 At 7:30 AM, we left our hotels in Iloilo to head to the airport for a short 1 hour flight to Manila. Upon arrival in Manila, we checked some of our baggage onto San Francisco and headed out for a day of shopping. The ride to Green Hills shopping Center was full of new sights for the first-time visitors to Manila. Manila is a bustling metropolis with much poverty.  At 6:30 AM, our group split up and headed to the public schools. Group one consisted of Bro. Mike Moyer, Andrew Brown, Joe Destefano and Lora Singun. Group two was made up of Bro. Tom Apusen, Chris Shattuck, Sam and Rossana Gomez, and Kimberly Cookson. Bro. Moyer’s group went to Mapehi Village National High School, and Bro. Apusen’s group went to the Bacolod City High School. Both groups were at the schools for their opening assembly at 7:00 AM. Sunday Services
in Rural Churches
 We headed to Perias Hope Fundamental Baptist Church pastored by Bro. Felipe Hangalay at 7:00 AM today to witness and take part in this church’s opening service. It was about a 30 minute hike from the road to get to church. There were close to 100 people present. This is the first time that a group from NVBC has physically helped with the establishing of a new church in the Philippines. Pastor Hangalay just recently started conducting Bible studies in this community and today is their first official service.  We boarded the Sea Wheeler at 10:00AM this morning to travel to the Negros Island. Our boat ride lasted for nearly an hour and a half followed by an additional two hour bus ride to the hotel. To reach our final destination, we traveled 30 minutes by jeepney. As you can see from the pictures, the guys chose the roof seats!  We headed to Iloilo Baptist Church around 10:15AM to meet many of the pastors North Valley Baptist Church supports here in the Philippines. What a wonderful sight to see these men of God pose for a group picture. Nearly 5 years ago after hearing Bro. Rick Martin’s desire to reach the entire Philippine Islands with the Gospel, Pastor Trieber pledged  At 8:00 this morning, we headed to sessions of the Pastors’ Conference. When we arrived the ladies attended a session taught by Mrs. Wilkerson, and the rest of the group attended the preaching services in the main auditorium. Today’s first speaker was Pastor Billy Caalem. Bro. Caalem pastors a church in Leon, and is responsible for starting over  Today we decided to go "authentic" and give the group a taste of true Filippino life. We met at 6:00 a.m. for breakfast and enjoyed garlic rice, chicken, and other Filipino breakfast dishes. After breakfast, our first stop was the public market which at 7am was already bustling with sights, sounds, and smells that are very hard to capture in words.  We’ve finally arrived! At approximately 11:00 PM, our Philippine Airlines jet took off from San Francisco airport. After an uneventful, thirteen-plus-hour flight, our plane touched down in Manila with one of the smoothest landings our group has ever experienced! Our connecting flight took us to Iloilo five hours later, and we were promptly picked up and driven to our hotel by familiar faces from Iloilo Baptist Church.We checked into the hotel and quickly freshened up to go to Mang Inasal for a delicious grilled chicken meal. |
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