Bob sent an update to his supporters that I thought was great and asked his permission to post it to the blog.
Hello From Cebu City in the Philippines,
To my friends, family and supporters,
It's hard to believe it's Thursday morning already. Time flies! I said I'd try to to keep you posted on how my trip is going so here goes. We left Atlanta last Friday at about noon. We flew on Korean Air. Oh my do they put Delta to shame. At the same time the quality of the service doesn't take away from the 15 hour flight to Seoul, Korea. Five hours there and another five hour flight to Cebu City. And best of all one of the guys on our trip who's been here before just keeps telling us 'wait til we go home it's even worse.' He's actually a cheery fellow. So we finally got to the hotel about 3:00 am.
Sunday we went to church at Quest and had the opportunity to hear our host deliver the sermon. They are in the middle of Killing It. They use and follow what North Point does very closely. We also got to meet pastor Les Tilka and his wife SaraLee. They're wonderful people.
As I explained in my last update, they rent space for the church. Where they are currently located is in a school and the space is not dedicated. So every Sunday they have to unpack all their things for the service, Wamba Land, Upstreet and InsideOut. Then pack it back up. So their support materials are somewhat limited. Not only this, their lease is up and the current landlord was not being cooperative in renewing their lease so they are moving to another location. This created the change in purpose for our trip. In their new space they have several dedicated rooms so they can create permanent environments for each program plus have office space. It's a much better situation.
So for the past three days we've been working on creating a new Wamba Land environment. Fortunately one of our team members works for the company that supports North Point in creating all their fabulous environments. For those of you who aren't from NorthPoint you really need to come and see. It's what makes NorthPoint so special., and of course Andy Stanley.
The best way to see what we've been doing is to go to the teams blog at Teamcebu2016.blogspot.com . There are just five of us on the trip plus local church volunteers. Three of the guys did all the painting and Dan Moffit who is in my men's group and works with me occasionally built the back drops. It went well, no bloodshed! Dan and I do things differently.
Today most of the team will turn their attention to the UpStreet environment and I'm going to work on building a tree in Wamba Land. I'm excited. Couldn't sleep last night thinking about it.
A little about the Philippines. Yes it is a third world country but the people in American should be so happy. There's lots of poverty. I've tried to get some pics of some of there housing but the way we're traveling has made it difficult. There's a lots of people so it feels very crowded. People on top of each other. A primary method of travel is something called a jeepney. 20 to 25 people crammed in the back of a type of truck.
I've received an email from home asking how we are. I guess the typhoon and protests at the American Embassy are in the news. That's in Manila which is about 600 miles away. We've had rain but no protests. The rain! It rained earlier in the week in the afternoon into the evening. There are certain parts of the city which don't drain well so it floods. Unfortunately it floods between where we are working and our hotel. It took us an hour and 45 minutes to travel 1.8 miles. The water was over knee deep. However, even in dry conditions traffic is a nightmare. It's hard to describe but think of ants going back and forth from their ant hill to a food source. It's a combination of motor scooters/motor cycles, trucks and cars. The prevailing traffic law is put your vehicle in front of the other guys and you have the right of way. There's a lot of inching. It seems to work and surprisingly very few of the cars have any damage to them. You'd think that they would all be wrecked but that's not the case.
The people are wonderful. They are very friendly, helpful, and happy. They seem to enjoy life. There is certainly a great spirit of service in the church. We've had a number of volunteers work with us on our project. We thought they were church staff members but they are mostly volunteers. This includes our drivers who cart us back and forth and out to dinner.
The food is very good. Asian influence. And they don't waste anything so there are some things that at least I'm not adventurous enough to eat. Last night we went to a Philippine bar b que. We had chicken, pork on a stick, chorizo, chicken livers, and rice.. The rice is interesting. It's not Uncle Ben's! They wrap uncooked rice in these woven palm frond baskets about the size of your fist and then cook them creating this tightly packed lump of sticky rice. To eat it you unwrap the basket and dip it in soy sauce and vinegar with hot peppers and lime. Keep in mind it's always about 90 degrees and 90% humidity. It's a sweaty affair but the food is very tasty. On Monday they brought in McDonald's for lunch. WE all stood there thinking oh great McDonalds. It turned out to be two pieces of fried chicken (think Colonel Sanders), a bag of rice and chicken gravy. And they actually gave us forks to use. It was very good.
As you know our purpose for the trip was changed. A Couple of us were concerned about the value we and impact we might have. But after seeing what we're doing it will clearly have a huge impact on their church and the communities they serve. I doubt there is anything even close to what they will have. God really does direct us to where he wants us to be and uses our talents as he sees fit. I'm very happy to be here, being able to do what I'm doing. And I'm grateful to all of you for your support. Thank you. The only thing I could add is you need to come and see for yourselves.
Yours in Christ,
