In May 2001 a group of 12 people took an interesting missionary trip to the Philippines. i was one of those 12. The trip was a real spiritual blessing, but i am going to explain some of the discomforts. :)
Our flight was about 25 hours long. For breakfast on the plane we had eggs, sausage and potatoes. I know it sounds good, but the eggs were so runny you had to eat it them with a spoon. The potatoes were rock hard and the sausage....well, no one asked what the sausage was made of.
When we arrived in the Philippines we were immediately driven to the church and introduced to the pastor and staff. It was a big, beautiful church.....or at least the main sanctuary was. When the took us to the elementary room (where i would be 95% of the time), I was shocked! Since there was no air-conditioning it was very muggy and flee infested. I was immediately attacked by the fleas and had an allergic reaction causing the bites to swell to the size of apples. By the time I went to bed that night, I had 25 of them all over my legs.
In the lobby of the hotel there was a small restaurant had different themed buffets everyday. One of the days was a fish themed buffet. This sounded good to me since I like fish. But I didn't anticipate that the fish would be staring at me and the teeth ready to attack at any moment. I politely declined and just ordered mango. I knew I couldn't go wrong with fruit right off a tree.
We were told it was going to be hot before we went, but the 113 degrees and high humidity exceeded my expectation. The church had several fans set up all over the rooms to make the heat bearable, but it did little to ease the situation.
A large part of me was ashamed to be shocked by these conditions, when this is a reality of how these people live everyday. I saw babies walking the streets, barely dressed, without parents. Children living in the garbage dump, scraping enough food to live another day. People living in the parks with nothing more then an umbrella fro shelter. But I got to go home to the life of prosperity in the country i live in. I guess looking back on my trip, my discomforts are nothing compared of the Filipinos.
