I am now sitting back at our launch point waiting out the next two days until our departure from the Philippines. But our last day in Tondo (the dump site) was a bittersweet ending.
On Thursday morning, Samantha (from team PLJ), Kelsie, AmyD, and I woke up early and headed across town for a Christmas concert. Oh yes, a Christmas concert, Filippinos celebrate Christmas during every month that ends in -ber. Twelve of the girls we have been working with this month were performing so we went to cheer them on. What we were not expecting to find was that this “Christmas concert” was actually a super posh open house in a mall. It was kind of fun to eat free food and have everyone take our picture because we’re white, but it was more amazing to see these twelve girls get up there in their traditional Filippino garb and sing their hearts out for all of these stuck-up posh old ladies, and they were awesome singers.
After their stint on stage, we headed back to Tondo to wrap Christmas presents. A group from the UK sent over a large shipping container of donations, so we got spend the last couple of days wrapping them up for Christmas. I swear, if it weren’t for the bucket-sweating I would think it was almost December 25.
When we finished that up, it was about time to start the prayer and worship session held for all of the leaders and volunteers at PCF. It was so good to be with of all the people (including the youth) that we have gotten so close to over the last couple of weeks and just praise God for the time we have spent together. Someone said to me, right before I left on the race, that there was no way a month is long enough for me to get attached to the people or the people to have been impacted by us. Well the buckets of tears that night would have to disagree with that statement. Going into this we all knew it would be hard to leave at the end of the month, but I don’t think any of us expected to get as attached to these amazing people as we did. I know leaving is a good thing because our ministry is moving on, but it doesn’t make it any easier. So we said our final goodbyes and headed out of Tondo for the last time.
Next stop: Malaysia.
