Holy cow it is HOT! Coming to Boracay is an amazing weight loss program.

Right now I am on an hour break so I thought I would run over here and say hi. Our high school team is split in two for the rest of the day. We spent the morning together (with the college team too) working on the building. We were moving TONS (literally) of rock, cutting wire, sweating, digging trenches, sweating some more, working up on the second floor, avoiding creatures that we’ve never seen before. This place is as tropical as tropical gets. I think we should be able to start pouring concrete tomorrow for the second floor, weather permitting. We let the students take an extra hour of break today because it was so hot. (I promised to take care of your babies.)

Half of the team is headed back to do some more construction while the other half heads over to a feeding center to love some people like Jesus. I get really excited to see ministries that have such a holistic approach. There is a tremendous amount of beauty here on the island, but we can also see a tremendous amount of brokenness. Your kids are playing a huge role in the Kingdom of God by building this center and serving these people.

Energy is still high! Thank you so much for your prayers. I will try to get some more pictures up here for you guys, and maybe some videos if I can get it to work.

Gotta go! Thank you for all of the comments. I’ll try to find a way to print them for the kids to see. They’ve been a huge encouragement!

Today was a fantastic day! Almost everyone went to bed by 8:30pm last night, and then a whole bunch of us woke up at around 3:00am because that’s what our bodies wanted to do! I went back to sleep, I don’t know about the rest of them… We started off the day at church. Sean Miles played in the worship band, and then a handful of people from the Calvary crew sang a song for the congregation. We were shown lots of love from the community- they are so grateful to Calvary Church for sending another team!

We split into three teams today and went to three different “feeding centers”. I haven’t seen the other two yet, but mine was smack dab in the middle of a village and hundreds of people came out. I forgot to bring my camera with me to the internet cafe tonight, otherwise I would treat you to some of the pictures. We sang a few songs with the kids, played a handful of games with them, bandaged up some scrapes and cuts, and then served them some food. All of the food from today was donated by a local restaurant owner who just recently started following Jesus. He was there, and you could in his eyes that he was a new man. All of the kids that came today had parents or guardians to go home to. The pastor of the church recently found an abandoned child at a feeding site, and that child now lives with the pastor and his wife. Know that I’ll be doing the same thing if we come across another.

The Calvary students were phenomenal today. All of the neighborhood kids fell in love with them, even before we went down to the feeding site. They treated everyone they came across with love and respect, from the street vendors to the moms and dads on the sidelines all day. If you’re a parent, you should feel proud!!

The highschool team starts construction tomorrow on the FOUR-story (not three) hospital/school/medical center. I can’t tell you how amazing it is that something like this is going to exist here. It is ridiculously hot outside, so I’m sure it will be a challenge. I’ve come to terms with my stench, and I think most of the students have to! They’re drinking lots of water, so hopefully we won’t have to deal with any illnesses!

A few of the students handed me notes that they wanted me to pass along via the blog:

Sarah Norton: “It’s hot! Love you all very much.”

Chantelle Gibbs: “Mom, you’d be so proud. Someone asked me if I was FIL-AM! Mahal kita to you and Gabby.”

Christian Maietta: “Hey Ryan, tell my grandparents I said hello, ok.”

Micah Nellessen: “Hi everybody, thanks for praying for us! We’re here safe and healthy.”

Allee Wolfe: “Hi mom, dad, Steven and Victoria. I love you!”

Ryan Guard: “Holy cow I miss my wife!”

That’s all for now! I have no idea how to make phone calls from Boracay, otherwise we’d be calling you all. We’ll keep you as updated as we possibly can!

Hey everybody, Ryan Guard here. We arrived safe and sound after something like 17 hours of travel time. I can NEVER sleep on planes, but I slept through 8 straight hours of the first flight. We just unloaded and hit the beach for a few minutes, and we’re about to have dinner together as a team. The fun begins tomorrow, starting with church and then… whatever we can do to help!

Keep thoise prayer coming! We’ll try to keep you guys updated as often as possible. We found a little hotel with internet access not too far away.

Oh by the way, some of the kids were elated because we ran into a Filipino movie star at the airport. People were all around her taking pictures, and she stopped to hang with our kids for a few minutes. I have no idea what her name was.

We’re meeting at 4:00 and heading to LAX to embark on our journey to the other side of the planet! Everything is bought, everyone is ready, and heeeeere we go!

It looks like its going to be raining pretty hard our first few days there, which will test our flexibility right away.

today is sunday and most of us got back from hume yesterday. we had a commissioning this morning and the youth group prayed over us as we all stood up on stage and held hands. as the departure day draws closer, i’m realizing that as cliche as it sounds, life as i know it is about to change. i need to prepare my heart for the things God is going to reveal to me. I am so so so ready to go on this trip with the most amazing group of people I have ever met, spearheaded by some freaking rad pastor who stepped in at the last minute. so as i get ready to hit the sack and get ready to pack, i just want to ask that everyone continues to pray for us as we get anxious and nervous and excited these next 4 days and get ready to see some transformed people when we return.

<3chantelle

Here’s a video that another youth group put together after visiting First Love. We’ll get our hands dirty doing many of the same things!

Hey everyone this is Ryan Guard

Just wanted to hop on here and say I am excited and HONORED that I get to be a part of this trip! I hope to get on here and keep everyone updated both before and during our trip to Boracay. Add this blog to your Favorites or your RSS feed to stay up to date!

i think it’s funny how in the word seamstress the word “stress” also appears. i was definitely stressed out on saturday but only for about 2 seconds. saturday was a skirt making festivity at the norton’s for the girls going to the philippines. a bunch of us ran into each other at joann’s and grabbed similar fabric and then headed to Sarah’s where there were a bunch of helpful and experienced mommy’s, two sewing machines, several patterns, and a newly bought game of guitar hero III. sewing isn’t as easy as it looks, but all of them sure do look cute! i like the von trapp family (sound of music) theme we’ve got going on and it was exciting having all those girls there for more bonding time, as cheesy as it sounds. big shout out to all the moms that helped because we definitely could not have done it without you all! and as for the boys, we can make you guys bandanas or something…

let’s go already. i’m already ready for nothing stylish or flashy for two weeks and just plain white vnecks and these skirts and shorts for two weeks straight.

chantelle