The last 3 weeks of my life

I am now sitting in the busy city of Manila trying to figure out how to explan to you the last 3 weeks of my life. I don't really know how this is going to end up looking but will try not to bore you to much. So if you don't know, I took a 3 week trip down to New Zealand to surprise the returning students that I know at Capernwray. I did not really think I would be able to take this trip and didn't actually buy my tickets for it until a few weeks before I left home. As the time came near for me to leave I was getting excited but it was hard to leave the Philippines, well, more to leave Jess and her family. I had been in the Philippines for just over 4 weeks and it had become normal life and would be weird not to see jess everyday.

My flights went well and had some good talks with the people next to me. During the long flight from Manila to Sydney (about 8 hr) everybody was sleeping and I had been trying to for a while but just could not shut down. Then I looked to the left, and since I was in the middle isle, looked past 4 sleeping faces and as I was looking out side I witnessed a lighting storm from above the clouds. This did not just happen once, it was off and on for about 2 hours, it was really cool and for some reason really calmed my spirit. I spent my first few day's up in Auckland helping and hanging out with Forrest. It was pretty funny because during this time I actually talked to two of the girls at the school that I was going to surprise and they had no idea I was in NZ.

Forrest and I jumped on his CBR 900 RR fireblade (amazing bike!) and on a crisp Saturday morning, headed down to Cambridge. We took turns driving and I think I spend most of the way because I was so excited. Some of the people that I would be seeing I had not seen in almost a year and was really excited. So after the hour and a half ride down Forrest droped me off at a back door and from there we really didn't have a plan of how I was going to surprise people. Forrest went to the front and said I to people and acted like I was not there. It ended up working out very well and it was a really good surprise for people. One of the girls that I wanted to surprise was actually not at school when I came and she didn't get home until later that night. Right before she got back to school we move Forrest bike around to the back of school and after she pulled up I drove up pretending to be Forrest. Then as she was walking up to say hi I took off my helmet. It worked well and over all surprised a lot of people

I stayed at the school for about a week and a half. Since I am a poor traveling bum I ended up working in the mornings and because of this I was able to eat for free. I was staying at a staff members flat so I just paid a little rent for the time I was there. Over all the staff of the school really helped out and it was huge blessing for me. After work in the morning most my time was just spent hanging out. Not really doing anything amazing or traveling a whole lot but that was not the reason for my trip. I have so many stories that I could tell you of crazy and fun and amazing times I had. From sneaking out and going to a sheep graveyard, to rupturing a tendant in my figure playing rugby in the pouring rain. From staying awake for over 30 hours to straight to almost falling asleep in the top of a tree. I honestly could go on for hours upon hours of stories but this is getting long already.

As soon as I steped of the plan in New Zealand, I was hit with a fact that I had thought about before but this time really hit deep. I flippin love New Zealand. It is in my opinion the most beautiful country there is and the people and just the atmostpher is something that I have not felt or seen anywhere else in the world. I took some rides on Forrest bike and seeing the rolling green hills and other natural beauty I have no doubt that if I don't end up living there, I will for sure be back for visits.

And speaking of living there, as I was spending time with Forrest in a town called Papakura, he started talking about a plan that his boss and him are working on. Papakura is more of a lower end part of the Auckland and has a high population of youth. And at any given day after school, there will be 30 plus kids hanging out at the local skateboard park. So in light of this Forrest and his boss are looking for either a large building to rent or but, or a plot of land that they could build a large building. In the building they would start a skate park so that on rainy day's the youth would have a place to go. Along with the skate park there would be a rock climbing wall and turn it into a kind of place that kids and the youth of the area could come and hang out. Forrest skates a little bit but as we were talking agreed that he would need to get somebody who know how to skate and know the cultur a little bit. And since I know how to skate and know to a point, how to fit in the skate scene we started talking about me coming back down and either helping or running a skate church. This all depends on if they can get a building and even at that not sure if I would head down. But still, something for me to think about and something that could posibly happen.

Even with the posibility of someday coming back to the county, it still did not make it any easier to leave. The 3 weeks went by incredible fast and I felt myself wishing for more. The last few day's I spent with Forrest in Papakura and some friends from school came up to hang out. We went to the beach and just spent a lot of time talking and hanging out. These 3 people that I spent the last few day's in NZ with mean a lot to me. Two of them I will be be able to see at home with in the next 7 months but I have no idea how long it will be until I see Forrest again.

