still good, but man I was missing the M&M DQ Blizzard. 

By this time it was already 4pm, so we headed back to the guesthouse in Cuatro, ate a super fast dinner and went to help out with devotions and put the orphange kids in bed. Charis, Sarah, Michael and Mrs. Jones snuck off to get manicures, pedicures, and massages for cheap down the street a ways, and Chris, Alex, and I finished off the night with a little bit of Fantasy Football and picture uploading. Which reminds me, here are some pictures of our day:

Online!

We are back from the middle of nowhere - there were only about 12 buildings that I could see in the whole area - and it was lovely. For security reasons I can't post pictures of the people we visited online, but you can definitely come see the 400+ photos I took in person! (I'll be back in Seattle on Sep 14th..) 

It was a wonderful weekend, full of lots of new experiences:

• I petted a snake for the first time, and it was surprisingly dry in texture.
  
• I rode a caribu (pronounced care-i-bow)
  
• I ate a new variety of pancit that was made in a massively large bowl, from which we used mini-shovels to transfer the food to our plate.
  
• I only used toilets that had to be flushed with outside buckets of water
  
• I never ate with a knife, only a spoon and fork.
  
• I also ate this good soup dish with papaya used as a veggie.
  
• I slept in a mosquito net.
  
• I learned how to make rice in a bamboo stalk with banana leaves - it was quite tasty
  
• I ate off a banana leaf plate.
  
• I ate french fries for breakfast.
  
• I learned that ordering a hamburger from McDonald's here means that I get no pickles, no onions, no ketchup, no nothing except for a bun, a slab of meat, and this strange sauce that was orange on it. However, cheeseburgers come with all of the above.
  
• I ate rice for breakfast, with soy sauce.
  
• I rode in a trike and an FX (both public-ish forms of transportation here)
  
• And many other things, I'll remember them when I go through photos with you!

I realized that I missed the country way life more than I thought I did, as being in foothills was so restful and peaceful. The people we visited were very warm and welcoming, and though we initially thought that there would be a large language barrier, many of the children had a very good command of English, and we also had two ladies who could translate from English to Tagalog or the native language (and vice versa) very well. 

I could write about them all day, but I'd really rather tell you in person with pictures to narrate. I even have some awesome videos of our team being taught the native 'courting dance'. :)

But, since the internet is working well, I will post some pictures of the family home kiddos and our team:

 

Offline

Soon (as in 2.5 hours) we will be traveling north to visit a village where Bible translation is occurring, just to meet and interact with the people there. While I am quite excited for this, we have to leave before we can see the talent show the kids at school have been preparing. While the show was not planned for us, the kids were disappointed to learn we would not be there. 

Yesterday I came down real hard with a cold and was only able to help out in the Science classrooms in the morning. I napped all afternoon. That morning, however, was experiment day for the grade 5, so I got to help them look at different types of cells underneath a microscope. We first looked at onion cells, which we could see surprisingly well, and then we looked at a few kid's cheek cells. Because we didn't have the greatest of stains, those were hard to see. And then, for the grand finale, we looked at blood cells. The director of the school volunteered to prick her finger to get the blood, but since we had no needles, she sterilized a relatively new knife from the microscope kit in a hot flame and then tried to cut into her finger. However, the knife turned out to be really dull and the heat just caused blisters to form, and she never actually cut her skin. So, I looked at my fingers, and while I didn't really want to donate my blood to science, I found and pulled a hangnail far enough to get some blood on the slide. While it was too thick to really see individual cells, it was red colored and good enough for 5th graders. They'll see blood again eventually if they take any more bio classes. And don't worry, I washed my finger with antibacterial soap, and bandaged it with antibacterial neosporin right after we were done with class. 

You won't see any updates for a while since the village has no internet and we are leaving our computers behind. I am taking my camera though!

Here are some pictures of kids from the school and orphanage!

Back to School

Now that I've told you all about how we explored Manila and the generally touristy places, this post is about where and how we are serving.

Currently we are located in a subdivision called 'Cuatro', which has a squatter settlement of about 5,000 people, but only about 100 families own their own plot of land. There are four main buildings that the missionaries here work in: the children's home, the elementary school, the community center, and the guesthouse. We are staying the in the guesthouse while were are working here, and it is really just like a large house with lots (4+) beds in every room. Charis, Sarah, and I share a room, but in order to get AC at night, we all pile into Mrs. Jones' room each evening. 

