What a Monday!

If you know me, you know I’m a planner. I wanted Chris to make all our tour plans before we even left the States. That didn’t happen. All Sunday night after church I was stressing over what we were going to do on today. Chris just told me to be flexible and live in the moment. That is so hard for me to do. We woke up this morning and showered and went to breakfast. Still no plans. Then, we went to find some Mission Office cohorts. We couldn’t find them. We ran into the gentleman taking care of the music for the week at the meeting, Harold Payne. He was going to try to convince the group of BBC guys to take a Jeep-Me to the real markets…two experiences at one time. We ran into our Mission Office cohorts and told them of the plan. They were on board. We went downstairs to talk to the people of Bible Baptist Church Cebu. They decided we should have a guide, one of their own. J.P. volunteered to go with us. They instructed us to get rid of wallets, cell phones, any and all jewelry. They told us to only carry enough money to purchase the Jeep-Me ride there and back and a little for shopping and all money was to be carried in your front pocket. J.P. helped us get on the first Jeep-Me. The group was so large we had to take two. After we got off the Jeep-Me there was a short distance to walk. He called a friend to meet up with us because he was worried about keeping track of the whole group. Mark happily joined our group. We stopped at their “mall” which was totally different than the tourist attraction malls we had previously been taken to. It was one huge store, but on each level was a different thing. The first floor was accessories like sunglasses, belts, backpacks, etc. The second floor was department store items like small appliances and bath linens or curtains. The third floor was all men’s clothing. The fourth floor was all women’s clothing. You get the idea. It was six floors high.
After we left the mall we headed to Carbon Market. We separated into two groups going in opposite directions in a circle around the market meeting back at the exact spot we had parted ways. We were given even more instructions to hold tight to cameras, place backpacks in the front and hold your hand over the zipper, stay close in the group, and check your pockets often to make sure you still have what you came with. We headed in to the market. Each section is divided just like a grocery store. In one section there are vendors who are all selling flowers, the next section, all vendors are selling noodles or vegetables.
The meat market is within Carbon Market but it’s separated by a different roof and tile floors. The tile floors were only in the walkways, though. I guess that’s meant for cleanliness because as we were walking through several people were spraying the walkway with water and wiping it off with brooms. We got to see a guy take some sort of skin looking stuff out of this bag. It was long and see- through. He put it over the end of a nozzle. He then put this ground up meat stuff in the top and cranked the handle. As he did the meat came down and into the nozzle filling the skin. He was making some kind of sausage. The next row over in the meat market, you could see the workers taking those long strips of sausage and using string to make smaller pieces but it was still all attached. I’m not sure I’m describing it very well, but I’m doing the best I can with words. Anyway, no more sausage for me ;)
Further into the market we saw several guys standing around. We were again instructed to watch our pockets and hold tight to cameras. Each guy had a rooster. They were getting ready for a cock fight. I guess that’s pretty common in the market. One of the crazy things we found in the market was banana ketchup. I passed on trying it. We did stop and try something. I have no idea what it was called. It was a sticky, sweet rice with mashed peanuts on the inside. J.P. assured us it was clean and very good and it was. He wanted us to try these purple eggs that had been hardboiled in some kind of salty mixture. I, again, passed on that. We found this section and they were all selling coconuts. He had a lady (who had humongous arms) crack up this coconut for us. She then grabbed a straw for us and we drank the milk straight from the coconut. How cool was that? It tasted totally different than I expected. After we had all had our fill (mind you, sharing the same straw) we gave it back to her and she filled a plastic bag with the remaining milk. It was a lot more than I had anticipated because I thought we had drank a lot. She then cut open the rest of the coconut and scraped out all the meat for us. Again, it was totally different than I expected but not in a bad way. We gave the leftovers to J.P. and he was very excited about that. We went into a souvenir shop where I picked up a few things and J.P. helped bargain for a better price.
After that, we met up with the rest of the group and walked down to Magellan’s Cross. Chris and I stayed outside. It was a quite small gazebo thing in the center of town with a cross inside it. I think it symbolized where Magellan was killed. J.P. said it was his first time every actually going there because since he’s a Christian he doesn’t care about that kind of stuff.
We walked a little further and grabbed a Jeep-Me back to the hotel where we ate lunch. Lunch was at Mr. Grill upstairs in the hotel. We attempted to eat a cheeseburger. I barely choked down half and left the rest. Chris gobbled his up and made fun of me for not eating mine. I’m really trying to not be so picky, but there are some things I just can’t get past. Our burgers barely even filled the center 2 ½ inches of the bun. There was twice as much bun as burger. The fries were ok, but again not the same. I’ve been drinking lots of water to keep flushed of any bad stuff that might venture in and washing good all the time.
We showered and relaxed for about 30 minutes when we got a phone call to tell us to be out front of the hotel at 3:45 to go to the Convention Center. Chris doesn’t like when people have to wait on us so we were downstairs at 3:30 which gave me less than 10 minutes to finish getting ready. We got to the Convention Center, which was huge by the way, and I realized it was going to be a long night. Church didn’t start until 6 and was expected to run until 9 and I was going to get hungry. I asked a local if the area was safe. He assured me it was so I alone walked across the street to, yet another mall, find something to eat. I decided to try KFC. I got the original recipe chicken meal. It came with this nicely packaged thing that looked like a biscuit but I had already been warned that rice would await me beyond that paper. It was indeed rice. I headed back to the Convention Center and found a place to squat and eat. The chicken was great, just like home, and I ate about half the rice ball.
Church started promptly at 6. There were over 5,000 in attendance and not an empty seat in the house. There were many standing in the back or sitting on the floor. They had somewhat of an opening ceremony. It was cool. They had a guy sang a beautiful song about Calvary’s love and there was a group sitting in the corner wearing all black except white gloves. They had black lights on them and they made lots of different shapes and words with their gloves, so cool! Then, they exited the stage and had families in their church dress from many of the different countries around the world. As they introduced each country, the family paraded across stage and filled the aisles of the convention center. It was very well done and you could tell how much work was put into the program. I felt like I was in one of those big churches, well we kind of were. We sang congregationals and listened to a famous Japanese opera singer. She is a product of a missionary and so she sings for the glory of God, but she is also a professional singer in Japan. She is in traditional dress and very prim and proper every time I see her. She has a phenomenal voice. The first speaker was from Japan, Yoshida. His testimony was that of a Buddhist background from which he was saved. He still has several relatives that are from the Buddhist background and even a few uncles who are Buddhist priests. What an awesome testimony he has.
The last speaker was Dr. Jesalva, the Pastor here at Bible Baptist Church Cebu. He gave an excellent message on how to become a better servant of Jesus Christ. Wow! And, he and his church are living proof of what it means to be a servant. They have made runs back and forth to the airport for the last week and a half helping people get through immigration and customs. They have been in our hotel lobby exchanging currency. They have helped arrange tours for us and taxis. They have put so much work into making their church even more presentable to all the guests. They are feeding and housing hundreds of guests who could not otherwise afford to be here. They have been amazing and I am sure they will all collapse of exhaustion just a few short hours after the escort the last guest to the airport. The service ended and we were bused back to the hotel. I immediately washed and got into bed but checked my e-mail and did a little Blogging when my eyes were very heavy and I fell asleep. I woke up shaking I was so cold. I guess I woke Chris up, too. He got out of bed and turned the air up and then crawled back into bed and pulled me close to give me some body heat. I quickly fell back asleep and didn’t awake until the alarm went off at 6am.