As we had been talking though out my time there, one of the girls had said a statement that I didn't understand. Talking about past times in her life and the future of when she leaves NZ, she said that her heart hurt. I just had never thought about this before. I mean, yes, I have been sad before and all that, but what does it mean for your heart to hurt? I really don't think I know what it meant until I had to say goodbye to these 3 people, then I understood. It is not just something you say, it is actually a pain that is in your chest. Pain is something I can normaly get over pretty easy, but this was different. The more I thought about it the more it hurt, looking back in my life, I relize I have felt this before, but only a few times and were times in my life I will never forget.


So although it was probably the hardest time of saying goodbye, I was and am still so glad to be back in the Philippines, and most of all, to see Jess. And not only to see Jess but to think that in less then a week I will be in Vietnam hanging out with another amazing group of people. So honestly I am so stoked to be where I am at, it is hard sometimes but I am so glad that I have people all over the world that when I say goodbye to them, it actually hurts my heart. I hope this last bit does not sound to pansy but it is true.

So ya, sorry this was so long and I will add pics and stuff later, I can't get it to work right now so that will come soon. Since being back in the Philippines I have just relaxed at home. I will be doing a bit of stuff this weekend and hanging out with some people tomorrow while Jess is at school. So I am excited to be able to see friend I have made here and am getting stoked for taking off for Nam. Hope all is going well at home and just to let you know, it was 85 degrees when I flew in at 6pm at night. So I am hoping for snow for Christmas but not sure if it will happen :-)

Alright, I will talk to you guy's later.
Christ in ALL.
Will

Brazilian Bikini model and the love of photography

As Tita Alice and I were heading home from the 2^nd mile campus (last blog) we started talking and I told her that I was interested in Photography. There had been a film crew at 2^nd mile and I have followed them around and it was cool to see everything behind the scenes that went into the shoot. While Tita Alice and I where talking she said that since she used to work at Avon she could see if I could go to a product shoot sometime. Her contacts at Avon said that they had a shoot the next day and said it would be cool if we stopped by and checked it out.

So we headed over mid morning to the studio, Tita Alice knew everybody there since she used to work with them for like 20 years so she introduced me to the photographer and he showed me his website and a bunch of pictures he had taken. He is one of the best Photographers in the Philippines so he had some amazing shots. He did a lot of food shots but also work a lot with Avon and many other big company’s. It turns out that they where shooting a bunch of products like an umbrella and hand bag and stuff like that. But to shoot this they used a model from Brazil and since the setting was on a beach, she was in a Bikini! It was pretty funny, Tita Alice leaned over towards me and said that if she knew it was going to have a bikini model she wouldn’t have taken me.

But it was fun, it was really not dodgy in anyway and it was really cool to see everything that goes on behind a shoot. All the lighting and set up is crazy, the camera that he had was amazing and as soon as he took a picture it showed up on a computer screen in the corner. Really cool set up, and was a cool experience. It also mad me think about how much I like to take pictures and I have started thinking about maybe pursuing this when I get back home. Maybe take some classes and see where that leads. I for sure want to get a good DSLR when I get home and if nothing else just do it for fun on the side. It was a good day.

Then for a funny story, this evening the whole family is in the living room watching TV and I am on the computer checking email. I had asked jess for a CD so I could burn a program and she ended up dropping a piece of plastic on the floor. I am sitting cross legged on the swivel chair and as I leaned forward to pick it up for her, I find my self falling and sitting on the floor!! I had totally broke one of the legs of the chair!! Straight up snapped it off, right in front of the whole family!! It was pretty funny, they just kept asking if I was ok and I said that I was just embarrassed that I had just broke there chair!!! They said it was ok and they had had the chair for a while so it was about time for it to break. I think it was just built for Filipino’s not big white guys!

Anyway, that is it for now, still loving it and having an amazing time. So many good experiences.

I am, as I am typing downloading a program that should help me get my files back from my computer. So I hope that works and then I should get a copy of vista on Saturday, so hopefully it will be back up and running sometime soon. I still might lose some if not all of what I had on my computer but what can you do. Anyway, I should head to bed, be blessed and keep in the word.

