Longest Day of My Life

Hey everyone! Today I (Tommy) will be writing the blog! The past few days have been really busy, more so than any of the other days we’ve been here so far. Kim and I drove to a local training center in order to hang out with the kids there and help clean the facility. We stayed there overnight and got to experience our first warm shower since getting in the Philippines! However, that great feeling of comfort soon left as we had to wake up at 6am the next morning in order to get back to our house in time for outreach. One of the ladies at the training center kindly drove us back down the mountain, and showed us around the Iligan market, a place where you can buy local fruits, vegetables, fish, and clothes. As a guy, I’m always trying to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious to protect Kim and I the best I can, but after a while, it was hard because there were so many people there. And not only that, but everyone either just stares at Kim and I, or they yell out things like “Hello Friend!!” I think they just wanted us to spend our money at their kiosk. After buying onions, baking soda, mangoes, and papaya, we took public transportation back to our house. I was already tired! Nevertheless, as soon as we got back to the house, we met up with the team and took off in order to go to our afternoon outreach. When we arrived at the school that we were going to teach at that day, we found out that all of the classes were cancelled for a week-long regional sports competition. The 13 provinces of northern Mindanao all participate in sports ranging from track and field, to soccer, to basketball. Like the Olympics, they have this big opening ceremony that happened to be taking place in only a few hours! With a now open afternoon, all four of us traveled to the stadium which was about 45 minutes away. The stadium is huge in terms of Filipino architecture, so it was cool to see how they designed it all. We were told that we would be able to get back home around 3pm, but when we found out that the actual ceremony started at 2pm…and especially when we were still sitting in the stands at 3pm with the ceremony not even starting yet, we soon realized that we did not have time to stick around. Oh yeah! And whoever was DJ’ing up in the announcer’s box was the worst I have ever heard. No joke, they played the same song seven times in a row, seven times! That’s almost 30 minutes of the same song! Anyway, we exited the stadium and got on a bus near the highway, we were about to head home! …until all 13 of the marching bands slowly made their way across the road right in front of our bus. We were not going to be going anywhere for a long time. That night, I was going to be preaching at a local church’s prayer meeting, and it was right about when I saw the bands that I gave up on having a nap. After another hour of waiting, the bus driver soon began getting frustrated with waiting for all of the bands to cross. So, he backed up, tore up some of the grass, and soon cut right in between two of the bands! Now, we were finally heading home. I did not get my nap, but I did teach that night and I hope that everyone there was encouraged and challenged. The church wanted me to teach on prayer, so I focused on 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. It’s interesting, but I feel that sometimes I learn more my teachings than the audience does. We’ll see if it happens again, because I’m just about to start studying for my sermon on Sunday: Revelation 6.

One of the many bands that crossed the road.

Tommy teaching at the prayer meeting

Philippine's landscape. Picture taken last Friday on a trip up to the mountains.