We were supposed to wake up early at 4am, but we missed the alarm and woke up at 5pm instead. Thankfully, we completed most of our packing yesterday night. I said goodbye to our apartment and to the security guard (before leaving a farewell gift with him). Henry was waiting for us in his four wheel drive Sportivo downstairs. He wasn't even going to be involved in the plan today. Kudos to him for waking up early to send us off. We, of course, bugged him to tell us his story of how he and Hani got together, as we drove all the way to Las Pinas. Why the early rush? My flight from Manila was around 2.30pm and Allan had to leave early at 11am, so we had a tight schedule to keep. We looked for a landmark (SM shopping centre) and got down at McDonalds. Upon inspection, Henry realised he had a flat tyre. From here onwards, we said goodbye to our last contact from Hope Manila, and he left to fix his tyre. At McDonalds, we had a Big Breakfast. I drew a card for the Brisbane team.
After giving it to them, they also encouraged me to draw something for the couple missionaries, Alvin and Jace. Oh yes, we were waiting at McDonalds for Alvin and Jace to pick us up and drop us off at a nearby church. They had to do it in several rounds because we had luggage as well. We talked with a pastor there.
Okay, our last item on the agenda was to visit a prison and do a Christmas blessing for the prisoners. It was basically a prison outreach. Got you worried there, didn't I? :P Anyway, we could the prison from the church.
It was literally in our backyard. We then walked to the prison armed with only a guitar, some PA equipment, our Christmas get-up and scripts, and a lot of soap. The prison was an unusual building. It was three stories high, the ground floor was the police station, the floor above it were the prison cells for ladies, and the top floor was the men's. On the top floor there were only three cells, each able to house 194, 150 and 130 prisoners each. They mostly slept on the floors but some who were rich could buy a bunk bed attached to the wall. The toilets and showers were all on one side of the wall. The ladies' cells were the same but more...pink. The justice system is quite corrupt, or not efficient at all. Some did not deserve to be in prison but were only held up there because their case was still being processed, and they have been waiting for a long time. Some had no visits from their relatives at all. In a way, our visit to them was a blessing to them. I didn't mean it to sound arrogant, but from the feedback, the prisoners were thankful we came and visited them.
We sang carols to start the program off.
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