Think of Laura: 10th December 2014

Day Six

I see a pattern now of how the days roll out. The mornings are for spending time with God and resting in the house. Ps John spends the morning working and ate Nyles is taking care of Cloud in their bedroom. In the afternoon, is when we head out to explore. In the morning they don't eat breakfast and just drink coffee, but in the afternoon is when they have their big meal. This afternoon Anne and I were about to head out to get some Filipino street food for us all for lunch. Ps John and Nyles stopped me as we were walking out the door and told me that it's hot outside and asked if I had any shorts to wear. I was wearing 3/4 pants a top and a 3/4 cardigan. They said that I can wear shorts and short sleeved tops, that its ok to do here. I told them how I didn't want to wear anything offensive or inappropriate and when I went to the missions team meeting they had said not to wear anything too revealing so I was being very conservative. Ps John said that there's a scripture in the bible that talks about how your'e not transforming yourself but your'e adapting yourself to fit the culture and the people. By wearing the same clothing that the people of the culture are wearing they will be surprised when I say that I am here on a mission trip. People will think that I am religious if I wear clothing that is too conservative, need to adapt to how everyone dresses. They said that they could take me to a place where I can buy some cheap shorts and tops to wear.

The place where we brought our lunch...mmmm

Then Anne and I went out to buy the street food for lunch. We had this delicious dish called calderera which is a tangy tomato chicken dish, chicken adobo, steamed fish and pickled cucumber and of course rice (rice is served with everything here in the Philippines)- yum! They said that I will be a real Filipino if I can eat street food and not get sick! I managed to keep it all in :P I have been drinking the little drinks that they also sell in NZ that line your stomach and protect you from getting sick- they have been awesome! Ps John asked me to help with the baptisms that they will be having at a resort nearby. He taught me the prayer to say, ridiculously excited to be apart of baptising new christians, an absolute privilege!

That afternoon we went to some nearby markets to get some clothing everything was ridiculously cheap. We had a look around and brought some clothing. It was a really amazing place to be during Christmas time with all the lights, the music, the food stalls and smells. We stopped to have dinner in a place that sold only coconut foods. I had a pizza and even the pastry was made from coconut and it was all very delicious. We had a coconut egg pie for dessert which was amazing, tasted similar to a custard pie! After dinner us girls had a coconut ice-block which was refreshing.

Yummy coconut iceblocks for dessert!

I love this photo, they have amazing sunsets here!