After much preparation, prayer, and fundraising, our mission trip to the Philippines is finally here! Am I seriously about to travel halfway around the world with 20 high school students and 7 adult leaders? Oh, did I mention that I am 12 weeks pregnant suffering from all-day nausea, vomiting, and extreme tiredness? Apparently, this was a little unsettling for my mom after hearing over and over, "are you sure you need to be traveling this far? Don't lift anything too heavy! Walk around on the plane often! etc., etc.,. I laugh at her now, but I'm sure I'll be that way too someday. Sure, I had my doubts and fears after having a hemorrhage with Bo at 9 weeks, but ultimately I trust that God is in control and put me on this trip for a reason.
Travel Day: Our team of 28 all met at Marta to say goodbye to our families and then we hopped on Marta to head to the airport. Day 1 consisted of 24 total hours of travel time to Cebu City, Philippines. It was obvious that our travel was prayed over b/c it was a near perfect travel experience. You hear horror stories of getting to the airport and kids not having an assigned seat so they have to catch the next flight or people getting sick, but none of this happened...praise the Lord. This set the tone for our amazing trip. People asked, what did you do for 20 plus hours on a plane? Well, if you're a mom to two toddlers, you'd understand that just the flight itself was a vacation for me. Besides the occasional interruption by the flight attendant, I got to watch adult movies, read without interruption, take occasional cat naps (I am a light sleeper so it's near impossible for me to sleep anywhere but a bed), and got to know some of the high school students on a deeper level. Surprisingly, it went by pretty fast!!
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| All the kids saying goodbye to their families |
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We color-coded all of our teams to make travel easier. Such a great idea. This was my AWESOME team!!
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| Learning to play Dutch Blitz |
We arrived around midnight (Sunday morning) in Cebu so it was noon on Saturday in Georgia. The staff from Quest Community Fellowship had a Welcome Banner made for our team that was hanging in the lobby of our hotel. You will hear later on how amazing this staff is!! We were also greeted with lemonade and pineapple juice by the hotel staff. This was much needed since it was 84 degrees at midnight. Did I mention the humidity was worse than GA and this was supposed to be their cool season? After refreshments and a few laughs, the team crashed pretty hard. We had a full day ahead of us.
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| Enjoying refreshments once we got to the hotel |
