Our week at PYC.

Jam was asked to do opening prayer.

Our week at PYC flew by! It's no wonder, really, our days were scheduled so precisely that every moment was busy. Our days started at 6:30 am. We'd wake up, get dressed and run down to the cafe for breakfast. From 7-8 am they had this United Prayer for anyone who wanted to go and then at 8:00 on the dot (pretty good for Filipino time, lol) they started the Morning Devotional, which was usually done by a guest speaker or one of the two main speakers (David Asscherick and Shawn Shives).

Allison back at the room
tired after a LONG day.

The Morning Devotional went from 8:00-9:00, then David Asscherick would go up and start the Plenary Session from 9:00-10:30. Then right after (literally RIGHT AFTER. No time for bathroom breaks, or to stretch your legs.) Shawn Shives would go up and start the 2nd Plenary Session and that went from 10:30-12:00.

Mmm...good thing we love rice ;)

Then we had a lunch break where we would head to the cafe for a delicious meal of rice and whatever they decided to cook to put on the rice. lol ;). Lunch break was from 12:00-2:00. We usually spent the ENTIRE time sitting in the cafe talking with our new friend Ken, until the cafe workers would kick us out so they could clean. Then from 2:00-6:00 were the different workshops. Altogether they had 8 different speakers for the workshops and they each taught different subjects and you could only choose 2 workshops a day to go to. Needless to say, it was hard to choose which ones to go to.

One of the days there was a wedding
in the church, so we had to fit a group
of 700 into a room that could only
hold 200. It was a tight squeeze.

After the workshops from 6:00-7:00 was supper. We never really ate supper but we would still go to the cafe just to chill and talk with people. Then from 7:30 to 9:30 was the night meeting by David Asscherick. We usually ended up staying in the church talking with people till about 10:00, then headed back to the dorm where the 3 of us would get ready for bed and talk about the interesting things we had learned that day. So we didn't really get to bed till about 11:00-11:30, just to start it all again the next day at 6:30am. So our days were kept pretty busy.

We LOVE the names here. "If I were Filipino, I'd want my name to be Gorgeous."~Allison 

On our first night at PYC, while we were walking back to the dorm after the first meeting, we met this guy named Ken. He was SOOO interesting to talk to. He is from Vancouver, Canada but had been canvasing throughout Southeast Asia for the last 4 months. He shared with us his testimony and some amazing moments in his walk with God. After only knowing each other 5 days, we became really good friends.

It seems EVERYONE in the Philippines is extremely Musically Talented. We heard some of the most AMAZING music during our meetings.

The last day of PYC was Outreach Day. Pretty much we went door to door in Manila and handed out pamphlets and asked people if they were interested in having Bible studies. We were both a little leary of outreach 1. Because neither of us had done it before and 2. Because we would have to be separated. However we got enough nerve built up and we decided to go with our different groups. Sam was paired with a guy named, Rommer Al who spoke tagalog. “Ok” she thought, “this is going to be easy I’ll just follow him and let him do all the talking” After visiting 2 or 3 people. Sam started chiming in the conversation. Trying to build a relationship with these people in the short 4 minutes we would talk to them. The PYC people gave us flyers and pamphlets to hand to the people and then surveys that we could conduct with them and contact sheets if the they would maybe be interested in Bible studies. We had like 30 contact sheets, which seemed like a lot. “There’s no way we’ll fill all of those sheets up”,Sam thought to herself. So Sam and Rommer Al were brought to a part of town where the people's shacks were like right on top of each other. This neighborhood was bustling with people. We stopped at one house and talked with 3 ladies. They seemed moderately interested and one even gave information to have Bible studies. Then we came upon a couple of ladies on one side of the street and on the opposite side was a group of men surrounding a pool table smoking and drinking. Sam thought in her head “ Well we’ll just talk to these ladies, there is no way these guys are going to want to here what we’re saying” So we started talking with these ladies. Right away when they found out what we were doing they got Sooo excited. The first couple ladies were giving there names to Rommer Al to be put on a Bible study list, I just kept conversation going with them while he did that. One lady asked me “So are you going to come back this week still to give Bible studies??” She was Sooo eager to hear about Jesus. Soon I looked around and about 30+ people were surrounding us. Wanting to know what we were doing and interested in Bible studies. So Rommer Al started handing out the contact sheets for the people to fill out themselves. We handed out all 30 of the contact sheets and people filled them out and handed them right back. We decided to pray with the large group and since we were out of literature we started to walk back to the bus. Right before we got to the bus a man with no shirt and a big beer belly came running after us “Wait, Wait!” he yelled “You forgot ours”. I was Sooo happy to see it was one of the guys that was playing pool. I felt so horrible that I didn’t think that the guys would be interested in Bible studies and didn’t even give them a chance to learn about Jesus. God really taught me a lesson that All his children should be given the chance to learn about him. The outreach really touched our hearts and opened our eyes. It was a wonderful outreach experience and we will gladly do it again.

Over the course of 5 days we had the pleasure of listening to 9 sermons by David Asscherick. It was incredible. He is such a gifted speaker and can explain the most vague subject so perfectly. It was such a blessing to hear him preach. One of the days we accepted a baptismal appeal but seeing as to how we had already been baptized and we don't live in a Filipino conference, we weren't able to be baptized at PYC. But we are making plans to be re-baptized when we get home, in the presence of our family. We also accepted an appeal to read the Bible all the way through in the first 3 months of the New Year. So that will keep us pretty busy. We were also able to talk with David Asscherick personally. Since we stuck out like sore thumbs in a crowd of 700 Filipinos, he was curious to know our story and what brought us to the Philippines. He's a very interesting character and it was great getting to know him and listening to him preach.

Talking with David.

The last night of PYC was filled with taking pictures and exchanging email address with people (Some that we had never met until they asked to take a picture with us.) But it was alot of fun!

Jam, Monica, and Us in front of the PYC sign.

Some pictures of us and some of our new friends.

David Asscherick, his wife Violetta, and Us.

David didn't want to believe that Sam was taller than him. However, she beat by an inch. lol.

We can't explain enough, how much of a spiritual revival PYC was for us. It was such an amazing experience and we're so happy we were able to be apart of it. Tomorrow is our last day in Manila and then we head back to Palawan to celebrate Christmas. Till then...

~Me and Her