I almost don’t know what to do with myself after going without the internet for over a month. We weren’t allowed to use it in China, but now we have it again in the Philippines. Catching up on blogs can be an overwhelming thought, so I’ll write an update about where we are this month and I’ll fill in the other missing pieces of my trip puzzle later.
To cap off our month in China, we spent the last few days of 2012 in Beijing for our official month four debrief. This gave us lots of spare time to reenergize and recover with our whole squad, which for me meant seeing some awesome sights with close friends. In just a few days, we went to the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, and the famous Pearl and Silk Markets. Time well spent.
Above: Reunion with Fierce Pursuit in Beijing
On New Years Day we left Beijing and flew out to the Philippines with an overnight layover in Seoul, South Korea. (The free airport wifi took a beating from sixty internet hungry Americans, but I got a chance to Skype my family.) Our squad landed in Manila the next day and separated at the airport.
First reaction to the Philippines: 80 degrees feels a lot better than 20. I’m excited to have tropical weather this month and not anymore bone chilling temperatures like we had in China. Even if that means bugs everywhere, so be it.
This month, our team is assigned to work with another team in Mindanao, one of the southernmost islands in the Philippines. To get there we needed a domestic flight from Manila. We soon discovered our new airline (AirPhil Express) had an absurd bag limit: 7 and 10 kg (15.4 and 22 lbs). This brought a frenzy of unpacking and repacking in the terminal. We combined a lot of our stuff into whatever bags we had, which resulted in a random assortment of 30 checked bags. My carry on bag was the group’s dirty clothes hamper, which brought a lot of strange looks.
On top of the bag shenanigans, our flight was very delayed and we didn’t get to the other airport until 11 pm. After a quick stop at McDonalds (in the Philippines they serve spaghetti, chicken, and adobo flavored burgers), we began the mostly uphill drive to our host site, through the mountains and rainforest. It poured rain the entire journey and one of the vans overheated, requiring trips to the nearby service station to fill our water bottles and pour them over the engine. We finally got to our host site at 4 am and crashed.
Our site for the month is Mt. Moriah Camp, which is a large campus shared between KIM (Kids International Ministry) and World Harvest Ministry. It has a large children’s home and a legit sports complex that was just finished and dedicated this weekend. It has a full-length basketball court and Filipinos love basketball.
This month we’ll be doing a lot of different things, including spending time at the children’s home, doing physical labor around the campus, and working with college ministry. Our contact and his wife were past World Racers and they do a lot with the college students. This type of college ministry is what I would love to do someday, so I am very excited for this month.
God has been telling me since December that it will be a huge month for me and I’m starting to see how that fits together. Here are some of the reasons again:
- We’re nearby a big city (Malaybalay) that has a good third-world feel and Southeast Asian feel. It also has good stores and restaurants with wifi.
- We’re serving with another group of five guys (from another AIM trip) and get to room with them in a dorm, providing short-term relief from the all too familiar estrogen-fest.
- We have legit contacts who are giving us different work options during the month, and ministry with college students is available.
- Every meal is cooked for us, and its amazing Filipino food. No food shopping or cooking and it comes straight out of our budget.
- We get to play a lot of basketball on a sweet court.
Everything this month has worked out perfectly so far for what I’ve wanted from a Race experience and I’m eager to see the growth that will come. Stay tuned.
