i got sick on monday night. just a 24 hour bug of some sort. it felt more like the beginning of my death, but after about 12 hours of making friends with the toilet, I started to feel normal again. everytime i’m sick i feel like it will never end, but it always does. but getting over it is never fun. i guess due to the hydration induced by this unknown illness i have had a headache for a few days. i thought maybe it was a caffeine headache. sickness=no caffeine. so i went on an adventure with my team leader/coffeeholic, sami to starbucks.
like most adventures in the philippines, it all starts with a tricycle. they call them “trikes” here. basically it is like a motorcycle with an attachment. they fit about 10 people on each trike. it only costs 7 pesos (like .20 cents) so its the only way to go.
After about 5 minutes on a trike we change transportation to a “jeepney”. in all my experiences on random forms of transportation throughout the world. the jeepney is by far my favorite. they look like a miniature school bus mixed with a limo and a hearse, painted anything you can imagine, from jesus to unicorns to american flags. they are like party buses. about 30 people can fit in one and they have the music blaring with all of the latest tunes. america needs to adopt the jeepney as the newest, coolest form of publc transport. and again it’s only 7 pesos… of course on the way to the tanay (pronounced tay-tay, makes no sense!) mall we took the wrong jeepney and ended up in the wrong place. so we hopped on another jeepney to go the opposite direction. then they made us get off and walk across the busy street to another jeepney that finally took us to the starbucks.
i’m not a huge starbucks fan. too expensive for what it is. coffee. i can get free coffee at home. however, i can’t get free coke zero. so i walked to the supermarket to get myself a delicious, cold coke. supermarkets here are awesome. they have all kinds of american foods. like salsa and tortilla chips. my favorite! anyway, when i got back to starbucks to meet sami i saw that a girl was sitting with her. that is when i met cassandra.
cassandra lives near the mall. she is 13 years old. she loves world racers.
i guess when i was gone she walked up to sami to ask if she was a world racer.
i guess that shows how much we really do stand out here.
cassandra then told us about how she had met many world racers in the past.
they had invited her to Bible studies, out for food, and just to hang out.
she told us how much she loved them. how they had treated her like their sister. how they had been concerned for her. how they taught her how to forgive the people who had hurt her.
as she told us those things i realized the impact that i can make on any persons life that i have met on the world race. people just like me had changed this 13 year old girls life. sometimes it feels like i’m just making friends, but i now know that the impression that i make on people daily can really affect their lives and how they encounter Jesus.
so sami and i talked to cassandra for a while, but sami was in the busy of writing some important e-mails so i decided to go with cassandra around the mall. we were able to talk for a while, eat ice cream together, and just get to know each other. soon enough we had to go. so we crossed the busy street, said goodbye to cassandra and hopped on a jeepney we knew would take us home.
moral to this story. you could be the person that someone needs to change their life. just a conversation or a hug. be aware of your impact on the people around you.
we plan to meet with cassandra again on friday afternoon. please pray that we will be able to make an even greater impact on her life than the former world racers.
