Fast Approaching Typhoon In Manila

 Day Four

My body clock keeps waking me up early haha so woke up at around 1030am NZ time which is 530am Philippine time! and couldn't get back to sleep.  So I sat downstairs and had a coffee and waited for everyone to wake up. When Ps. John woke up we had a chat about the plan for while I was here. First we talked about how God had led me here and then what my goals were for while I am here. I told them that I feel like God has been saying to just come here and to see what we will do. That he just wanted me to be obedient and to go where he has been leading me. They agreed and said that God does work like that and he just wants me to trust and he has the plan which is always far bigger than anything we could make up ourselves. They explained how I am a trail blazer and that no one else has yet spent an extended period of time in the Philippines on a mission trip.

 So we talked about what I would like to get involved with as well as what he would like me to do while I am here. So first and foremost I will be co-leading an outreach team with Kathleen that goes out onto the streets every week- fortnightly. We will also go up to "smokey mountain" which is a rubbish mountain where families live. Then will be working with Kathleen to organize the food and teams for the Christmas on the streets that the church will be doing on the 22nd from 9am- around 12pm. There will also be a feeding program on Christmas day for the "Under the Bridge community" Ps. John said that he will teach me how to personally evangelize, to win souls. I will also be getting involved in church life on Sunday by serving in any areas that I desire. I will be visiting different eGroups and helping where needed. They said that it would be most beneficial for me to be moving around each week, staying with different families in the church to experience the culture and people. I will also go and stay with ate Sharon who runs the children's garden, so i will get to sleep there with them all. I will also meet regularly with the care and connection leaders to work to fill in areas that they need help with and help to produce resources for them. It's awesome how I had internship in care and connection and I can now pass on all that I have been taught to other churches, very exciting! Ps. John and Nyles also mentioned that they will be going to the Provinces on the 14th of December for four days for Ps. Johns mums 70th birthday, it takes 10hours to get there. They asked if I would like to join them and they explained how it will be a good experience for me to visit that area of Manila. I said that I would like to join them, so we will leave this Sunday after the combined service where Ps. John will be preaching in the South Church. 

 




















After our chat we went to the supermarket to buy some groceries. I only had 700 pesos that I took with me and I ended up buying some coffee, bread, coconut jam, butter, soap, 6L of water, noodles, bananas, apples and some of those little yoghurt bottles for lining my stomach. When I got to the checkout, it ended up coming to 700.40 peso I didn't have the 0.40peso so she let me have it all for 700 peso which is $20 NZD!! pretty awesome price and thank you God for adding up my groceries to the right amount of $$ I had in my hand. When we got back we had to stay inside for the rest of the afternoon as the storm has started here, its raining outside. We are praying for no flooding and the storm to die down!! An alarm siren to remind people to prepare for the storm keeps going off every few hours. Ate Nyles made some traditional Filipino afternoon tea (merienda) which is fried crispy squid which you eat with chocolate rice pudding (champorado) to cancel out the sweetness. It was really delicious!!! Ps. John helped me to set up my blog on a site that he likes to use and before I knew it, it was time to go to bed! 

Goodnight all

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

First Time Visiting the Equippers South Manila & Equippers North Manila

Day Three/ Manila

 Just to let you know, my blog title "Think of Laura" is named after this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbpcEaeqot0 the lyrics are funny, but it's a Filipino singing it so it's perfect ;)

So today is Sunday so the plan is, is that I will be taken over to the North Equippers after lunch this afternoon to spend a month. I will then spend the remainder of my time in the South Equippers. I am very excited to get to attend my very first church service here in Manila at Equippers South Church. First arriving at the church, the people were very friendly and inviting. I got the chance to talk to two ladies who currently lead the care and connection team, their passion and hearts for the church is amazing and it really is an honor to get the chance to share and connect what we do in New Zealand and to help them in whatever way possible to make things easier for them. It's so awesome how they welcome people into the church with a line of hosts and they all sing a welcome song and have a dance to it too. I was standing at the entrance too welcoming everyone in Tagalog :) They have these amazing lanterns which they normally hang outside but because of the approaching storm, they were hung inside.