The community center is where we spend the least time, in fact, I have only been in there once, when we toured it last Saturday. The kindergarden age students go to school there, they even have a basketball court on the roof so that they can have PE! There is a sanctuary there where a community church meets each Sunday. 

The elementary school is where we spend the bulk of our day. We are up and at breakfast by 7:15 each morning, and off to school to help in the classrooms. We were each assigned to a subject as a general helper. Science, math, language arts, and Bible are the four morning subjects. Each subject is taught by one teacher, who moves from classroom to classroom. The children range in age from 6-13, but not all are with their 'proper' grade, as their education backgrounds are very varied. They do teach grades 1-5, so we get to interact with lots of different children. The school is following the ACE Lifepack curriculum that allows each child to work at their own pace completing their units. This means that the teacher doesn't really teach, just answers questions and grades things as kids finish. I have mixed feelings about this system, but it seems to be working for them. The older two classes, grades 3-5, are very hands off and don't really need much help from me or the teacher, however the younger kids do need lots of help just reading the directions and understanding what they need to be doing. Tomorrow though, the science teacher has promised some experiments, so that will be fun!

Many of the kids read very well, even some in the youngest grade 1. It has made me wish that I knew how to help them read phonetically, as I just try to slowly sounds the words out, even though I know that it is probably not the best way to help them learn to read in English. My afternoons, from 12:40-3:20 are spent in the library, just listening to kids read, correcting them as they go along, and sometimes reading a book to the youngest students. 

After all day at the school, we either watch the kids play some bball on the school's court, or head up with the Children's Home kids to play with them until dinner. They are pretty happy to just play with basketballs all afternoon, and it is kind of funny to see these little squirts tossing the ball around like someone twice their size and age. And they love Chris. He has already been given the title of 'brother' and now 'uncle' (tito) and they just love to play with him. If he suggests they do anything, especially if it involves bball tricks, usually there are 4+ small fries trying to copy him. My favorite though, is their favorite question: "why don't you speak Tagalong, tito Chris?" Since he is a dark skinned Filipino, they want to know why he looks like them but can't speak their language. Though he has explained to them again and again that he was adopted, they just keep asking "why?" That is their favorite response to anything you might say, the kids always want to know why something is the way it is, even if that something is as simple as the grass being green. We have played so 'planned' games like Duck, duck, goose and Sharks and minnnows, but the kids really just love bball. It is truly the sport of the Philippines.

We hang out with the kids as they eat dinner, talking with them and getting to know them better, and then after our own dinner back at the guesthouse, we go back to the home and do a little worship time and devotional with the children. It is so great to see them worshipping along with us to songs that we all know. Some favorites are 'Amazing Love', 'Every move I make', 'Father Abraham', and 'Now is the time to worship'. And after all that, it is bed time, which usually takes at least 30 minutes to get all the kids towards bed, and we usually leave before all of them are asleep and staying in their beds.

Which reminds me - it is now past my bedtime, so I am signing off for now! 

Pictures!

Finally, some pictures! Thank you to those who stayed with me through the not-so-picturesque last two blog posts, here is your reward:

This is the Manila skyline (at least part of it, I need a panorama for the whole skyline)

This is Charis' school, Faith Academy. It was a gorgeous campus.

And this is a map of the Philippines painted on an area of the floor of Charis' school; the Philippines were the center of the map. 

This is another shot from Faith, they have this lovely sitting area/garden in the center of the compound. There were about three of these structures, as well as other places to sit in the area. 

This is rambutan, which means "hairy". The outside of this fruit is a vibrant red/orange, with kind of rubbery hairs. You peel this fruit like an orange and then pop the whole thing in your mouth and eat around the very large seed. The goal is to not eat the seed, but to spit it out, however some of our team members might not have listened to instructions very well....

This is the mega church in the mall, where about 3,000 people come each service. This picture was taken right about when the service was starting, but all the chairs did fill up by about 20 min into it. Apparently Filipino time = whenever you show up. 

Also, not blogged about, but this was a non-Apple store set up to look like one. It felt like I was walking into a real Apple store, but this is only a 'Premium Reseller", thus 'The A.shop'

Two panda breads. Delicious. Enough said.

Jumpseats in the back filled by the guys on our trip. They really enjoy being pretend Marines (or at least Alex does) when they go to climb into the back. I will admit, it is kind of fun to ride back there, if only for the different view. The window in the back is great to see out of, as it is huge.

