"Take My Hand and Come With Me, I'll Show You What We Can Do Together"

Day One / Manila

"New thing has been opened by God for me."

Well I'm sitting writing in my journal at the Sydney airport as I wait for my connect flight to the Philippines. It's so crazy how time has flown! Yesterday was the last day of Bible College and today I am off on a mission trip. Sitting here, I feel like my life is about to take a dramatic turn and I am so excited to see whats going to unfold. I read this scripture before boarding the plane: 

Psalm 20. "May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob send you help from the sanctuary and support, refresh and strengthen you from Zion. Remember all your offerings and accept your blunt sacrifice. May he grant you according to your hearts desire and fulfil all your plans. We will shout in triumph at your salvation and victory and in the name of our God we will set up our banners. May the Lord fulfil all your petitions. Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed  he will answer him from his Holy Heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. Some trust in and boast of chariots and some of horses, but we will trust in and boast of the name of the Lord our God. They are bowed down and fallen, but we are risen and stand upright. O Lord, give victory, let the King answer us when we call."

A few hours later I boarded the flight on Philippine airlines and noticed that there was only one t.v. at the front which meant no movies for me this time. Although I don't mind as I am feeling very tired having had only two hours sleep before boarding the plane in Auckland. I sat new to a Filipino man called Daryl on the plane and he informed me that there is a huge storm coming in the Philippines and that he was worried because it is meant to be bigger than the last one that came and caused much devastation. Started to pray for the storm to die down before it hits Manila. He kept saying how brave I was coming to the Philippines alone and that I had to be very careful because it's very dangerous for a white female. I ended up sleeping the majority of the flight but luckily every time the food trolley would pass by, I would wake up with a start ;)

So when I was going through customs, the lady looked at my visa and said that I would need to leave the country by the 2nd of February as I could only be there 59 days according to the bottom of my visa. I told her I was a bit confused because I had sent in my flights with the application and my flight is on the 3rd of Feb. She said I would need to change my flights to the 2nd, otherwise I would have a fine of 2,000 Peso to pay. Lucky I have travel insurance, but will call them to double check, as she may have just been having a bad day. 

First thing I felt when I first walked out the doors of the airport was this huge wave of heat. The sun was starting to go down too, as the sun set is at around 545pm because it's winter time over here. Ps Ace was super friendly and welcoming when he picked me up. As we drove out of the car park  I realised how busy this place is! There is people, children, stray animals, jeepnees, bicycles and cars everywhere. There are lanes on the road but they hardly keep to them and people honk their horns as they're changing lanes to let you know they're coming. It's the craziest thing I have ever seen, so fascinating! Ps Ace told me that there was a Bible study and worship practise on that night and asked if I wanted to join and I could choose to opt out and rest at home if I wanted to. I choose to come. Ps Ace then drove me to a little Japanese restaurant where I had donburi for dinner and bottled water- it was a different label to what I should have been having but I couldn't tell him, he was so kind. We went to the church afterwards and I met all the people of the Bible Study. They had three groups; one for the young people, one for the men and one for the women. I sat with the young adults group but was very tired and was desperately fighting to keep from falling asleep in my chair. Afterwards I quickly met some of the girls and they were telling me I looked like Katy Perry. They were so lovely, very bubbly and chatty. Then Ps Ace's daughter Jasmine took some of her friends and I back to their house. They have a tradition that every Friday night the worship leaders of the church get together and they eat and hang out. First thing you could hear as you get out of the car was about 10 dogs barking. Ps Aces  wife Gee Gee likes to rescue stray dogs from the street and take them into their home. So there was about 10 dogs that they have adopted- crazy, crazy! When we got home they started to grill some meat skewers and asked if I wanted to try a Filipino delicacy. I agreed so they gave a marinated pig intestine skewer. I ate it and it actually tasted like chicken, once you got past the rubbery outside! 

After eating we were all talking for about another hour but by this time it was like 1030pm and I was seriously exhausted, it would be 3am Nz time which is crazy. I asked to be excused and they were very polite and all four of them helped me with my luggage and showed me to my room. A great start to day one :)