Will

Life happens, deal with it.

So I need to get going but just going to say that my computer crashed so I will not be updating this things that much for the next while. I will try to get it fixed but am not going to spend to much money on it.
But anyway, I just got back from a overnight trip to this place called 2nd mile. It is part of Action ministry and they get kids from the streets of Manila and give them classes in carpentry and a few other areas. On top of this they have Bible lectures. Pretty cool camp and I just hung out for a bit. It was nice to get out of the city and it was a lot greener and cooler. So besides my computer crashing it is going good, liking my new camera so will try to get some pics up soon. Ok, I need to get going, talk to you soon.
Christ in ALL

If you want.....

I just got a web album for my other pics. It is http://picasaweb.google.com/thewillanator
But if you don't want to check it out that is ok, but there are some pretty sweet pics so it is worth a look. Anyway, today was good, I got to play some Futsal (indoor soccer) at Jess' church so that was fun, I sweated like crazy with the humidity but it was fun. The shoes I were borrowing broke half way through so I played the rest of the time barefoot. After that we just chilled around church and then went to the youth worship service. It was really good and there were heaps of people there so it was cool. I will be heading to church again tomorrow morning so I think I will get some sleep. And by the way, Happy early Birthday Mum!!! I will try to call tomorrow! Love you!!

Christ in ALL

This is a long one, sorry

I was excited, myself, along with the Orleans family, were about to take off on vacation to a place called Sagada. Jessica’s parents had been to Sagada when they were younger but had not been there for about 25 years. Sagada is a town that is about 12-14 hours north of the busy city of Manila and is located up in the Northern Province of the Philippines. Tita Alice and Tito Audie (Jessica’s parents, Tita and Tito are used when talking about somebody older then yourself) had told me a bit about it and it seemed like it was going to be a big contrast to the city. Sagada is located up in the mountains so it is a lot cooler, it also is not commercialized and there is a native tribe that lives nearby. We started our journey with a bus ride that left Manila at 10:00pm.

This bus ride was about 10 hours and the destination was a town called Banaue. We had about 3 stops on the way so we were able to us the CR (comfort room = toilet) I slept for a bit on the bus and listened to music so it was not that bad. It was also a good time for jess and I to talk, and not just about little trivial stuff but stuff that matters so that was really cool. One thing that was funny was that they had the air conditioner on so cold that jess and I both put on our hoodies and had our hoods up most of the time. This was the first time I had used a hoodie in the Philippines so that was kind of nice.

We arrived in Banaue at around 8 the next morning.

From there we hired a jeepney;------>

a jeepney is a common way of public transport and is like an extended jeep with seats on either side of the back.

This trip was about 5 hours long and was on some pretty sweet roads. The roads were all curvy and mostly gravel or dirt and had a good size drop on at least one side. AKA, mom would not have enjoyed it J It was a good drive and we stopped a few times to take in the views. One of these views and a view that we would see a lot in the coming days was the rice terraces. The rice terraces of Banaue have been said to be the 8th wonder of the world.

Since it is in the mountains the only way to have fields is to build them on terraces of every size imaginable. This is truly an amazing sight and pictures do not do it justice at all. These things would go for as long as the eyes could see and were all the way up and down the side of the mountain. They mainly grow rice but also a variety of vegetables.

The road was really not that smooth so sleep was not working that well. We got to the town of Sagada in the early afternoon and checked into the place where we were going to be staying. The place we stayed at was called Saint Joseph inn and was the same place that Jess’ parents had stayed last time they at visited the secluded town of Sagada.

We were all pretty tired so we ended up grabbing lunch and then headed to our rooms and slept for awhile. We had two rooms so Miguel (Jess’ brother) and I shared one and jess and her mom and dad took the other. I got an “American burger” for dinner and then we headed to bed.
The next day was the 31st, AKA my birthday, turning 20 seems pretty crazy to me. One thing that was cool was to think back to where I was last year and compare it to where I am right now, physically and also spiritually. It has been a hard year in some areas but also an amazingly good year in others. I have learned lots and reliezed that I have lots more to learn.

We ended up hiring a guide to take us through the famous Sagada caves. We where underground for around 4 hours, it was probably the most hardcore caving I have ever done.

