Our first activity for the day was to head over to Grace Lutheran Church and join them in worship.
Pastor Seth led a great worship service - p. 15 from The Lutheran Hymnal, a liturgy that we still use much of today at Trinity. It was awesome to see two churches connected by their worship, even though they're 8,400 miles away! Everybody felt right at home, especially since they threw us a potluck dinner right after worship with local filipino foods.
After we left, we drove through Manila in order to get a feel of the city. We stopped off at the Intramuros Visitor Center at Fort Santiago.
...and drove through some of the squatter communities...
Here's what's called a Jeepney. After WWII, American armed forces left quite a few Jeeps around when they pulled out, and the Philippine community has taken them, extended them, and they are now the most widely used vehicle in the city. They operate basically as an informal bus line, where you can just flag one down, hop in, pay a few pesos, and head across town.
We closed out the day by visiting the LCMS support office in the Philippines. Mario lives on site with his family, and cooked us up a great dinner.
With a good handle on what this city is about, we're ready to tackle the projects at the CCS orphanage tomorrow morning. We'll help with the kids, fix a few things on the building, and run an afternoon VBS for the urban street kids.
Tonight we looked at Luke 10:1-3, and how Jesus calls regular, average people to work for the glory of His kingdom. Each of us finds ourselves here because of God's prompting, and He's got great plans for His name this week. We're humbled to serve Him and other people. We also looked at 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 to remember that our source of blessing others always comes from the One who first blesses us beyond compare. We'll see you tomorrow, thanks for prayers!
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