This is Charis' home church's new building, which was very pretty and light and airy on the inside. They were also rockin' the AC, so it was a mite chilly. 

Day Deux: Loads of new things

NOTE: picture posting might be few and far in between until I get back to the states because of the really slow internet connection here. While the WiFi may be free, when more than one computer logs on, it slows down. I will post bunches of facebook albums when I return and give the URLs out, so please bear with me now :)

Day two: Manila, the city.

Two churches, three malls, new fruits, panda bread and pancit made up the whole of our Sunday. In fact, we were gone so long yesterday that I had to wait until Monday to blog (aka: I feel asleep early). Another note: the time difference here is +15 hours, so all the time stamps on my blogs are incorrect. I never bothered to change the time on my computer, partially so that I can see what time Ellensburg is sitting at. 

Church #1: GCF East. This is Charis' home church, where she attended when she lived here. Ironically enough, they moved church buildings the week we came, so it was only sort of like coming back to the same church. The church did have the same pastor and the Jones' were able to see some old friends of theirs, and we were warmly greeted guests. In fact, we were probably the first to use their new visitor center, which did not yet have a door or windows yet.

Following GCF East we dashed up the street for some Panda bread. I think it's real name is Pan de Sol (or that's what it sounds like) but it basically delicious rolls, baked in a special oven and really inexpensive, for our wallets anyway. We got 15 rolls that were a good 3+ inches in diameter for 85 pesos, which is like $1.75. It was a great snack, and a good new food experiance #1. The nickname 'Panda bread' comes from some boys our team met at the Faith Academy pool who, after much coaxing, finally said that panda bread was one of their favorite Filipino foods. 

All this dashing around town reminds me to mention our mode of transportaion. While we have not yet braved a Jeepney, pedicab, or strange looking boat, we do travel around in the Revo. This car is like a SUV, but in the truck reside two jumpseat benches. Apparently, the reason is that Filipinos like to squish as many people in a car as possible, and these help. Also, no seatbelts are worn besides the driver and shotgun seat, as again, they try to fit as many people as possible. The van that picked us up from the airport did not have any at all for the back three rows of seating. Granted, while this may sound harrowing, the driving around here is not very fast because of the huge quantities of traffic. I must admit that here the traffic/crazy drivers are in much greater supply than in Cali. The only rule of the road is this: if you get your nose in there first, the right-of-way is yours. yep.

This trusty Revo took us from the panda bread across town to the second church of the day: CCF, which is a megachurch. Really, it's huge, with 3000 people per service at this one campus, 5 services, and there are about 15 satellites churches. And, to top it all off, the church occupies the top couple of floors of St. Francis Square in Manila, which is like a mall. Apparently this is purposeful, because many Filipinos come to shop at malls on Sundays, so churches try to be either in or near a mall, to draw people in. The pastor spoke a great sermon, about abiding in the word and then being set free, all to the end of becoming a true disciple of Christ. I think they podcast the sermons, if anyone is interested. 

One thing that I noticed about all the malls and areas that we were in today was the prevalence of English. While I knew that most people spoke English coming in, the fact that I was in the mall and did not feel totally out of place was disconcerting. In my head, I knew I was in Asia, but I didn't really feel to much like a fish out of water and sometimes even felt like I was in a US mall, just one where there was a high population of Asians. The one main difference between malls in the US and those here is the amount of workers in each store. I learned that the wage scale is so low, it is cheaper to higher lots of people to watch virtually every isle in the store than it is to deal with a little shoplifting. Also, the turnover rate is high, because if someone is employed with a company for more than 6 months, they have to be given benefits and become near impossible to fire down the line. To get around this, employers hire for periods of one day less than six months, and then the worker is out on their ear looking for other places to work. It is kind of creepy when you are browsing merchandise, minding your own business, and then, when you're not looking, a uniformed girl comes and just stands their staring at you, or decides that she absolutely must straighten the books your are currently looking at. 

