We’ve finally arrived! At approximately 11:00 PM, our Philippine Airlines jet took off from San Francisco airport. After an uneventful, thirteen-plus-hour flight, our plane touched down in Manila with one of the smoothest landings our group has ever experienced! Our connecting flight took us to Iloilo five hours later, and we were promptly picked up and driven to our hotel by familiar faces from Iloilo Baptist Church.We checked into the hotel and quickly freshened up to go to Mang Inasal for a delicious grilled chicken meal. After lunch, some of the men in our group bought barongs to use for the services at Iloilo Baptist Church.

At 2:00 PM, we headed to Bulabog Puti-an National Park in the town of Dingle for a hiking adventure. We saw many interesting sights including strange spiders, six-inch millipedes, tarantulas and (to the dismay of some) bats. In one cave alone, our guide showed us over 100,000 bats! We covered more rough terrain and endured temperatures in the 90s with equally high humidity. Needless to say, our group was worn out when we were done. The exhaustion is actually a blessing in disguise, as we should not have any problems sleeping tonight, which helps us adjust to the time zone. We ended our day by stopping for dinner at a place called Chow King.

Tomorrow afternoon officially starts the Pastors’ Conference at Iloilo Baptist Church. Please pray that God will bless and use our group, as well as Pastor Rick Martin and this great conference. Until tomorrow, we are signing off.