Work, work, work!

Kelsey here. Whew! The past week has been a busy one! Saturday was a laid back work day, running necessary errands needed to do more work on the Missing Link tutorial kits. We attended the Sta. Lucia church of Christ on Sunday morning and had a pretty full rest of the day. We ate lunch with old (and new) friends, and got to have some fun painting a mural (pictures below). After that, we ran more errands, then met with Randy at the Kalookan church of Christ to discuss the schedule for upcoming events, followed by more fellowship and dinner with friends. When we got back to the condo on Sunday night, we were all pretty tired! Matt arrived very early on Monday morning, and we left late morning for another full day at Divisoria to pick up more supplies. After a long (and eventful) day, we went home with very tired bodies.

On Tuesday, Hope and I went to the Twinville church of Christ to teach a story and do a craft with the tutorial children, Matt ran a few errands, and Prissy stayed at the condo to do more work on the tutorial kits. One thing I’ve realized since being in the Philippines is that it takes FOREVER to get somewhere. We always have to leave an hour before needing to be somewhere because it usually takes that long to get there. Also, it’s very confusing about which kind of transportation to take, how many rides it will take in a jeepney to get there, which one will be cheaper, etc. Needless to say, Filipino transportation is all very new to me, considering I’d never even ridden in a taxi before! After getting back to the condo on Tuesday night, we decided to have a little downtime so that we would be ready to work all day Wednesday.

Today has been a workday, printing materials for the tutorial kits and packing. Tomorrow we leave for Davao (where the Sellers’ family lived while they were missionaries here) and will visit more tutorials down there. We’ll come back on Sunday night, and then Monday night we’re planned to go down to the Laguna area with Jun Patricio to visit more tutorials. Matt will leave a few days after we return from Laguna, and then we will have been in the Philippines for almost 4 weeks! The days go very quickly here, with so much to do every day. I feel so blessed to be here, and I know God has been with us every step of the way.

Now it’s storytime! While at Divisoria, when Hope and I were walking around on the street, a man came up from behind me and ripped the necklace that I was wearing off of my neck! It was a little scary, and he pulled a little hair, but other than that, I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t really angry about it, either, because the necklace was of little value (although I’m sure the man thought he was getting some real diamonds). I’m glad I can laugh about it; after all, shouldn’t we be focused on heavenly things and not earthly materialistic things? Since I’ve been in the Philippines, many men that I walked by have said things to me, like, “Hey, friend!”, “My friend, you like?”, “Ma’am, you look beautiful in the morning!”, “Maganda (beautiful) legs!”, and so on. It really cracks me up to hear them speak English. A lot of them do not speak English fluently, so I understand why they are only able to say words such as “ma’am”, “beautiful”, and “friend”, but that doesn’t stop me from giggling when it happens. With all that said (including the stealing incident), I’ve really enjoyed my time here. I love the challenge of learning a new language and experiencing a new culture, and I’m glad that we’re here for more than a couple weeks.

I think I’ve written enough for this post, so I hope you enjoyed my stories and stay tuned for updates on our time in Davao and Laguna!

**Look below for pictures!