Throwback Thursday

Okay, so for today's Throwback Thursday, I'm featuring a WHOLE lot of pictures from my trip to the Phillippines. Which, I think I may have taken in 2001, not 2000 like I originally stated. At any rate. Prepare for a lot of boring pictures that you probably care nothing about.

I went on a very small mission trip, with 5 other people. It was a pilot program for a program that the BMA was hoping to impliment, small, short summer mission trips for students. It has a name, but I can't think of it right now. Anyway, our group was the first. It worked well and now the program has been in full swing for several years. They host several trips to several different countries each summer.

We went to the Phillippines. We worked on two different islands, with two different missionaries. First, we were on the island of Panay, in the city of IloIlo. There, we worked with Brother Don, a long time baptist missionary to the phillippines. Below is a map of the island of Panay and a map of the entire Phillippines, just so you can have an idea of where we were.


Here is me and Brother Don. This picture was acutally taken at the end of our time with Brother Don. We spent 1 week at each location. Here, we are at a boat port, about to boad a big o' boat to go over to the island of Negros, but more of that later.

This is me and one of Brother Don's friends and someone who he works with and we worked with. For the life of me I cannot think of his name.
Brother Don does a lot of work with the bible college there in IloIlo. Here we are visiting the college and some of the students.

We did not do any work inside the city of IloIlo. We did a tour and we visited the bible college and then we headed to a remote village way up in the mountains, called LubLub. When I say remote, I mean remote. It was about a 2 hour drive and a 5-6 hour hike from town to get to Lub Lub. We could only take what we could carry, which was about a small backback, which had to also contain water, and such. Basically 2, maybe three changes of clothes, if you had small clothes, and a few other neccessities. We were roughing it, to say the least. On the hike to LubLub, we had to cross several high and rushing rivers. There are real photos from my trip, not photos from national geographic, which I think they look like. These photos are very poor quality. I didn't take them, a team mate did, and I got them from her many years ago. At any rate, you had to carry your stuff on your head, because the water got as deep as your chin in some places. It felt SOOO good though, because it is dang hot in the Phillippines!
This is just another shot of the hike....we're headed up to those mountains....
And here's my team at the top of the hike! We made it! It was soo cool and beautiful way up there!



This was the back porch of where we stayed up in the mountains. We had no electricity, no running water, and well, no other modern conviences. This is where the women prepared and cooked the meals everyday.

And since we had no running water, this was our bathroom. Complete with toilet and shower. The shower is the bucket of water with the bowl, to pour over you!

A great thing about the Phillippines was the food. While it was scary to try such foreign cuisine, it was fun. This photo was actually taken in the city, at the home of some church members, but this was a breakfast, they go all out!

And here is some fruit. The fruit was the absolute best!!!

This is the inside of that...

I can't remember the names of any of these, but these were yummy too!!


These things had a grape-like center and were yummy as well!



Here is one of the churches outside of the city.

This is the inside of the church. No nice and soft padded pews here!

The symbol of the Phillippines, the Jeepney. This is the preferred method of transportation. Public that is. Almost no one has cars, everyone rides these for mere pennys. This is as far as we could drive before we had to start hiking up to LubLub.

Here is just a CUTE kid from up at LubLub. We worked with the children's school while we were at LubLub.

This is me at Leeta, one of the people who works with Don.


And this was my bed at LubLub, complete with mosquito net. And on it, sets everything I brought with me for the weeklong stay! One backback!

The next several pictures are pictures of the adorable children at LubLub. The kids stole my heart!!






Here's our guys, eating some rice. What we thought was authentic Phillipino rice (you know it's their prize crop!). As we're sitting there eating it and talking about having eaten authentic phillippino rice.....we look over and see a riceland bag from STUTTGART ARKANSAS. We about died. Brother Don told us that the rice that they grow in the Phillippines lacks the nutritional content that our rice has, so they have it shipped in to feed the kids, so they can have more nutrients.

Sorry these are sort of out of order, I hate moving pictures in blogger. Anyway, this was taken back in town....this is how they serve sodas. They recycle bottles, and have huge bottle recycling plants. So to save bottles, they serve soda in baggies. This is not pee, it's mountain dew!


Here I am with a bunch of kiddos at LubLub. They LOVED having their pictures taken!!!


Here we all are with the kids.

This girls name was Kimberly, and she was my buddy that week. I fell in love with her!


They wanted to be wherever we were!

Another Jeepney...in the city.

More cuteness....



Okay, so after IloIlo and LubLub, we traveled by boat over to the island of Negros, to the city of Bacolod to work with missionary, Darlene Carey. She is amazing. Here's a map of the island.





It was a stark contrast to our time at LubLub. In Bacolod, we stayed in the city, in a hotel. Not that it was all glam and glitter, here a couple of our room-mates....



While we were in Bacolod, we worked with Darlene at a church and mostly we worked with the youth. It was really fun and we made a real connection with the kids. I even stayed in contact with a couple of them for a couple of years after the trip. Here I am with some of the girls!


In this photo, I'm about to give my testimony--but before hand, I wanted a loosen up exercise, so we taught the kids how to call the HOGS!!!

Look at 'em calling those Hogs!!

Here I am talking....boring!

Talking again...

Me and another cutie!

This is me and Darlene. This was at the airport the day we left. You can sort of tell I had been crying. I was hysterical the day we left. I did not want to leave. It was such an emotional trip.

Here we are again...

Me and a precious little baby!

Me and Jinket...this is one of the girls I stayed in touch with for a while. I wonder what she is doing now.

We took a short ride out to the ocean....it wasn't that pretty, but it was still the ocean!



And that concludes this LOOOOONG edition of Throwback Thursday! I hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane!!!!