Maayong Buntag!!! Orientation and deployment

Hi, its Kaylee. Finally. I am in Cebu City in an internet cafe. We had four gruesome days of training.They put us physically mentally and spiritually to the test. After one night in a hotel(one star) we were driven out to the jungle in a jeep. And I mean the jungle. The boonies. From there we got a bag and a partner. A bag with a little tent in it. The first night in a makeshift tent out by a river in the middle of the Phillippines jungle was probably the worst of my stay so far. Me and my Camotes teammate Leah found ourselves at 2 am flooded by the heavy monsoon rains of the Philippines. Our bedding and pillows were saturated. I have never felt so dirty and wet and gross. We brought our lanterns out and looked around the tent to find our luggage all the way down to our backpack completely emerged in water. Wettest wet. I won't lie, I wanted to leave this place. It flooded so much for about 9 hrs I would say. All night. I probably slept two or three.I am still drying out my luggage.
Orientation included learning some Cebauno langauge and how to share with your people group. There were fifty two of us missionaries out there. We bathed and washed our clothes by buckets. Also, on the last day(yesterday) we climbed a huge vertical playground and I had a panic attack in the air. No joke. It was very high and I was in a harness but it was scary. Then I ziplined over the river from a station across the water. I loved that and did it twice. The games were meant to push us to the limits. They did me at least. We were trained also by a team who volunteers in schools and plays games with the kids and then in turn uses them to evangelize. Also, we went through True Love Waits Training with a counselor. The highlight had to be the five o clock morning wake up time. Nope. Overall, the training was awesome though. I met my team who I am with right now. We are boating over to Camotes in about six hrs. Right now we are just sightseeing.

I have never been so in awe of culture. The people treat us americans like celebrities. The children love us especially. Outside of a Mcdonalds in Davao the homeless would stand outside and do dances for us to see if we'd give them money. It was eyeopening. They sleep in huts and the villages are very poor. the land is beautiful. Mountains and beaches.

Oh, I will hopefully write in a few days from Camotes. Can't wait to see it. I am gonna peace out now. By the way, I am having the time of my life even though this is the hardest thing I have ever done before.