MANILA TIME

I have been in the Philippines for one week now. It was quite an experience to get here though. I was supposed to fly out Tuesday, Sept 10 but my after being delayed about 2 hours, they cancelled my flight. So I rebooked it for Wednesday Sept 11. Ya my heart about dropped when I realized what day it was. But I think other a lot of people shyed away from flying on that day because the airports were far less busy and the planes were less than full. In fact at one point on my 12 hour flight I got to lay across 3 seats to sleep! Talk about a blessing! Actually I slept about 15 of the total 18 air hours. Just popped in the earplugs and I was out! Sleeping that much really helped with jetlag though.

I started off strong once I got here. I got settled into my house, shopped for some necessary items, went to practice, had a couple games, went to a couple college basketball game, did a feeding ministry in squatter village, worked out, visited orphan children, and started teaching.

But when I'm not doing that I have relaxed, spent time with the Lord, and slept some more. It's really been great. It feels natural to be back here. And the family I'm living with is really wonderful.

Last night I went to a college basketball game. Kirk is a guy that graduated from Faith last year and plays for Ataneo. This kids family is like family here to me so it was like cheering for my younger brother. Anyways...it was the playoffs and they were playing their rival team LaSalle. The arena was the nicest I've seen here and it was packed to the max. We ended up losing by 1 point but one of the craziest things was how the two teams drums competed to see who could be the loudest...throughout the entire game! It was intense though. Here's a little video to give you an idea of the madness. Enjoy! (Kirk is the one on the bigscreen and his mom Colene is who shows #1)