A lot of Change

First things first...
Tuesday was filled with many workshops and presenters and we spent the evening session discussing poverty and the realities of Globalization and migration. Here in the Philippines there are not many jobs but a high percentage are college educated so many leave to find work to send money home, and if they decide to stay they could face working full time for $1/hr (that is below the poverty line), and with the Roman Catholic influence (%80 are Roman Catholic) that has banned the sale of contraception and thus booming the population, many live day to day in difficult circumstances. That is pretty boring unless you love global economics so here is what you need to know=
 11Million people live in Manila. 6.6Million of those are in Poverty.

There is a very large gap between the Wealthy and the Poor.

Wednesday was spent visiting an organization that advocates for, educates about, and shelters the poor. It is an Ecumenical Council here in Manila. We went to the shelter house and met several families whose make shift homes they have been living in for more than 8 decades were bulldozed by the government last October. When the residences came out to chant, rally, and protest the demolition Police moved in like a blockade and set off tear gas and used automatic rifles to get them out. One young man, who had just graduated from college, was killed by the open fire of the Police force.
 The government here is technically democratic and works much like ours but corruption runs wild and the Gas, Oil and natural resource corporations pay officials big money to eliminate housing settlements for industrial space.
After morning and lunch at the Shelter house talking to residents we went to the shanty town in the nearby neighborhood and walked through the make-shift homes and we were able to smell both the community "bathrooms" and community "kitchens". It was dirty and damp but as it turns out, as bad as it was it was the best of the shanty towns in the area. The place our director wanted to take was too much of a health and safety liability. Smoky Mountain, as it is called, is so bad that people live in the landfill and eat the trashed scraps. The place we visited was at the least functioning as a shelter from the rain.

Today (Thursday) we saw how the other half lives and, after visiting a 440yr old Cathedral and Museum, we went to the Mall of Asia. It is the second largest mall in the world next to the Mall of America. A few people went on the Zip Line as the day was ending and then we ate at a barbecue restaurant. We finished our day back at Shalom Center in our mtg room where I found out some news...

I forgot to mention earlier that 4 interns didn't make it to the Philippines for training. 1 because of personal reasons, 1 because their visa was denied, and 2 more that were detained by immigration due to racism and bad geo-political issues. Even after much determination by our leaders they were deported home by immigration officials. The one who could not attend because of personal matters was named Sina. She was from Cambodia and was supposed to serve on my team in Japan.

So that left me and Teddy to go to ARI on Saturday.

Until we received word today that Japanese immigration will not allow him to enter the country.

So now it is just me. I was told I will have to go to Japan alone. There are others serving missions alone but I will be the only one doing it in a country that is not my own language. There are 3 individual missions in the US all served by interns from the US. Another Intern is serving in Mexico but she is from Nicaragua and knows the language and environment.

I don't know any Japanese and it is a 3hr bus ride, 40min train ride, and 25min taxi ride to ARI. I am a little nervous to say the least. I have a sheet of phonetic Japanese phrases but I would appreciate the prayers both for me and for our fellow interns who could not make it.