The rocks where pretty slippery so with the advice of our guide, we ended up doing most of it barefoot to help with traction. My favorite thing from it was when we got to stop and swim for a while in the caves as bats flew over head. It was pretty sweet.

Then the next day I started the day off with an amazing banana yogurt pancake, so good. It was all saints day and the local tribe was having a fall planting festival and they were all dressed up. They came walking out of the forest and walked through the town and ended up at a central spot to have their ceremony. This ceremony consisted of them killing a pig, dog and chicken and then burning the hair off and butchering it right there. I got some pretty sweet video of it but I won’t put that up in case you don’t want to look at it.

We continued the day and walked all over the town seeing the sights. We saw the hanging coffins; they are on the side of a cliff and the richer you where, the higher up the coffin is. We also got to go to a little water fall that we went swimming in the base and got to jump from the top, it was only lie 15 feet but still fun because you jumped right over the falls.

We headed out the next day and staying overnight in a town on the way home so we could break up the ride home. Over all a good trip and a really fun time, it was really cool to see the more relaxed and farming culture of the Philippines. We just relaxed the next day few days’s since we were all pretty tired from the trip and Jess and her brother started school on Thursday.

Ok, that brings me up to today, Thursday, I had the opportunity to go with some friend of Tita Alice to a maximum security prison and hang out for the day. I didn’t know what to expect and even if I would have had some pre conceived idea it would have been totally wrong. It was two American missionaries, myself, and another young American. I actually can’t say a whole lot of what we did and who we met. Just for the safety of the people in the prison and for respect for them. But I can tell you that prisons here are nothing like the US.

There were 12,000 inmates in maximum alone and they are all free to roam about as they please. There is an outer wall but inside of that is a huge area that contains all their houses, over 30 churches, a bible school, and an open market.

The open market is just like it would be on the outside, fish vegetables, anything you want and this is all cut up with knives of every sort. Yes the inmates are allowed to have knives for work and also make a multitude of other souvenirs for sale. It was crazy, so different from the prisons at home, they are so free to interact with each other but they have had peace for years.

We met with this group that the missionary’s have been working with for about 2 and half years. In this group of guy’s there were 5 that had been sent there for at least double murder, 1 for rape, 2 for kidnapping for ransom and multiple others. It was pretty crazy.

Some of them had been on death row and one guy had been scheduled for lethal injection 9 times. God totally got a hold of their life and now they are reaching out to the other inmates. We took a tour of the prison and some of the people that we met had been there for over 25 years. It was an amazing experience and one that I will not forget easily. I have tones of other stories from there but will not take up more space.

Sorry that this was long as but if you are still reading, prayer for the people in the prison and for the ministry going on there would be really cool. Ok, that’s it for now; I miss you all and hope that you are having a good time in the cold weather! (those in WA)

Christ in ALL.
Will

A vid of me eating Tawilis

Tawilis is a little fish that they we had for dinner and is eaten whole. Head and tail and all. If they are the bigger ones you take out the spine but besides that, just eat away. It was actually pretty good.

Sagada

I just wanted to say that I am heading out to a place up north called Sagada. It is about 12 hours (by bus) away and we will be up there until the 2nd of Nov, so the 1st for people at home. I just thought I would let you know, my camera is still broken so I don't know when or if I will get that back. I am taking the video camera so maybe I will put some up when I get back. Anyway, Miss you all and hope that you are doing well.
Christ in ALL.

Historical Manila

So today we headed down to Intramuros, it is the old historical part of Manila. There are a bunch of Old Catholic churches and a Spanish fort that we went to. The fort was super cool; the Spanish were in control of the Philippines for around 300 years before they won their freedom. This is shown even in languages of the Philippines as it sounds a bit like Spanish and you can see it in many other area’s as well.

The churches were really cool as well, super cool architecture and a lot of history of the saints of the area. I really like old building and churches seem to have some of the most ornate and beautiful parts to them. I went with Jess and her brother and a friend named Abby, Abby know a bit about the history so it was cool to have a “tour guide”. We finished off the day with going to this park that has a big pond that travels the whole length of it. There were a few memorials there and one of them had guards around it and they were not allowed to talk to anything. Boring as job for them but it was pretty cool to see. We saw the whole changing of the guard thing and all that so that was cool.

