Monday Evening

Everyone was very nice at work today. It was amazing to experience bible study, praise and worship, and stillness within an office setting. The directors took me to lunch today at a place called banana leaf…where you eat your food off of banana leaves! I was encouraged to order boku juice…which I’m pretty sure is a shaved coconut with a straw stuck in it. In the US I imagine that drink would sell for like $8, but I think it ended up costing less than $1. The rest of the food was delicious and the company even more delightful. A fish with eyes was placed on the table…and I just hate knowing the meat I am eating was once alive. In my heart I know it, but I just don’t want it to be obvious. The Filipinos keep saying I need to try balut which is a fertilized egg….aparently you eat it with feathers and a beak…and I’m terrified of being confronted with that experience haha. So far I’m fine with just peanut butter and jelly, although that, like most everything else I have had here so far, is too sweet even for my taste. No need for added splenda here.

After a long nap when I got home, the interns had been planning a delayed superbowl party. Most people had accidentally found out the score, but I still did not know yet. On the way down I had my first very scary moment. Mom and dad – stop reading now…I stepped into the elevator and smelled some smoke, but assumed it was coming from the many cooking smells I have smelled the past few days in the building. As the elevator descended smoke was filling up more and more and I could tell the other people inside the elevator were starting to worry, as well. I didn’t know what to do, but was sure being on an elevator in the case of a fire was the last place I needed to be. I kept flashing back to Jeff Blom at security training in Washington, DC and was sure he would be disappointed in me, but unaware of what other choices I had at the moment. Walking the stairs in that smoke may have made me pass out! I convinced myself that as the door opened to lobby, it would be engulfed in flames. I’ve never been more happy to see the intern Edgar who was waiting for me with Leah in the lobby, fire free. I ended up talking to someone who used to live in the building who said the office building had caught fire before when he lived here. Please continue to pray for my safety, and the safety of others in this building. Being on the 32^nd floor doesn’t leave me with much to do in case of fire. I have since located the fire extinguisher on my floor, and there are sprinklers everywhere, I’m just not sure they work.