After CCF we did hit up Megamall, which is used to be the largest mall, until Mall of Asia was built. We fueled up on some great home-style chinese and filipino food at a noodle place, where we watched a chef pull noodles by hand. This is where I tried pancit, which is basically like chow mein, only different in a few flavors. But it had meat, noodles, cabbage, and a few other veggies, and it was quite good. I did try some new kinds of green vegetables, but I did not get their names (though I think one was kay-kay or something similar). One looked like celery. I enjoyed both, because they were not overcooked nor mushy, and they were all cooked with garlic cloves. I think I would eat most any vegetable if it tasted like garlic, but don't me to that! :) We also had shakes after lunch, and I was the odd guy out at the table with my apple shake, but I just can't seem to like mango fruit.

Mango fruit and rambutan were the two other new fruits I've tried so far. I waited to call final judgement of mangos until I tried real Filipino mangos (I did not like the states' version) but alas, they still did not taste great to me. So, I guess that means more for the rest of my team, as they seem to inhale the fruit. Rambutan, on the other hand, was quite enjoyable, though not very filling. It is a red skinned, white fleshed fruit that is hard to descibe, in regards to taste. It is kind of citrus-y, but not like any typical fruit. You have to eat around a large seed, which you try not to swallow (most of our team did swallow one...) and the flesh is sometimes hard to get off. Oh well, I guess ya'll have to try one someday to really understand the fruit. They come really cheap here, about 40 pesos for a kilo, which is quite a few.  

And that concludes much of what our team did on Sunday, I'll write about the orphanage and school tomorrow, as well as our trip to the 'ruins' that I forgot to mention on yesterday's post!

Which way is up?

In one week, I have been on west coast time, east coast time, and Filipino time (15 hours ahead of west coast time), losing almost a day in between. I am now the proud owner of one tourist visa, the first stamp in my passport is for the Philippines. Long story short, we have been in manila for about 22 hours, and I am so tired, I don't really know which way is up... apparently I am experiencing jet lag - all I know is that I am instructed to not sleep until later tonight. Thus, I am going to type this blog, but any mistakes I blame on the jet lag!

First off, the flight here was the longest that I have ever taken, 10 whole hours for one leg, then another 3.5+ for the second. And I slept a grand total of 4-ish hours over the course of the trip. It was great however to arrive in Manila at the place we are staying right at midnight, so that we could go straight to sleep, and not have to force ourselves to stay awake. No, that would come today :( 

I must stop and make a note here that Asiana Airlines is the best airline I have ever flown with. Ever. Not only did they have smart, identically matching flight attendant outfits, but they also changed twice during the course of the flight! and had the greatest aprons! and hats! We flew in a 777 that was huge - there were two isles, 9 seats across, and no seat "F" in any row. The best part was the food we were given, they really like to feed you. Three ginormous meals in the course of our travels, one of which was steak, potatoes, and veggie meal, and another one consisted of beef stir-fry, but all came with rolls, side dishes, desert, real silverware (not plastic) and the best part: after meal tea. They have delicious tea, better than any US airline's hot tea. They also continually offered us orange juice and water, to keep us hydrated as we flew. It was much appreciated, and I can see why they were voted the best airline. 

After a decent night's rest, we woke up to the sun, heat, cock's crowing, the last bit of rainfall, and lots of people. We are staying in a guest house in an area of Manila called Cuatro, because it runs along the 4th hole of the local golf course. (That's another interesting thing, apparently Seoul and Manila have lots of golf courses!) This house is a part of one of the ministries we are serving with, Kids International Ministry. They help out the local squatter settlement by building homes for some members of the community, building a community center which doubles as a church, as well as running an orphanage the houses 40+ kids, and a elementary school for both the orphanage kids and some select community children. We are not quite sure what we'll be doing come Monday, but we might be tutoring some kids in the schoolhouse. 

After breakfast and a tour of the area were are in and of the ministry buildings, we went to visit Faith Academy, where Charis graduated from. I can't imagine what she was feeling, as I can go back to Riverside Christian (my old school) anytime I want. We explored all of the school, which is more like a whole compound, seeing what was new and changed (at least to Charis' eyes, to me it was all new...)

Not going to lie, I was a little jealous of their new auditorium (nicer than most theatre halls) with purple seats and a fly system that can handle up to 40 flys! They also had new science classrooms. Their prep/stockroom was larger than the one at SPU and well stocked. It was great to see that their school was so well supported, as their mission is to support all the missionaries in the area. The also have a "aquatic center" with a pool that we played in all afternoon. I was instructed to not rest after lunch and to stay active to combat the jet lag. So, stay active we did, but I was exhausted by 8pm. And rest never felt so good.