Then another good dinner of fish, rice and some veggies that I don’t know the name of. But you know what? They taste good so it doesn’t’ really matter what the name is :-) That is something that I have learned, I usually just let Jess or her brother order the food and I just eat what is set in front of me. So far it has been super good so I am ok to let in continue that way.

The Continuation

OK, so writing that last blog took far too much brain power so I am just going to write like normal, well, normal for me. So to continue off of the last blog, right as I was falling asleep I heard this little nock on my door, it turns out it was Jess and she had just took a shower and was wide awake, lucky me. Anyway long story short, we ended up staying up for like another 2 hours! But we got to talk to a friend in Germany and got to talk to Carissa a bit, so it was ok.

It was just funny because Jess just comes in and is like “Hey will! Could I use your laptop and go on the internet? Which was fine just that the internet was in my room! But it was ok and I got to sleep in the next morning, we didn’t do anything until around 3 when we headed into a missions show at her church. It was good and I got to meet the people that I will most likely be doing some work with when jess goes back to school. So that was good and then after that we stayed for the youth service. It was really good; there were a good number of people there so it was fun to be part of.

Then after that there was about 9-10 of us that went out to eat on high street. High street is a more of a higher end court yard thing that has a bunch of restaurants and little shops and things like that. We got some food and then headed to Krispy Kream, oh right! It is funny because when I say that I never have Krispy Kream it surprises people. One of the girls last night said “isn’t it like a national donut or something?” But it was good and then we just hung out at a coffee house till around midnight. So it was a good day that was yesterday, Saturday.

So this morning I also got to sleep in because we attend the 6pm service at their church. I actually slept in almost until 12 so that felt really good. I was pretty tired from staying up late the two nights before. So we are going to head into the church at about 3 because jess has some meetings that she has to go to. So I am not really sure what I will be doing, there is a gym so I might play some basketball or soccer or something, we will see. Anyway, again, hope and pray that all is going well at a home and that things are going well. Talk to you later.

Christ in ALL.

Will

A day at the Del rosario's

As Jess' driver dropped us off at the apartment building, I was wondering if this was a good idea or not. Some would call us crazy, some would call us stupid, and yet I think, some might dare to call the undertaking that stands in our way, courageous, brilliant, impossible. The task in front of us, I am sure you have heard of it and maybe even attempted yourself. We ring the doorbell and are greeted by a man wearing black, he stands almost eye level with me (this is rare) and say's that his name is mark, I believe him.

There are others there but it is hard to make them out in the dark room, we found our seats and our faces are lit only by the TV on the opposite wall, but this fact goes unnoticed, for this TV, this giver of light, play's a major role in our task at hand.

The task now set before us seems more daunting as the plastic chair threatens to numb my backside after only a few minutes. But yet, this resolve is building up inside of me. I want to make this happen, to follow through. The thing is, thirteen hours of movies is a very long time, and that is what we are talking about here. A Lord of the Rings trilogy, all three movies, back to back to back in a single day. I had thought to be up to the challenge many times before but always failed, this time would be different. The first movie was good as always, the power of the ring and of such intensity to hold on to something that is evil is crazy.

The break in this first part of this uphill battle was welcomed with the preparation of food for lunch. Always a welcome site, helping make chili is something I can do. Then back to the task at hand, the next part went fast, as the smell of the cooking chili and rice was coming out of the kitchen. Then with the sad death of a human and the perseverance of two little Halflings, the first part ended. There was silence in the room, the group had grown as the movie was playing, the silence was broken by a yell of, "Let's eat!" followed by the sound of chair legs moved roughly on the tile floor as chairs were being moved out. We all ate till we were full and shortly started the second part of the day, The Two Towers. As we watched we devoured many a bag of chips and what seemed like a gallon of salsa, both tasty as. This was probably my most looked forward to time. I think I like this movie the most out of all of them.

