Monday:

We finally arrived in Manila (LANDED) around 10:30am. Our flight was originally scheduled to arrive before 6am, but because of the smog, we were held at the army base for a looong time! By the time we flew out of there, tens of planes lined the army base waiting to get into Manila...crazy! That means we were on the plane for about 20 hours. WAY too long!

Some missionaries from the NTM base here in Manila drove vans and a jeep-looking van thing to get us and our luggage to the guest house. Driving was crazy! Everybody honks and no one looks to the side of their car. There are just a couple inches of room between cars sometimes it seems like. Kids were sandwiched between parents on motorcycles zipping past busses, vans and jeepneys (sp?). On the way, we observed kids digging in the trash leftover from the New Year's celebration - so sad!

When arriving at the Guest House, we finally took a SHOWER!!! :)

PTL for a good night's rest! Tonya wasn't feeling well yesterday (sick to stomach) and many of us were super tired, so we definitely were praying for good sleep!

Yesterday we were able to meet many of the missionaries and families as many of them are staying at the NTM guest house in Manila with us. It is a huge 5 story building which looks like a really nice hotel. There's even an elevator. It is surrounded by a tall fence/gate with barbed wire. It was cool to see various missionaries arriving in jeeps and VW vas (well basically the size of these vans) packed full of people. All the kids were playing in the courtyard down below. Ben Shields was quick to make friends with some of the guys his age here. He and I played a game of HORSE with a little girl named Noa. We got to meet some of these missionaries and hear amazing stories over dinner. There were over 80 people here for dinner!

One interesting story was from a missionary couple who have been in Mindano for 25 years. They live in the town where the recent mudslide/tsunami wiped out 2000 people. As they shared, I could see the devastation of this tragedy on their faces. They said most of the people swept away and buried by mud were the poor who lived right along the river. It was an in-land tsunami. Most of the people are too poor to be buried. For awhile there was little help but now that it has reached national news, there is alot of assistance/aid over there.