Off to the Philippines...

I am writing this from the lobby of our Philippines hotel. I honestly cannot believe I am here. But I am grateful to be here. I know God has some big things in store for us while we are here.

Here is just a recap of what has happened on our trip so far.

Got to Seattle airport around 10:30am on Monday. We boarded our flight to Tokyo Japan around 1 pm. It was a great flight. We had a lot of fun on the plane since our whole group of students and staff sat in the same area of the plane. I really thought I would sleep on the 11 hour flight. But I didn't. We were following the sun west so it never got dark. It was like a never ending day. It was really strange. We crossed the international date line and that threw everyone for a loop. We couldn't figure out what time it was or even what day it was. We actually skipped the remainder of Monday afternoon and picked up sometime around Tuesday afternoon. I guess that is a day that never existed. But for never existing, we sure had some crazy things happen (I'll talk about this later...)

We landed in Tokyo about 5pm Tuesday evening (about 2am Tuesday morning Canada time). We had an hour and a half lay over that gave us time to tour around the Tokyo airport. All of us really wished we could go out of the airport to say we had actually been in Japan, but the airport would have to suffice. Once we boarded the plane for the last 5 hour flight to Manila, we sat on the ground for about 45 minutes. I was so tired, I fell asleep before we took off. About half an hour after take off, I woke up to a frantic announcement from the pilot ordering all flight attendants to immediately go to their jumpseats and buckle up. I knew this never happens unless there is turbulence, but there was no turbulence, so I immediately suspected something was very wrong. Within minutes, the flight attendants started running up and down the aisles and where ordering everyone to stay in their upright seats and buckle up. I started to get really nervous. My heart started racing and I began praying...hard. I knew that with so many of us on board going to the Philippines to do a work for God that the devil was surely mad and would try to stop us. While praying, the emergency lights went on at all the emergency exits. I was just praying that we weren't going to have to do a water landing. Within about 15-20 minutes, I saw we were very low to the ground and realized we were making an emergency landing. When we touched down, I saw quite a number of fire trucks all along the run way anticipating our arrival. It was only after we landed that the captain explained they had smelled smoke (I had smelled something really strange earlier that smelled like something was burning) and immediately took precautions for an onboard fire. He radioed back to Tokyo requesting clearance for an emergency landing. The fire trucks met us at the end of the runway and followed us all the way to the terminal to make sure a fire didn't break out.

When we got off the plane, there were dozens of security agents in full Japanese uniform and men in firesuits and other safety people lining both sides of the walkway waiting for us to get off so they could investigate. It was an eery feeling...If it wasn't for the emergency, it would have felt like we were being royally welcomed into Japan. When we got off, we could see about 7 or 8 firetrucks right by the plane. Newscasters where there when we got off but it wasn't until later that I realized we had made national headline news. I understand CNN had a television report about the incident as well as Fox News. Here is just a link if you want to read about it. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,332615,00.html

Since they couldn't get us another flight that night they put us into a hotel for the night. Japan has new regulations for letting people into their country so we had to go through the whole process of getting a visitors visa. By the time we got in it was about 1am.(We wanted to just sleep in the airport, but they wouldn't let us.) We ate supper when we got to the hotel and then slept for 2 1/2 hours before we headed back to the airport. Our flight to Manila was uneventful and we landed around noon. It was good to finally be here.

I don't even know how to describe what I am seeing here. There is such a contrast in how people live. There is a huge mall just down the road that has prices that are more expensive than the states. And then just down the street is the worst squaller, filth, and poverty you can imagine... It is really sad. In fact, we have been told that the average person makes about $7-$9 US dollars every day. I don't know how they afford to shop for things at the big mall...

Tonight the meetings start. I am so excited to see how diligent these young people are in getting their sermons ready to preach. I am eager to travel to each of the different sites to watch them all preach.

Please continue to pray for us that God will bless our work here. I know God will work in marvelous ways! (I will have to post some pictures later...)