We made it to the Philippines safely. Our trip began on September 10th and we arrived to Manila, Philippines a little before midnight the night of the 11th. We flew from Atlanta to Tokyo which was a 13 1/2 hour flight, had a 2 hour layover in Tokyo and a 3 hour and 45 min flight to Manila. When it was midnight my squad sang happy birthday to me, if you could only see my smile.
We were able to sleep-in the morning of the 12th and had a tour of Kids International Ministry which is the ministry we will be working with. I cannot believe I am actually in the Philippines. This ministry is really impacting the community here, they have a school with 384 children, a pregnancy center, feeding program, a home for abused and neglected girls, a children's home, construction, tutoring program and many more.
The afternoon of the 12th my team spent time with the children at the children's home. I met this little girl who I absolutely want to take home. She crawled over to me when I walked into the room a got her attention. While she was feeding, I sat down with the older nursery babies and played blocks with them. One of the little girls, who is 3 years old started singing happy birthday while building a block cake. I then told the caregiver that today is my birthday and I just love the fact that she was singing happy birthday. She told the toddlers and they started singing happy birthday and the little girl gave me her birthday block cake, which made my day.
We were told to make a list of the different areas that we would like to work in as a team. We are working with the children at the children's home in the morning and construction in the afternoon. I started to rough house with the little boys and maybe, it was not a good idea. I started something that I could not finish but we had a blast. The afternoon was spent digging and shoveling dirt and mud into sacks and transporting it to the children's home for the new expansion.
This place is ranked #1 by the Racers and now I know why. We are staying at a volunteer/guest house for this month and we are getting 3 meals a day. The food is very good here. The people are so friendly and it is beautiful. It is very humid here. I am afraid that we are going to get a rude awakening next month at our other destination. We are all socking all of this in now because the next 10 months is going to be different.
I will keep you guys updated and will post more pics.
My little girl and I.
