We are here!

We arrived in Manila at 5:35 am on Thursday and have been busy ever since! We met Ate Nenette at the airport and she brought us to Open Door. After the plane ride we were so tired that we all slept for 13 hours straight! Open Door is a very nice place. The kids are sweet and try so hard to teach us Tagalog. I do not know much yet but am learning quickly. Friday we spent the whole day with the kids. They love to play, play and play. There is always a basketball game going on. When not playing basketball the kids amuse themselves playing whatever game they can think of. They don't have toys. They try to teach us a game where they take rubber bands and straws and shot the straws very high in the sky. The older girls love to sing and know many of the same songs that we know. There favorite is How Great is our God.

Last night we were able to attend their prayer meeting. You will be surprised to know that they have a fun band, drums, guitars and all. They are very good. The service was hard to follow because it was in tagalog. The boy who was leading it tried very hard to translate it for us but speaks little english. The music is in english though. It was a very cool service.

This morning, we went to the market to hand out tracks. We handed out hundreds with a few of the children as our guides. The market was crazy but it was a fun experience. After going through the market we walked around one of the lakes and handed out tracks to the people you live on the side of the lake. Many of them live in just little shacks. We saw a monkey that tried to attach Ate Chelsea and all the locals laughed at the silly americans! It was an exhausting job but it was good to really see the city and surrounding areas and get a good sense of what it is like to live here.

Our rooms are very nice. I share a room with the 3 other nehemiah team girls and we have one bed and two sleep on the floor. We have an air conditioner which is really a blessing. The food is pretty good. The feed us more than we could ever eat.

Tomorrow we will celebrate the churches anniversary. The kids get to go swim for this event and they are extremely excited. On Tuesday classes start again and we will be working in the school.

Please continue to pray for us and the kids. The kids are well taking care of by the older kids they live with. Though they do not always seem to get much adult interaction. Pray for our team as some of my team mates are starting to really miss home. Pray for the heat, which we are not use to and makes us feel sick. Pray for the other nehemiah teams that are serving around the world. We are very safe here at open door but other teams are in much more dangerous places.

I love you all and will update again next saturday, which is going to be my day off!

Brittany