Day 13 - Wednesday 14th June

Wednesday was a less active day compared to the previous two days of trips/outings. Pastor Ted Tripp was giving seminars over the Tues/Wed/Thurs for the pastors in the Manila area so we went down to the church in the morning to join Richard and listen to them for a bit. We also had some stuff we wanted Richard to take back to the UK for us so we had to get hold of some scales to check his luggage weight. He was just in the limit!

The church has a library (very nicely air conditioned) where the talks were broadcast from the main room so we could listen without taking anyone's place. We helped for a bit in preparing lunch for the pastors (rice again - what a surprise!) before heading down to the mall to buy ourselves lunch. We keep asking if there are things we can do but its a well oiled machine here and often they just tell us to rest! So as it was Richards last full day they encouraged us on this occasion to head to the mall to do some shopping.

The mall we headed to was called Gateway, the one we have been to several times before. Unfortunately its like any other mall we would have at home - it doesn't stock exclusively Filiapino products but day to day stuff. So you kind of wander around but don't buy much. We found a few unique things however including a lovely little Filiapino Christian bookshop which we spent a lot of time in. Almost everything there was stocked in english which was nice. And again the prices everywhere were so cheap. You may disaprove but we ate at Burger King for lunch. But at such prices such as 1 pound 25p for a whole meal, you can't resist, come on! We spent a few hours there before heading back to the church in time for the end of the seminar. Then we all headed back to the homes for dinner (including the Tripps). We spent a few hours with the children before heading back again to the church for the evening prayer meeting. This time it was unfortunately all in Tagalog. But we were able to understand the prayer requests.

The church particularly prayed for its sunday services (including the 4 churches it has planted) and for the main seminar that Pastor Tripp will give this coming Saturday. They are expecting around 300 people to come and so they have hired out a bigger building. Pastor Tripp is going to speak from 9am to 4pm that day. As you can imagine he has had quite a busy schedule but the people here are so appreciative of his teaching. He has done sessions all day Friday, Saturday, preached Sunday evening and did after church fellowship, whole day seminars Tue-Thurs and then all day Sat and all day Sunday. Please pray that God will sustain him in his preaching and give him the wisdom in what to say. He says he's fairly brain dead after most sessions but seems to come back each day with a great freshness and zeal which is fantastic to see. He's given each of us here a copy of his book "Shepherding a childs heart" so that will be nice to read.

A relatively quiet day but nice! Take care everyone. Love Sarah