Visitation: one house is super far from the other
Night service
Me and Ant doing children ministry
The next morning
Tricycle!On the 7th of May, my team and I and Ps (Pastor) Miller went up to Ps Miller's mountain church at Himamaylan. Himamaylan is on a different island called Negros. We took a tricycle to go up the mountain. Let me make it clear that the tricycle in Philippines is not the three-wheel bicycle the kids ride in Singapore! It's a 125cc motobike attached to a side car and this amazing primitive contraption carried 7 of us up, including the driver. There is the driver and two other riders on his bike and four of us in the side car, two standing and two sitting. I SAT ON THE MOTORBIKE SITTING SIDEWAYS! The road was really rocky, such that my teeth even chattered.
The whole place was covered with sugar plantations and the scenery was breathtaking! We also saw a lot of skinny buffaloes, not just at Himamaylan though. The minute we reached the church, we started spraying all over our legs and arms with the anti-mosquito spray! Psssss... Psss!
We did visitation to 6 houses in 2.5 hours. I'm serious. Every house was so far apart and because it's a mountain, there was slopes and just tracks, no proper lane for walking. When it came to the slopes, I walked really slowly. Suddenly Anthony said, 'Anna, you better keep walking. Don't stop. There's a lot mosquitoes just behind you and they've been following you.' My heart stopped. At the end of the slope, I looked down at my legs and I really saw this cloud of mosquitoes behind my knees! The children who were following us were just skipping around and running down the really narrow slopes, man, I was utterly impressed. At the river, the children held our hands and helped us cross it by stepping on the stones without falling down.
At the visitation, we introduced ourselves and invited the locals to come for our night service at 7pm. It was a tuesday and asking them to come attend service at night was a huge favour to ask because there are no lights and it's practically pitch black at night. And they have to walk a long way, most of them don't have torches either.
So we really thank God for the good turn out at night. It was really dark even though there were some torches. It was funny to see Gabriel lead worship in the dark. Anthony and I did children ministry and I told them the story of Gideon and his 300 men, with the help of an interpretor, of course. And so, the whole service ended at 8.45pm and soon we tucked in to sleep.
The onslaught of mosquitoes was much fiercer in the night and for the girls' room we burned 3 mosquitoe coils and put two mosquitoe patches. KIASU right? It was super smelly. We tried to sleep but it was humid. Picture this: Because I'm so scared of mosquitoes biting me, I had worn my jeans and socks and covered myself up the neck in the sleeping bag. Inside, I was perspiring. I managed to sleep for an hour after that but somehow about 11.30 pm, all of us, except Anthony woke up. At 12 midnight, Laureen and Ps Cat sang this really soft birthday song for me. I didn't know what to feel cos I'm just too stunned that I just turned 19 in a little hut, tucked away in a mountain at Himamaylan. Oh, by the way, we didn't bathed that night. Ps Miller turned 33 on the same day too!
By the 3rd day of our 14-day trip, I was still wearing the same clothes I was wearing at Changi Airport. Nevertheless I praise and thank God for his protection on all of us, and guess what, I only had 2 mosquitoe bites.
The whole place was covered with sugar plantations and the scenery was breathtaking! We also saw a lot of skinny buffaloes, not just at Himamaylan though. The minute we reached the church, we started spraying all over our legs and arms with the anti-mosquito spray! Psssss... Psss!
We did visitation to 6 houses in 2.5 hours. I'm serious. Every house was so far apart and because it's a mountain, there was slopes and just tracks, no proper lane for walking. When it came to the slopes, I walked really slowly. Suddenly Anthony said, 'Anna, you better keep walking. Don't stop. There's a lot mosquitoes just behind you and they've been following you.' My heart stopped. At the end of the slope, I looked down at my legs and I really saw this cloud of mosquitoes behind my knees! The children who were following us were just skipping around and running down the really narrow slopes, man, I was utterly impressed. At the river, the children held our hands and helped us cross it by stepping on the stones without falling down.
At the visitation, we introduced ourselves and invited the locals to come for our night service at 7pm. It was a tuesday and asking them to come attend service at night was a huge favour to ask because there are no lights and it's practically pitch black at night. And they have to walk a long way, most of them don't have torches either.
So we really thank God for the good turn out at night. It was really dark even though there were some torches. It was funny to see Gabriel lead worship in the dark. Anthony and I did children ministry and I told them the story of Gideon and his 300 men, with the help of an interpretor, of course. And so, the whole service ended at 8.45pm and soon we tucked in to sleep.
The onslaught of mosquitoes was much fiercer in the night and for the girls' room we burned 3 mosquitoe coils and put two mosquitoe patches. KIASU right? It was super smelly. We tried to sleep but it was humid. Picture this: Because I'm so scared of mosquitoes biting me, I had worn my jeans and socks and covered myself up the neck in the sleeping bag. Inside, I was perspiring. I managed to sleep for an hour after that but somehow about 11.30 pm, all of us, except Anthony woke up. At 12 midnight, Laureen and Ps Cat sang this really soft birthday song for me. I didn't know what to feel cos I'm just too stunned that I just turned 19 in a little hut, tucked away in a mountain at Himamaylan. Oh, by the way, we didn't bathed that night. Ps Miller turned 33 on the same day too!
By the 3rd day of our 14-day trip, I was still wearing the same clothes I was wearing at Changi Airport. Nevertheless I praise and thank God for his protection on all of us, and guess what, I only had 2 mosquitoe bites.
