Rice, rice, rice...

I've already learned so much in my first week here. One is that my feet are never clean. It doesn't matter what I do. The poverty is so extreme here that the streets are filthy. Driving around Manila and seeing the conditions some of these people live in is heart-wrenching. Some of them live in the shanties with nothing but an old couch and a tarp covering it. It leaves you with a very helpless, yet extremely thankful attitude. If nothing else, it reminds me how I don't deserve what I have, an what I "have" isn't mine anyway. We really are lucky to live where we do, yet having more somehow seems to breed wanting more and an overall dissatisfaction in a lot of Americans that I have yet to see here...I find it really odd.

On a much happier note-today was our first Sunday services here! It was absolutely amazing! The feeling of their worship service is something completely different to what I'm used to. Tonight we traveled to an opening of the new student life center for the church I'm working with, and after a 2 hour car ride, Kaitlyn and I were thoroughly car sick and facing the overly hot room and crowded service made us a little...unexcited? But you can't help but feel the sincerity of every word they speak and in every song we sing. And before I know it, I'm singing How Great is Our God in a room full of Filipino people, half way across the world, and I felt the enormity of my God like I never have. Seriously, how great is our God? had a small glimpse of how small I am in realizing how people all over the world have this same one on one relationship with my Father that I cherish so much...It's humbling to think about. The word that any younger girl calls any older female is ate (sounds like ah-tay) but it means big sister and Kuya, which means big brother. I find this so cool for some reason. All of these girl running around yelling Ate Bekah! Ate Bekah! It's just another small way that shows we're all connected...

There are so many stories that I want to tell, but I'll only tell a couple. We had Sportsfest yesterday for the kids at the church. At first, they literally ran from us when we tried to talk to them, but we eventually won them over-and let me tell you, when you win them over, you WIN them over. They want to know everything about you!



This is one of my favorite pictures so far! This is Darlin :) She is adorable and our new friend. She likes to show up at our door, too. This is her in our laundry basket! We love her!



Ok last thing. Filipinos eat some seriously strange things. But Kirby, Kaitlyn, and I decided to try what they serve us, no matter what. Well, they gave us this tonight, and no one would tell us what it was until after we ate it.



Ok I'm going to type the exact thing that Ren wrote out.
Papaitan-goat guts with meat and bile for a bitter taste.
It was without a doubt the most disgusting thing I have ever put in my mouth, even before I knew what it was!

Tomorrow is the Filipino independence day, so we are taking a day off to go to the beach. We start doing the work we came to do on Tuesday. I am so excited to work with the college students here in Manila!