Clare heads out on 2nd November for four months. If you've missed out on her summer trip, you can read about it here in Part 1 .
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How it all began...
Just over a year ago now my friend Anne came round to the flat where I was living to hang out for the evening. After dinner we started talking about our boyfriends (we were both in serious relationships at the time) and decided to have a pray. We'd often prayed for the boys and the relationships but on this occasion we prayed that if these weren't the guys we were supposed to be with that...
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Home is where the heart is...
...and I know I left a huge piece of my heart in Davao! The children, the team, the communities, the drug rehab boys, all captured my heart and now I find myself in the strange position of not knowing where I belong! I love London, with it's vibrancy, hectic pace and it's where my family and friends are, but now I have a new set of friends and family on the other side of the world too! I l...
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It's good to be back...
It’s only my third day back and already I feel like I never left! Getting off the plane at Davao it felt like I was here just yesterday but I think I’m more excited coming out this time than I was the first time. And, thankfully, the jetlag has been no-where near as bad…
I left the UK Friday evening and flew to Frankfurt for the flight out to Manila. I thought I’d been smart on t...
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Out of the ashes...
So, the community centre in the community that was destroyed by the fire is almost finished and O my gosh, it really took my breath away! The place is HUGE! When I was last here there was a patch of concrete (around 15 feet by 7), surrounded by piles of rubble and sand, a tent type covering and a wobbley bamboo fence hedging us in. Now there is a two story building, with running water, ele...
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Transformed, inside and out...
This trip I decided to take a step back from the street work as my main focus this time round is to be in the communities. There are quite a few SAW’s (Serve Asia Workers, like me) here at the moment and all of them are involved with SO (Sinilikway Outreach, the street-based part of work here) so there isn’t the need for me to be as involved as I was last time. But I decided to still join...
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Celebrations & Self Sacrifice
Twice a week I teach an English class in the same Muslim community where I teach at the pre-school. There are 9 women who come, including the teacher of the pre-school, and we have the both classes in the main room of her house. We sit round the small
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MOREA New Plan...
It’s funny how things turn out. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem to matter what you plan, God has other ideas! There are quite a few things that I’d planned to do on this trip and now I’m here it doesn’t look like they’ll work out and other opportunities pop up instead. The news of my women leaving for Saudi really got me thinking. What if they didn’t have to go? What if there was some way of he...
MOREMerry Christmas!
It feels really weird spending Christmas in a hot climate, it’s a bit like celebrating Christmas in the middle of your summer holiday. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas as I know it!
It’s been a busy time though, there have been lots of parties and I was surprised to find out that the Muslim communities celebrate Christmas as a holiday, but don’t recognize it for being the birt...
MORE7 ways to be sure you're in the Philppines
- Jeepneys & a million taxis
These are one of my absolute favourite things about the Philippines. Most people don’t own cars so traffic mainly consists of jeepneys and taxis. Taxis come in...
MOREBetter is one day in Your courts...
I think there must be a time on every trip that you just want to go home. For me the homesickness hit bigtime on the flight back from Australia. A timely tax refund meant that I could afford the flights from here (it’s considerably cheaper than flying from the UK!) to Brisbane to see an old friend that I hadn’t seen in ten years. I’m not sure if it was being back in Western society, or if...