 We had a guest speaker today called Jonaver Luklukan he is a famous gospel singer and preacher. He spoke Tagalog when he was preaching but lucky I was sitting next to Ps. Ace and his wife Gee Gee so they were able to translate the main points across to me. After the church service, I was able to meet a few people and took so many photos it's crazy how much they love selfies here! haha Then soon after we all headed off to have lunch at a restaurant nearby. One of Gee Gees friends jumped in the car with us, she was very lovely and gave me a CD and some cooking chop sticks as a gift. I was sitting at a table with Gee Gee and her friend and we talked and talked about the Filipino culture and the church, 
we shared lots of laughs together- they have great sense of humors! I ordered pilaf with chicken it was yum and they ordered a mango crepe to share, they are very popular here and they have the best mangoes. After lunch we drove back to their home to grab my luggage and then head over to ps. John and Niles home in the North. It's a little sad leaving have been really enjoying my time with the Concordia family, but very much looking forward to being apart of the North Equippers Manila, what Ps. John and Nyles are doing and staying with their little family.




Lucky there was hardly any traffic heading over, it probably took us only 40minutes to get through to the other side. Once we arrived we pretty much got straight into the car to get to the church service which starts at 6pm. The church is located in a theatre in the mall, which is really cool because they have many people walk in from the mall to check it out. This church is full of life and energy as the church is made up of pretty much all youth and 90% new Christians! So as you can imagine, every member is on fire for God and many of the youth that have just been newly saved jump straight into serving on a team within a few weeks. Its awesome to see! Also in both the North and South church they have a dance team that dance at the front of the church/ on stage during the praise songs! 

There is a Typhoon coming in the Philippines so we are just praying that it won't be as bad as they are saying it could be. It hasn't started raining here yet, we are praying that it won't hit at all. Last time one of these hit it caused much damage, lives were taken and there was major flooding. Please pray for the Philippines!! So because of the storm there was a short sermon and then people headed off home to prepare. Nyles picked up a delicious long log chocolate cake on the way home and we ate in in their apartment with two other ladies. We then had three more guys from the pack down team join us as we headed to KFC for dinner! Now we ordered a massive meal for all 10 of us and it came to only $30.00 NZ!! so crazy cheap! Although it tasted and came different to how it is in NZ. There was rice instead of bread rolls and the chicken we ordered was pretty spicy and had a BBQ spicy sauce drizzled over it! The potato and gravy also tasted different. After eating we headed back to the apartment and I went straight to bed :)

Yeah Boi!! KFC time

 













The end of Day Three- Bye for now xxxx

Exploring The Cities History

Day Two/ Manila

What an amazing feast- so blessed!

It's day two of my mission adventure in the Philippines. The breakfast in morning is incredible rice is traditionally served with every meal. Both mornings I have been here, I have had the option of rice, spam, pork rolls, fried egg, this pork, egg and gherkin bake, bacon, bread and brewed Filipino coffee! what an amazing feast!











Today Ps Ace and two of his daughters friends are taking me out for an orientation day to see some of Manila. First we are going to be visiting a park called Rizal Park which is a memorial park for Jose Rizal who was an advocate for reforms in the Philippines and was considered a National hero. He was executed by the Spanish firing squad Army, following a false conviction for rebellion, sedition and conspiracy. 

Jose Rizal being executed on the Spanish army firing squad.

We walked all around the park and the inside of the wall that runs around the outside of Manila. It is so beautiful to learn about the history of this country. As we walked around the city, we saw many people trying to sell random things. They came right up to us and we had to repeat many times that we didnt want to buy anything from them. There were carriages that were led by horses that would take you around giving you a tour of the city. The craziest thing I saw today, was when a truck held up a long line of traffic, because he was buying something off a vendor in the middle of the road. The vendors were selling things like; peanuts, feather dusters, storage units and meat buns. After looking around for a while and taking photos, we decided to have some lunch. We were going to go to a place where you can make your own pizza, but we decided to stop down an alleyway in a place that made Fillipino, Chinese and Western food. 

Some of the children from Equippers Manila South

Then after lunch we went straight back to the church for another Bible study. Ps. Ace has an appointment to go to, so I ended up hanging out with some of the children from the South church that were hanging around after school.They were so cute and friendly. They sung me some songs and they shared what their dreams were for the future.  It was just so amazing see their passion for Jesus and how some of them hoped to be missionaries when they grew up! They also helped me learn more Tagalog and I really want to be able to have a basic conversation in Tagalog by the time I come home in two months time. Once the Bible Study started, I was asked to share a little about myself and how I ended up coming to the Philippines.

The day was finished off by dinner with Ps Ace and his wife Gee Gee at an Italian restaurant, where I had spaghetti bolonaise and a mango crepe for dessert! so delicious. Thats the end of day two :)

"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 :)