Like Crazy.

My apologies for the delayed update. These past few weeks have been a heavy blur!

Life at Noah's Ark no longer holds any sort of routine. Three weeks ago, I spent each day:

-Waking up before 6am

-Having coffee and devotions, in front of the mountains 

-Teaching daycare for the morning

-Reading after lunch

-Snuggling babies or tossing a ball back and forth with the special needs kids in the afternoon

-Dinner

-Devotions with the kids

-Bedtime.

We are entering a very busy time at Noah's Ark. It is now high season in the Philippines, so we are hosting new visitors weekly. These are either missions teams, or solo missionaries/Christians from Canada. 

Our first visit was from Jessica, one of our instructors from ISM. It was great to have another familiar (and white) face around here! We had a great week with her, showing her around Banaue and laughing together. We ended off her visit with a trip to Manila.

I said in a previous post that trips to Manila are very tiring. They fall quite short of any sort of holiday. This particular time, we were able to visit two different slums.

The first one is called Smokey Mountain. It is world famous. Smokey Mountain is a garbage dump, where around 20,000 people have made a home. It is guarded inside and out, due to the staggering amount of people who try to enter to take photos. You need a special pass to go inside. We accompanied a missionary there and went with her as she visited the children's program they have, and we went with her on her visits to the homes. 

Smokey Mountain is soul wrenching. I still can't figure out how I'm supposed to process the things that I saw. I remember one specific point walking along a concrete strip, with sewage on my right and the garbage filled Bay of Manila on my left, a baby on my hip and the smoke burning my nose, just crying. My day there was the most difficult day of my entire life. Everywhere you look there are dirty faces staring at you, crumbling "houses", sewage, and garbage, garbage, garbage. I didn't think it was possible for a place to seem so hopeless. Hardly anyone even smiled. The poverty is so gigantic that it truly seems impossible for it to ever be overcome. I threw out my shoes that night, was coughing up black, and got a nosebleed. From one day. The common work in Smokey Mountain is making charcoal. People essentially just burn wood into charcoal all day long. It's incredible that there is any sort of life expectancy. 

The next day, we were planning on attending another slum, Doni Melda. I felt totally unprepared for another day of slum visiting, but with a total reliance of the strength of God, I was able to go. This slum was quite different. I got to play with the children. There was smiling. Everyone seemed to be family. I felt like my hope was restored.

We went back to Banaue the next day, after saying goodbye to Jessica. Our next visitors to arrive were a team from Vanguard Bible College in Edmonton. They stayed for one week and ran an after school VBS, dramas, and other activities for the kids. We loved getting to hang out with some people our own age, accompany them to their presentations, and I got to bake for them all week long! The team was incredible, and we already miss them lots.

Our current visitors are two women from the US, who are running a women's seminar. They will be leaving tomorrow and then a service team arrives from Ontario this week. PHEW! Busy. It's been very interesting to see a "missions host" perspective. The work that goes on behind the scenes is humbling and increases my gratitude. 

Some photos...

Me and one of the wonderful special needs boys, Jovan, doing physical therapy together.

 One of the few photos I was able to take at Smokey Mountain.

The children's program at Smokey Mountain

 Me at the Viewpoint in Banaue.

 My feet after the day at Smokey Mountain, and another photo of it.

 Princess Isey's family home in Doni Melda.

 Doni Melda.

 Princess Isey and I, a little girl who lives in Doni Melda.

 Doni Melda

 My daycare class!

 The beautiful rice terraces.

 Kensin, a 1.5 year old special needs baby who I have fallen in love with!

 Gracia and Mylene

 A walk to a local high school

 Shyra

The Vanguard team!

P.S.- Regarding my last post: all is going well with the whole "big sister" thing. One of our boys wrote me a note the other night that says "You are a good sister."