And then it happened. About a quarter way through the second movie I made a devastating mistake. As more people joined the group I moved down onto the floor with the table right in front of me. I thought this to be a smart move at first since from this position I could easily reach the newly brought chips and dip. It was going well for a while then I realized that this tile floor was going to be the end of me. First off, even though the chair was not that comfortable, the tile floor was even less, also I was surrounded by people and this limited my options of sitting positions. As we came to a break halfway in the second movie, Jess and I began talking and had the option of leaving after this movie and heading out to eat with her parents. I told her that it didn’t really matter to me and that we could talk about it after the movie was over.
As we started to watch the second half of the movie I chose to take a seat near the back which made it possible for me to get not only a chair, but a chair with cushion. So now I was more comfortable but soon a new challenge arrived. Sleepiness.

Despite the action that was taking place on the TV, I was feeling the effects of not doing anything all day and just staying inside. As we finished the movie, which was amazing as usual, Jess and I decided to head out and meet her parents for dinner. I know, we did not accomplish our goal, we failed. The mission set before us was too much, the wanting that I had earlier in the day had dissipated. We said goodbye and headed out the door, as we were leaving the building we talked about the day and agreed that it was ok that we had left when we did, we had a good time with friend and watched some good movies. We ate at a food court for dinner and I drank a coconut smoothie which was very good. Then we headed home and seeing as how tired I was I decided to head to bed. And as I was laying there listening to Jack Johnson and mere moments from sleep I was thinking how it was a good day and how sleep was coming fast. But little did I know…….

pics

Here are some pics of my room in jess' house and the view from my window.

Tagaytay

So today we headed out to a town called Tagaytay. This town is about 3 hours away and Jess, her brother and there youth pastor and I started out about 10:30.

The town overlooks a big lake that has a few islands in the middle of the lake. It is a super cool view and the place where we ate lunch at gave us a amazing view as we had pretty Filipino style meal. They just ordered a bunch of things that they thought I should try so it was pretty cool. We had a base of garlic rice then had some pork and some chicken along with this kind of vegi that was really good. I don't know the name of any of it but it was pretty tasty.

After that we headed out and didn't really have a place that we were heading to just driving. We ended up kind of getting lost and driving around in towns that are out there pretty far so it was cool to see the more everyday life outside the city. It was nice to have fresh air so we were rolling with the window's down most of the time. It is so hot out that it actually makes it hotter in the car when you open up the windows which is kind of weird to get used to. Then we got home and had chicken that was cooked in Banana leaves, uber good. Then tonight I think that jess and I will just watche a movie and chill. Tomorrow we are heading to a all day Lord of the Rings marathon. I am not sure if we will stay the whole time but we will see. Anyway, miss you all and hope that life is good at home. Keep strong in only one that can give us strength.

Christ in ALL.

theWillanator

Some pictures

New web cam so we had to test it out :-) This is the Eco park we went to and the other picture is from the car on the way to the park

First week in the Philippines

Ok, so to start this off, I am not promising anything as far as quality of writing or the ability to entertain you or to be able to get my thoughts and activity’s across to you through this. But, what mama wants’ she gets so here you have it. A blog by Will Iblings. So to start off for those of you who may not now, I am currently in one of 10 countries’ that I will be visiting throughout a 3 ½ month trip. The main thrust behind this trip was to spend Christmas with my sister and brother in law in Vietnam. But I thought since I am traveling over to Nam I might as well stop in the Philippines and visit my friend Jessica. I met Jessica at school in New Zealand last year and we made the plans then that I should visit her. So anyway, I am writing this as I am sitting in the Tokyo airport after a 11 hour flight from Seattle. I have about another 4 hours on a plane before I arrive in Manila, the capital of the Philippines.

So I guess I will start from the beginning. Leaving home was weird. I really didn’t feel like I was leaving for 3 months and don’t really know if it has hit me yet. It was a really good time to be home for the last little bit and have spent really good time with family. So leaving was kind of weird, I don’t know if I have seen enough people leave and have left enough people that it is really not that big of a deal for me but really, it wasn’t. It is such a cool thing to have a family that loves and encourages you (by this I mean loans me money for half the trip J ) to travel and have experiences. Like the fact that this Asian dude was just staring at me while walking past and I gave him the head nod and he gave me a big smile back. Traveling just puts you in situations and gives you opportunity to have amazing, funny, good, bad, hard times and everything in between. So anyway, leaving home was weird, the flight to here went well, long but well. It was during the day so I didn’t sleep at all; right now it is 5:45PM here and 1:45AM at home, so I will have a late night ahead of me. I watched some movies and read a bit, the great divorce is a very interesting book, and I’m looking forward to reading more. Saw the sunset as I was getting in here and so hoping to see the lights as I head out.

