I had a wonderful Sabbath! After changing my mind several times, I ended up going to the town of Malandag, where our teammate Emmanuel preaches every night. On the way there, he was like, so do you know who is preaching at this church today? You are, they said. Oh, that's funny! He replied, and started preparing his sermon. He ended up basically telling his personal story, and let me tell you, it was the best sermon I've heard in a long time. For about the last half of it I had to go to the bathroom really badly, but I [View Full Entry]

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There's so much I didn't even say about yesterday! You may be inquiring as to why we're under such close scrutiny, such protective security. Evidently, or so I've been told, the people are rebelling against the government, and we know rebellions are generally not safe, even for locals. According to the government travel website, communist and terrorist groups here have made threats and acts of violence against westerners. They say it's best for Americans to maintain a low profile (kind of difficult when we get treated like we did yesterday at the festival!). Yes, people are super happ [View Full Entry]

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I had so many ups and downs today. Right now I'm so tired that I feel like my eyeballs are going to pop and my back is going to crumble, but I just have to write about today. We went to the fruit festival in another town called Kidapowan about 2 ½ hours from here. There was a record 3 km of free fruit. We found out that the fruit wasn't to eat, really, but to throw at passing traffic when a siren sounded. Unfortunately, we didn't get to throw any (or eat it) because we had to stay behind a [View Full Entry]

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Food: In addition to strange dishes that I've never tasted before (like the seaweed on Sabbath), the different fruits are just overwhelming. So far we've had at least one or two new kinds of fruit at every meal. And most of these are fruits that I've never heard of before and most of us don't know that names of. We've had Jack fruit and mangosteen, bananas and papaya, passion fruit and guava, pineapple and durian. Plus tons more new ones that I can't name. I've tried every single new thing and I honestly have to say that there isn't anything so [View Full Entry]

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If you've ever heard stories of Philipino hospitality, it's all true. If you've never heard of it, let me tell you. These people are so happy to see us that it's… crazy! It's like we're celebrities. When we got off the plane in GeneralSantos, pretty much everyone in the church was there to see us. Someone said it was like Old Testament times when Paul came off the ship and every single Christian went down to meet him. They put beaded necklaces around our necks and shook our hands and told us a million times welcome and that they were so [View Full Entry]

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I think it's August 17, anyway. This time travel thing is really messing with my head. I'm currently in the air between Manila and General Santos City. In the last 24 or so hours I've spent at least 17 hours in an airplane and gotten about 5 hours of sleep. Oh, and I've skipped half a day. I left Dallas at 9am Wednesday morning and flew to Detroit. There, after a several-hour layover, I got on a lengthy flight to Nagoya, Japan. Wouldn't you know it, the entertainment system experienced technical difficulties (meaning: no movies). Unable to sleep for nearly the [View Full Entry]

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Well, after almost two weeks with my parents, I'm on the move again, currently in the Detroit airport. My plane to Manila leaves in three hours, with one stop in Tokyo. I'm sitting in front of the gate for a flight going to Paris because that's the only place I could find a free outlet. We laptop people fight over them. Across from me are two orange-clad monks eating hamburgers. They'll have fun in Paris. [View Full Entry]

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Thinking back on my trip down here, I realize that God answered some prayers. They were simple ones, but important to me. Like when I prayed that creepy people wouldn't sit next to me. God send me a little girl, a friendly middle-aged woman, and the aforementioned Whitney. Leaving Dallas, I was really afraid I was too far back in the line to get on the bus. Scared that I'd have to spend that night there, I prayed that I'd make it. Immediately, this fellow traveler I'd loaned my phone to came up and told me where we were supposed to [View Full Entry]

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3PM central time in Dallas, TX. My bus was two hours late getting in, causing me to miss my connection. The next bus leaves at 7:15PM. Here I sit for another four hours with a measly meal voucher as a consolation prize. I won't get to Marshall until at least 10PM, at which time my poor parents will have to come pick me up. I'm beginning to lose my faith in Greyhound. The low price of the tickets represents what we evidently don't pay for. That is, timeliness, customer courtesy, and creature comfort. The lack of comfort I expected. The other [View Full Entry]

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I'm sick of sitting on the bus! I hate it because my long legs spend all their time curled up into little pretzels, I desperately want to brush my teeth but can't, and all this time to think is making me depressed. Isn't it seriously sad when a person can't have too much time alone to think without feeling despondent? What's worse is that I'm worrying about the same exact things I worried about half a year ago, which was the last time I allowed myself this much time to ruminate. I just talked to a friend on the phone who [View Full Entry]

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