Day 2 & 3: Manila

Well, we have had a great trip here. Our second day was filled with more fun. After a very quiet, restful morning, we decided to venture out to see what we could find. We ended up at this mall/market place close by where we are staying. We decided to stay there all day. We ate lunch there. Found a starbucks read and had some yummy coffee. We watched a movie in a freezing movie theatre. Went to a few book stores, shopped at a local market, and ate dinner at Chili's. Very fun day!
On Saturday we went to a place called Intramuros, which is a walled city in Manila from the 1500's. We took a carriage ride around, went to some really old churches and museums, and walked around a fort. It was really neat. You could still see the bullet holes in the walls from WWII. The rest of our day was spent at another mall where we got Christmas presents for each other (from the same store, at the same time), and we even found a Dairy Queen! yumm...
Well, today is Sunday and we have been talking to family most of the day and have just been lazy. We leave tonight for Thailand and will get there at midnight! We are really excited! Hope you all are doing well. We will let you know how Thailand is!

Day1: Manila

Well, we have arrived here in Manila, the biggest city in the Philippines. And if we didn't look too hard, it felt like we were back in America. We have settled into the SIL guesthouse here, which is very nice.
It was around lunch time when we got here, so we decided to go to the Mall of Asia to eat and look around. When we got there, it was enormous. I mean, the biggest mall I have ever seen. Our first mission was to find a place to eat. We immediately look for Wendy's (thinking about yummy frosties) and sure enough, there was one! Yeah for Wendy's!
We walked around the mall for a long time, and went in a few stores. We found a VERY nice bowling alley and decided to bowl. There were couches instead of the chairs and flat scene TVs.
It was really nice. After bowling for awhile we went this Discovery and Science Center where they had a planterium, and watched a show. The end of our day was topped with eating at a nice Italian Restaurant.
It is really nice to feel at home for a little bit. In Davao, the only American anything we have is McD's and KFC. But here, there are American stores and restaurants. Doug, there is even a Chili's! Don't get me wrong, we are happy to be in Davao, there are just certain things we miss about America, and we are so thankful that we get to have a little taste of home!

Christmas Vacation

Most of you probably already know this, but for the few of you who don't.... we are going to Thailand for Christmas, and I am so excited about it! A friend of mine here just showed me pictures of her trip to Thailand and it makes me even more excited! So, here are our plans:
Leave: Thursday December 20th fly to Manila, Philippines
Leave: Sunday December 23rd fly to Bangkok, Thailand
have lots of fun in Thailand
Leave: Monday December 31st fly back to Davao, Philippines
I think we are going to have internet on most of our trip, so I will try to blog and take you along with us. No promises, but I would love to share our trip with you as it unfolds. Otherwise, I will just do one big blog about it when we come back. We love you and miss you all!

MICA & FAD

I know my mom likes to picture where her kids are, so these are for you mom!!!

This is MICA (the high school)
This is FAD (the elementary and middle school)
This is the covered court on FAD's property
This is the SIL building. It is on the same property as MICA and FAD. In fact it is right next to MICA. Nae and D- this is where D would work if you guys were assigned to Davao! No pressure, just wanted to post this for fun!
This is the route we take every morning from our front gate to school. That White gate is FAD's gate. Yeah, we live about 2 blocks from school, so nice! Oh, and that strange looking vehicle is a jeepney. Philippine public transportation.

One Busy Weekend...

We had an extremely busy weekend. I am so glad that Christmas break is coming up. A two and a half week break will be nice right about now! Here's how our weekend went....
Friday: Right after school the boys had a soccer game which lasted from 3:00 to a little ater 5pm. We ran out to a local restaurant to have dinner and ran back to school for the FAD Christmas musical called Angel Alert. The kids were so cute and did a great job. After the musical I helped with merienda (meaning "snacks"). After cleaning up, we were on our way home..
Saturday: Our shopping day. It is hard to get to the grocery store during the week so we usually get most of our shopping done on Saturday. This took most of our late morning and early afternoon. Around 4pm it was time to get ready for our Christmas Banquet. Student Council is incharge of this banquet, and I, being the advisor, had a lot to do for the evening.
Everyone arrived at 6pm for the banquet where we talked, ate and played games. What's a Christmas banquet without making human Christmas trees? We also did a white elephant gift exchange, done just like we use to in youth group days. How fun! The kids seemed to have a great time. After all the festivites comes the after party. We loaded all the students in jeepneys and heading off to the bowling alley... until midnight!! Rob and I came home exhausted, but very excited that the evening had turned out so well.
Sunday: There was a Christmas outreach over at FAD for the poor kids that live in the neighborhood around the school. There were about 350 kids that came! The was singing, the Christmas story, crafts, more singing, and even a lesson on brushing your teeth.
At the end, they gave Christmas gifts to each of the kids. They recieved a packet with a shirt, flipflops, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, and soap. They were so excited to recieve a gift. Of course I couldn't help myself. I ran around a lot of the time, taking pictures of all the cute kids. They LOVE to get their picture taken. I was walking around with the camera and the kids were asking me to take their picture. Then they would scrunch together really tight so that they would all be in the picture. So cute. I only wish I knew more Cebuano so I could communicate with them better. We came home pretty tired, but so excited about how the weekend turned out. Seeing so many different people's smiling faces this weekend was such a blessing. We are so thankful God has given us the opportunity to be here right now. We know we are exactly where He wants us and there is no better place to be.

Carnival

On Thursday Faith Academy held their annual Canival. Each of the classes makes a booth and all the money earned goes to a local orphanage. This years theme was pirates. Although it is a carnival for Faith (the elementary school) Every year, they ask MICA (the high school) to do a booth as well. MICA Student Council is in charge of the booth. This year they had two booths, a Slave Auction, where people could buy a high schooler and they would be their slave for 10 min. It was pretty funny to see what some of them did. You saw little kids making high school boys do push-ups and give them piggy back rides! It was quite the successful booth. They also did a Pirate Factory booth, which was face painting. It was a great afternoon and came together quite nicely. Here are some pics:
The Pirate Factory

Even Rob went to the Pirate Factory and got a tattoo (a heart with my name in it, aww....)
Every year at the carnival they have a jail where you can pay money and the 8th graders will throw whoever you want in jail for 5-10 min. depending on how much you pay. Well, half of the fun is running away when they come to put you in jail. I think Rob was thrown in jail 4 times and ran every time they came for him. The kids loved it!
Rob in jail
The kids loved buying slaves and making them do fun things like push-ups while they sit on their back. (Our slaves were very tired by the end of the day!)