We're here!

Wow!! What an amazing trip we have had already and it really hasn't even started. First of all, we all really enjoyed a little tour around San Francisco with Uncle Gary. We got to stop on Treasure Island and get a great view of the city, walked around Fisherman's wharf and have the most phenomenal lunch/dinner at “Bubba Gump's” I seriously ate the best cheeseburger I've ever had in my life! (I know... cheeseburger at a seafood restaurant? :o) We checked into the airport at 6pm and said farewell to Uncle Gary. Our flight left at 9:05 pm and we were in the air (minus a fueling stop in Guam :o) for 15 hours and landed in Manilla at 4am Wednesday morning Philippine time which was noon Tuesday US. Time. We had an 8 hour layover in Manila where we discovered the lovely hot dog stand, got some studying done, goofed around and napped a little. Then we had a two hour flight to Cagayan de Oro. Can I just say that being so far above the earth and seeing the amazing view just reminds me how awesome God is! The view as we landed in Cagayan was much different than Manila. There were banana trees mountains and cocoa nut trees and a small little airport with people everywhere. We were met by Pastor Elpie who must have some sort of favor at the airport because we walked thru like royalty and didn't even go through customs... we're still a little thrown off by that. We were immediately thrown into the culture. There were small children following us asking us to “bye peanuts for plane trip” It was heart breaking. As we drove through the city of Cagayan de Oro we seen little thrown together houses with boards and dirt and cloths as walls. Just around the corner was a gated community where wealthy families live. It is challenging to understand how there is either much wealth or complete poverty without much middle ground. We were dropped off at our hotel and had two hours to shower and get ready for an evening service at Pastor Elpie's church. By the time we got to the church at 6:30pm here in Cagayan our bodies thought it was 2:30 am so we were feeling a little bit like zombies but had an amazing time worshiping our God in one accord with our Filipino brothers and sisters. We were each given a moment to share an encouraging word and Grace and Chris both gave a short sermon. Afterward they fed us some pizza, Mc Donald's burgers and some fresh mango! We got back to our hotel around 8:30 pm and most of us hit the hay shortly after since it felt like 4:30am to us. I slept for about 12 hours Praise the Lord!! Today we have had some time to study and pray and at the moment we are sorting the things we brought to give out. Oh how we wish there was so much more but are grateful for what we have to give and are excited about the years to come as we learn how to be more effective in our partnership here. Tonight we will be split into two groups and will minister to some cell groups. After that we will meet with the Pastor's we are working with here to dream, share vision and our heart. I can't tell you how humbled and blessed I am to be here. I am being stretched, broken and encouraged all at the same time. God is so good!