I think that I am going to try to sleep a bit this flight, then I will be sleeping about 4-5 hours tonight and leaving at 7AM tomorrow for a two hour drive on a bus to attend a college youth church camp thing. I really have no idea what it is or what it is going to look like but it is all good. I really don’t know how much I will add to this thing, I am honestly only writing this because I am bored as and wanted something to do while I charge my computer. So after today it might be more vague and uninformative but that means that I’m not bored and having a good time!

As I was talking to Jessica the other day she mentioned that the Philippines is a 3rd world country. I for some reason had never thought of this before and have never been to a 3rd world county. I really don’t know what to expect. She mentioned that a lot of times when we will be driving through the city there will be kids that will come up and beg for money or try to sell you food while you are stopped at lights. Something that I have not really had to deal with before. She also said that it is against the law to give these kids/people money because you don’t know what they will do with it, which makes sense. She said we could give them food if we want but that is about it. From what I have heard there is a pretty big difference between the rich and poor, either you have tons or you literally have nothing. Jessica said that here family is in the middle so it will be interesting to see how everything works and fits together when I get there, which is in about 5 hours. And speaking of that, my plane leaves in about 40 min so I am going to head out and get ready to go. So stoked to see the Short Philly!!!! Flip Ya!!
Christ in ALL.

So here we go, it is now Tuesday the 21th of October and I have some time to write some more. I guess I will just start where I left off before. I got on the plane from Tokyo and sat next to this older couple from North Carolina. We talked for a little bit which was nice since there was a light flickering in the cabin so we sat on the tarmac for almost an hour before we took off. Lame as. But we talked for a bit then I told them that I had been in New Zealand at a Bible school and they didn’t ask too many questions after that. It was kind of funny that they totally just shut down talking but it was ok. I watched some movies and got about an hour of sleep so that was helpful. So I got into Manila, I was so stoked for see jess and finally be done with traveling! I was walking to get off the plane and as soon as I stepped in to the jet way thing it hit me. The flipping humidity! It was crazy, hard to breath, hot as, just all around caught me off guard. I have never really experienced that before so it was a kind of crazy. Anyway I got my bag and for somebody to pic you up here you walk to a place that has a sign with the first letter of your last name. So that is how they find you and all that.

So since I was a little late Jess and her brother where there waiting for me. It was crazy, like I said before it felt like I wasn’t really leaving when I was at home but then seeing Jess it made it more real I guess. But so good to see the little Filipina! They texted their dad to come and pick us up and we drove back to her house. The driving here is pretty crazy, not a whole lot of lights more just whoever goes first goes first. I think dad would do well over here. If you want to cross a lane of traffic you just nudge your way out and the traffic from the side will stop and wait for you to get out of the way. There also are a lot of little motorcycles that have the mentality that if they can fit they are going to go. I have seen a few times where we are on a 4 lane road and there will be 6-7 lanes of traffic. Pretty crazy but pretty sweet as well. I probably won’t and wouldn’t want to drive but that is ok. We actually drove down a one way street the wrong way for a bit so that was pretty funny, Jessica’s dad was just like “hey, those guys are going the wrong way” then he realized that it was him so we turned to a side street. Got to jess’ house and went to sleep pretty soon after we got in.

So like I said I got about 5 hours of sleep then got up which was super easy with the jet leg and ate some breakfast and headed out to Jess’ church. There I met some of her pastors and a bunch of her friends that went on the camp thing with us; there were just fewer than 50 campers so it was not that big. The drive down was fun, everybody speaks English well just they wouldn’t use it if they were talking among themselves. But they were translating some of the songs they were singing into English so that was pretty funny. One Filipino joke is that when it is hard for them to do something or they don’t understand something they hold their nose and say they have a nose bleed. There is this one guy named Strong (no joke, if you translate his name it comes out “strong arm”) that the first thing he said to me was “um, h, hi oh my nose!” then held his nose and fell over. And every time I see him he does the same, it’s pretty funny. Anyway, the camp was good; I guess just your normal summer camp thing. I was good with the being tired until about 5-6 in the evening then I would just zone out. I figured out that I slept like 5 hours in about 50 hours so I had to recover from that and then get used to the time. So the camp went well, it was a really cool complex with a big pool and basketball court, exc.

