Halo Halo

Just for the record, the Philippines don't care if you have a visa. They don't really care about anything, as far as I could tell. I literally tried to ask the customs officers questions about the form I hadn't completed or if was violating some code... and they just pushed me through the line. So much for worrying about that!

I think the best summary of yesterday was by Mollie, one of the other FH interns who's in Phoenix: "here's a boy that has never been overseas, yup we'll just give him money and a map and a hotel room and call it good. dude thats awesome!" Awesome, for sure. But also intimidating and really overwhelming. I was glad to finally crash in bed.

Today has been really good, and I'm feeling much less overwhelmed than yesterday. A woman that works for FH, Ate Thelma, picked me up for church this morning and introduced me to a ton of people. The church was Wesley UMC and was amazingly similar to worship back at CCUMC, minus the whole mostly being in filipino. There were even some contemporary worship songs in english. Afterwards, Ate Thelma and the pastor (her husband) took me back to their house and cooked me amazing food. Grilled fresh fish (apparently it was alive when it hit the grill) beef and broccoli, mangoes, pineapple, shrimp, tomatoes, and rice. And they even taught me to eat in the traditional filipino way... with no utensils. Imagine trying to eat your favorite asian dish with your hands... that's pretty much the experience. Ate Thelma explained a bunch of stuff that FH does here in the Philippines, including a lot about what the Child Development Program actually does. I still don't have a clue what I'm doing (although interviewing people and writing seem to be the main chunk), but at least I have a better understanding of what they're doing. It was a blessing to be welcomed into their home, and to have someone take the time to explain things to me.


After lunch their son, Noel (sp?) brought me to the mall and helped me find a power converter (not convinced it works entirely, yet, but let's hope so) and then bought me halo halo and hung out with me. You can see the halo halo above... I don't know how to explain it, except it's roughly like ice cream, the name means "with everything" and they aren't joking about that. Sadly, I'd already mixed it together some before the above picture, so you're missing out on seeing exactly how much is in there.

Alright, I'm getting tired, and I still need to grab dinner. Thanks so much for your prayers and support. Tomorrow I move, so who knows when I might get a chance to update this again.