Rachel Hampton

I had cheesefries!!!!!! March 15, 2009

But before I get to that (I’m seriously still on cloud 9) let me tell you what else has been happening. I swear, there is some fascination of things happening that involve my rear-end. Tuesday I had another eday. The morning was spent doing ministry training but that afternoon we were on the “car deck”. It’s the front part of the ship where people pass through as they are leaving with their purchases. Many edays consist of hanging out there and ministering to the people. We do dramas, face painting, introductions, and other things while people pass through. Well, two guys came up and wanted a picture. The first guy put his arm around my shoulders. I’d rather they not touch but, ok.  Then the second guy comes up and puts his hand…ON MY BUTT! I was like “woah, how about we put your hand up here” and moved it to my shoulder. Who does that? There are many guys here who just give you the heebie jeebies sometimes. There are also some amazingly awesome people here. So friendly! One prayer request is that there are many guys who cross dress. And I mean A LOT. Sometimes you’re wondering if it’s a guy or girl until you hear them talk and you know. Like anywhere in the world, there are just many lost people so please pray that God will work in their lives.
Friday evening we had swing dance practice again. I hadn’t been able to go in three weeks so was excited to get back into it. I finally got up the courage (with Adam’s necessary prodding) to do an around the world.  That is when the guy is holding you and then swings your legs behind him and then you swing your upper body back around to the front.  It was terrifying and probably looked horrible, but I did it! In fact, I’m pretty sure I didn’t do much swinging. Thinking back, I’d really like to see a video of that. It’s probably Adam just holding my legs as my body slowly moves around to the front.  Maybe I’ll video the next time.  Not that you guys would necessarily see it…the Internet here being what it is and all.  I promise I’m going to upload photos at some point in this lifetime!

One day this week, I was working at the ticket booth when I white guy approached.  He spoke and I could tell he was American.  He asked where I was from and then mentioned he was from Arkansas.  When I told him I lived there for two years we found out that he had lived in Harrison too!  Not at the same time but still.  It is a really small town, what are the chances? I met someone in the Philippines who lived in Harrison, Arkansas.  Sometimes I’m amazed at how small the world really is…

Saturday evening after work, Carola and I planned to go out and watch “Taken” at the local theatre.  Then we found out a guy on the ship had it on his computer.  I asked how it was possible that he had a new release on his computer and he claimed it was an accident….sure!   Anyway, so we watched it in my room.  Good movie! All I’m saying is I will not mess with Liam Neeson anytime soon.  Since I’m sure to run into him in Manila. Those guys were such punks. It’s sad to believe sex trafficking like that is really going on.  Go see the movie if you haven’t.  And actually, I was reading in Ezekiel today a passage that mentioned how we shouldn’t want bad things to happen to our enemies or those that do wrong but pray that God would change their lives. I felt really convicted. I mean, you root against the bad guy in movies but what about in real life? I have to be honest, I want evil people to get what’s coming to them. I don’t ever find myself praying for them that God would radically transform their hearts.  There is one guy in particular that has hurt someone in my family. I have not once prayed that God would work in his heart.  Instead I’ve been thinking bad of him and hoping he gets hurt in some way.  I know that’s not how Christ wants me to react. At the same time, I’m not sure I’m in a place to pray for him sincerely.  But it’s definitely something to think about and adjust in my way of thinking.  No one is beyond the Lord’s reach. Think of Paul…he did amazingly horrible things to Christians before he, himself became a Christ follower.  If his life before Christ was made into a movie, I’m sure we would be wishing he was killed brutally.  BUT look at what he accomplished once God got ahold of him. Wow.  His books in the Bible are among my favorites. How many Christians back then were praying for his salvation? Maybe there were many and look what happened. Our prayers can move mountains. Instead of thinking bad about those who hurt me or my family, I pray that I’ll be able to consistently pray that the Lord would get ahold of them.  Tough lesson, whew.
Let me move on to something more light. Yesterday was my day off.  In the morning I went with one of our local volunteers to her church.  She is the sweetest girl, Elisa. We went and got breakfast (yay pancakes finally!) and chatted for awhile before heading to church. She is 33 but looks about 21.  We got to talk alot about God keeping us in this period of singleness and just encourage each other to wait on God’s timing.  It was a really great time.  Her church was really nice.  The people were all very friendly and welcoming. It was more charismatic so definitely different than I was used to. The first song of worship was upbeat and they had four girls enthusiastically doing a choreographed dance in the front.  That was cute.  And the pastor was hilarious.  He spoke in Taglish, a mixture of Tagalog and English.  So I caught about half he was saying.  I didn’t agree with all he spoke about regarding conservative churches and charismatic churches, but I enjoyed being in the fellowship with other believers.  I came back to the ship afterwards and then headed out with a small group to go eat at TGI Fridays.  Adam and I were aching for some American food.  Also with us were Carola, Crystal, and Alex (all from Australia) and Josh (American/Korean/Chinese…too hard to explain). Oh. My. Gosh.  The food was sooooo good.  I had a nice, juicy, huge cheesy bacon cheeseburger.  Yum.  And they had CHEESEFRIES! I could hardly sit still i was so excited.  There is no ranch in this country and as everyone knows…the ranch is essential to good cheesefries. I thought “well, it’s an American restaurant…maybe…”  And they had it!  And they were delicious.  We had fun just hanging out and talking and then walked to a differnt part of the mall (oh yeah, we were at the mall of asia) to watch people fall at the ice skating rink.  And we did catch some good ones.  It was fun just to watch the beginners struggling to stay standing.  There was one girl who apparently face planted by the wall (sadly, I missed that part).  Well the whole rest of the time she just stood against the wall, not moving. After awhile I commented that she wasn’t exactly ice skating.  Adam pointed out that yes, she was instead ice STANDING.  We had a good laugh about that one.  It will be the next Olympic sport.  “And now representing the Philippines in Ice Standing…”  After awhile hanging out there we stopped at the Hypermarket ( a huge supermarket) for some junk food and then headed back….with the craziest taxi driver known to man! I seriously thought I might die.  But I didn’t.  I lived to create another amazing blog post for the masses.  And now I’m off to lunch.  This girl is hungry!