I find myself on a Cebu Pacific Airplane approaching Dumaguete in the Philippines where our next ministry location will be for the month. I’m starting to think I should have been keeping track of how many airplanes I have been on so far this year as I sit waiting to land. My team has just left Manilla where we had a five day debrief, and I’m mentally trying to
convince myself that I am ready to begin a new month of ministry. I’ve realized that it is more difficult that I thought to go from culture to culture, ministry to ministry, while adjusting and discovering a brokenness for each people group that we find ourselves with.
The landing announcement alerted us to put on our seatbelts. I begin to wonder if the plane was a water landing plane because we are just feet over the ocean and I can’t even see land out my window. I feel a jolt and then all of a sudden the most gorgeous beaches I have ever seen appear. I cannot believe the beauty around me! There are banana trees and palm trees everywhere I look. To the right is the bluest ocean ever and to the left are these huge mountains! I am still trying to figure out what movie this island looks like because I feel as though I am in the most exotic place of the world and it just doesn‘t even seem real!
The airport is small, just a single building where you pick your bags up. We meet our contacts, Peter and Lillian. They are connected with the International Care Ministry (ICM) who we will be working along side this month. We are joined with Team Ginosko which totals 13 World Racers in this location. Peter decides to take us out on the little town to get a feel for the culture and people. We go to this restaurant and try Filipino bar-b-q and then are whisked off to “dessert”. Little did I know that w
e were about to be initiated in to the Filipino culture.
We walk along to the Boulevard which is as romantically gorgeous in a 3rd world setting as you can get. There are little café’s and restaurants right along this vast ocean front view. There are large trees intermingled with palm trees that are decorated with stars and lights. The waves crash over this stone wall that separate land from sea. And there are these stoic light posts lining the ocean water. The moon, the lights, the smell of the ocean….it’s almost perfect! We are even getting used to the traffic being little tricycle bikes rather than cars.
