We began our official preparations only three weeks ago and they are already well underway for our trip to the Philippines. Anticipation grew after our training session January 29. Along with our usual meeting preparations, we were joined by Rotary District Governor Alice Kissinger and GSE Chair Bob Lombard, who came to review our progress and see our team in action. They provided valuable feedback, as District Governor Alice led a GSE team to Germany and GSE CHair led a team to Finland. Both gave us also gave us great insights into issues we may expect to encounter on our journey to the Philippines.
We were then joined by some amazing guests from the local Filipino community. Dr. Pedro (Pete) and Salve Servano, a couple who grew up in the Philippines before moving to the U.S. It was a real joy to meet three international students from nerby Bucknell Univesity. Judy and Quinn are from the Philippines. Yiyi is from Burma. Their willingness to share provided us with much insight on their culture and how it compares to our culture in the U.S. We continued our conversations over a delicious Filipino dinner prepared by John's wife Anna Beth that was followed by dessert and what else but the Philippines' favorite activity, karaoke!
We have just three weeks left until we step on the plane and already we are having a blast! Thank you so much to our visitors! It was so great to be able to interact with people of Filipino culture and if most of the people we meet are anything like these people we were fortunate enough to get to spend time with, we are guaranteed to meet wonderful people with the happiest and most caring of hearts. We can't wait!
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