Sunday, January 8th - Our last day on the build site but first stop, Mary Immaculate Church for Sunday mass. We all got dressed up for mass, especially the boys. Off to see the historical Bamboo Organ Church before heading off to the build site. Now off to the build site for our last day... Continue Reading →

Saturday, January 7th - Here's the plaster work from yesterday, still drying. Today we put a special sealer on the plastered wall prepping it to be painted tomorrow. Now that we've plastered the outside, it's time to work on the inside. One of their workers said that it would take them 4 days to finish... Continue Reading →

Friday, January 6th - Now that we honed our plastering skills with those planter boxes yesterday, time to do a whole wall. We had a huge need for concrete today so some of us were mixing around the clock. For plastering, we needed to use smooth sifted sand to add to the concrete The hard... Continue Reading →

Thursday, January 5th - We're starting to get into a good routine now and we take on new jobs everyday.  We also begin to notice the homes evolving as we see our work actually starting to make a difference. Today we learn a bunch of new tasks: New Task 1 - Plastering By the end... Continue Reading →

Wednesday, January 4th - We're ready for Day 2 of the build.  We know we have to work even harder than yesterday if we want to reach our goal. Today we help build a staircase from scratch. Step 1 - Mix rocks, sand, and concrete. Step 2 - Add water and mix Step 3 -... Continue Reading →

On January 3rd, we started our build at the ANCOP site after a morning orientation (history, mission statement, organization structure, goals) with the ANCOP team at the hotel.  We traveled to Las Pinas city where we will be helping to finish ANCOP's Markham Village. We will be helping finish units in block 7.  The entire... Continue Reading →

A brand new second day of the New Year started off with a trip to a local zoo. Thankfully it wasn't very busy when we went so we were able to have the zoo entirely to ourselves! There were many interesting animals to see during our visit! Here's some pics of other animals we saw... Continue Reading →

Tired from our night out enjoying New Years Eve at the SM Mall of Asia, we toughed out a 4 hour car ride (which was supposed to be 2 hours) to a city in the Philippines called Tagaytay (considered one of the most beautiful cities in the Philippines). We were taken away by the breathtaking... Continue Reading →

New Years Eve in a different country is something many of us have never ever experienced before! Fortunately, we spent our day in the largest mall in the Philippines: the SM Mall of Asia. Some of us started off skating at the indoor rink inside the mall just to remind us of the weather our... Continue Reading →

Our 3rd day in the Philippines was entirely made up of a city tour of Manila and surrounding areas. First stop: Greenbelt The shot below is in front of an outdoor chapel where we were able to individually pray and reflect. Our next stop was at the Manila American Cemetery. We learned that most of... Continue Reading →