Saturday....the day we spent sitting in the van lol

Right, here I am back again!!

On saturday morning Liz woke up with terrible eyes again :( Not good at all...took her to the doctor and then to the pharmacy to get her drops etc. Then we went to the supermarket to get groceries for the kdis of the other sponsor kids that we were visiting that afternoon. FUN!!! I loved it!

The plan was to take us to Santa Rosa, to see the relocation project, post flood, and in particular to see Sherwin's house. His family lost everything in the flood last year and had to be relocated, and they got split up because there are two different places they relocated them to, so that's a bit sad. But the government has built a whole lot of wee concrete houses that they can rent-to-buy for NZ$8 per month, for 25 years. Very cool to see. International Needs is involved as well, they have a ceiling project where they are putting plywood linings in the ceilings, because the ones the government built were too thin and so were freezing (!!!) overnight, and baking hot during the day. so that is fantastic, they are also lining the walls and sealing up the gaps etc so that rats and things can't get in. So all in all it was very clean and tidy and new looking, albeit very small and compact.

Forgot to say how we got there!!!! When we were within the region they dropped us off out of the van and we rode on a trolley car down the railway tracks....imagine 9 of us squeezed together onto a tiny little trolley, and pushed along the tracks by manpower alone!!! Pretty funny!!! Nice ride tho!

Delivered parcels to Mabel, Peter and Jan Sara's sponsor child.

Had lunch, then headed back to the covered basketball courts at Balubad, for the Women of Worth seminar (same thing, different location) which was supposed to start at 1.30 and run till 4. We got there at 3.55. Haha. Traffic was UNBELIEVABLE...so we spent a LOT of hours sitting in the van. All the ladies were still there when we got there, they had been filling in the time having a worship service or something, and we couldn't do our programme when we got there as somebody else needed the courts at 4!! So a wee bit of a disaster in NZ terms, but Filopinos seem to take everything in their stride!!! So Liz got to do a wee brief message which was actually great, and then we got to draw names out of boxes for people to win the prize of getting their house done up. They get 5000 pesos (NZ$160ish) to buy the materials with, and then they have to pay for the labour. So that was fantastic, they were sooooo excited, and they were all excited for their friends, so we could hardly tell who had won it cos everybody around them was all jumping and clapping and cheering, it was really awesome :)

Then we went to visit the sponsor children in Balubad....rode there in a pedicap - a wee sidecar on the side of a bicycle which was really fun (would like to point out that Liz B and I kicked butt in the race we were having that nobody else knew about hehehe I took photos of them as we zoomed past...but I should confess that our driver had a scooter instead of a pushbike :)
So we visited Marvin who is sponsored by Chris and Lesley, wee girl sponsored by the Scotts (her name escapes us at the moment sorry!!) and Norbelyn who is the wee girl I sponsor...honestly it was one of the best things I have ever done, I LOVED it sooo much!! She was super shy, and barely said two words to me the whole time I was there (her mother on the other hand talked nonstop!!!) but she had a HUGE smile on her face and I got about 27 hugs so that was really cool :) DEFINITELY a highlight!!!!!!

Then it got really dark and a massive storm was threatening so we got bundled into the van super fast and taken back to the IN base where we had dinner and a relaxing evening playing cards etc.

That was our Saturday!! Hard to believe in this heat that you are all freezing back home!!
Oh I keep forgetting to tell you about the incredible thunder and lightening storms we have here, almost every day!! It's pretty unbelievable, loud crashes, sounds like it's right on top of us!!!!

Alright, I'm off to bed! Last one again!!!!
Hope all's well back home.
Keep warm!!
Love all of us :)