I wrote this a couple days ago when I was still in the Philippines and the this is the first chance I’ve had to post. Enjoy!
Hello! So, I am writing to you on my last day in the Philippines. My first month of the race is over and it went by pretty fast! I am so happy to report that I am healthy again and feeling like my normal self. Actually, everyone on my team and the teams I am with are all healthy so praise the Lord for that 🙂 This month really has been amazing and I feel so blessed that this is the life I get to lead for the next 10 months.
The last week has been filled with Philippino fun 🙂 We got to spend our last few days with the beautiful people at the dumpsite in Tondo. It has been such an honor to work with them and experience their joy. They will always be in out hearts AND we are still looking to get Joemar sponsored for college 🙂 so keep praying about that. Our contacts, Ron and Joanna took us to a volcano on our last day in Manila and that was so fun too! We drove out to the coast and rode a boat to the volcano and then had the joy of climbing to the top. After sweating out a gallon and being taunted by the volcano workers on horseback we made it to the top and of course it was beautiful. Ron and Joanna were a huge blessing to us and just amazing people in general. Have I said we had a great experience this month? 🙂
I also got peer pressured in to eating “balut” which is a part of the local cuisine. Its a fertilized duck egg. So you crack it open and drink all the juices (I had to skip the juice drinking part) and then you open the rest up to find a baby duck…fully formed with feathers and all…and eat it. Apparently its a great source of protein and gives you strong knees. So in the spirit of strong knees, I ate it along with some of my teammates. I want to say that is was disgusting and revolting but it really didn’t taste that bad. It was a mind over matter thing and I think it helped that I didn’t crunch on any bones like some others did 🙂 I think we are going to try to eat at least one thing from each culture that we don’t have at home so I’ll keep you updated.
mm delicious balut
Our next ministry is in Penang, Malaysia and it is with Youth with a Mission (YWAM). We don’t know exactly what we’ll be doing yet but we are praying for a beach within a few miles of where we are! I am excited to move on and see what the Lord has for us here. Please continue to pray for our health and that God will give us the grace for whatever we will encounter. I love all of you guys and I will try to be better about keeping everyone more updated!
Here are all the pictures my team took in the Philippines, if you are interested:
Here’s a video summary of our time in the Philippines 🙂