It was kind of hard for me at first; I really didn’t like it that much the first day. I think that I was just really tired from traveling and I just didn’t want to interact with people and it seemed like they had to make an effort to talk to me. Which they were more than happy to do and so after the first day I got some sleep and had a really fun time. Then when we came back from that we ate dinner and then Jessica headed out for one of her friends debut (huge 18th birthday party) so I went with her brother to a benefit dinner for the breast cancer foundation that her mom is part of. It was in this big tent and you would walk around the edges and there were many different booths with different kinds of food or desert that you could buy. Then a part of the proceeds go to breast cancer research. I mostly just sat at a table by myself because Jessica’ mom was working and her brother was part of a choir thing that was singing for the benefit. Jessica and her brother both have really good voices so it was fun to be able to hair her brother.

One funny story from that night is that I was sitting there by myself just drinking my sprite and this lady next to me started talking to me about New Zealand, she had seen my necklace and she had been there so we were just talking about traveling and stuff like that. She was maybe like mid 40s or something and she was with 3 other ladies of which 2 of the other lady’s were around the same age and one was maybe late 20s. Anyway at one point after we had been talking for a bit she and her friend decided to go out for a smoke. But when they were heading out they kept asking me to go out and smoke with them and acted all sad that I was just going to stay and sit inside. So I don’t know if they were trying to pick me up or just wanted somebody to smoke with but I thought it was pretty funny either way. So the next day I slept in and we just hung around the house all day. Jess’ house is a really nice house, it is not that big as far as area covered but it is 5 stories high so it is a good size place. I have my own room and bathroom so that has been nice. All the rooms are air-conditioning hard core to battle the heat and humidity which is a really nice break from outside!

The next few days have been spent mostly going to malls and stuff of that nature. This area of Manila has a lot of mall in it so I got a new pair of flip flops and we just have been walking around in them. Yesterday we went to the Mall of Asia, one of the biggest malls in Asia I guess and I would believe it! That thing was huge! We got dropped off at the train station and took a train for a bit and then got in a jeep. A jeep is a like a little bus taxi type thing, it is smaller than a bus and it is one of the cheapest way’s to get around the city. They just have an open door in the back so you call them down and then you just jump in the back and there are rows of seats on either side. So then you wait until you cram as many in side and sometimes outside as you can and then we headed off. They wanted me to experience public transportation so that is one reason we did it how we did. It was pretty crazy but I thought it was pretty fun. The way home the train was packed crazy tight. Jess and I had a seat but her brother was standing and then to get out at our stop you just pushed your way through saying excuse me.

I lost my webcam I guess sometime on the planes so I ended up buying a new one. Also at the camp that I was at my camera wouldn’t turn on and when I put new batteries in it the light came on to say it has power but nothing on the LCD screen. So that is really not fun because I don’t really have a way to take pictures. Jessica has her camera but it is annoying to have to ask to use hers all the time. But I sent that away and they should be able to fix it for around P2000 (roughly $40) so I hope that work well and that I can get that back pretty soon. Anyway, that brings it up to today, October 22, 2008.

Today we went to an eco park and walked around there for a bit. Not to sound like a pansy but there was some pretty sweet as flowers and there was a lake and stuff like that. We hung around there for a bit then headed back towards home. We stopped at the UP (University of Philippines) campus and walked around a little bit. Then we went to a museum /memorial for the first president of the Philippines. The President was named Manuel Quezon. After that Jess and I went to a mall and grabbed some lunch and ended up going and seeing a movie. Then came home via a FX, which is like a bronco type car that they fit as maney people into as they can and us it as a taxi, then ate some fish and some random kind of bean soup. It's good stuff.

Anyway, I am doing good, liking it here and having a blast hanging out with Jess. Trying to learn some of the language and get used to the heat. Still kind of tired but that is something I can deal with. I need to make sure to get up and make time to read and have a time with God. Could be hard as I will be busy but is something I need to do. OK, enough for now,
Christ in ALL.
Will