last blog from the Philippines

It was hard to leave Baguio on Wednesday, leaving the seminary apartment that had become so much like home to us and saying goodbye to Pastor Luis, Pastor Rolly, and Vicar Eric. When we left the bus station, I felt like we were leaving the Philippines....on a bus.... Good thing that wasn’t true because I’m pretty sure we would have ended up on the bottom of the ocean. I looked out the window of the bus as we drove, trying to take it all in and remember all that I could, knowing that this would be the last time we would be driving through the mountains, seeing the Filipino homes.

We are now back in Manila preparing to leave the Philippines for Taiwan tomorrow. I can’t even believe that. We are leaving the Philippines tomorrow. It is very hot here, and once again, we are not used to it. After being in the cool highlands this feels like an oven. It has been at least 88 degrees Fahrenheit when we are going to bed late at night and in the 90’s when we wake up. I have to get used to sleeping without my sleeping bag again. I have trouble getting comfortable when I have sweat pouring off of me, just lying in my bed.

When we arrived at Gloria Dei, where we have been staying when in Manila, the first one to greet us, before we even stepped out of the van, was Buboy’s daughter Gwen. We heard her cute little high pitched voice shout, “HELLO!” as we pulled up. She kept repeating it until we could respond. It was 11:30 at night but she was awake, excited to see us again. It has been good to be back here, seeing the familiar faces of Buboy, Pastor Chris and his daughter, Chelsey, Pastor Levi, Jiggs and Adeling.

Each time that we have stayed here at Gloria Dei, we have been a little more exploratory in our ventures out of the church and school compound. When we were first here our first week in the Philippines, we only went out to the Mercury Drug Store, about 30 steps from the compound. We would buy everything we needed here, including all of our meals. The second time we were here we ventured a little further down the road where the college is located, finding a restaurant called EJ Sizzlers where they serve really good hot Filipino food.

This time we walked down the main road a couple blocks to where there is a Jollibee. Jollibee is the Filipino equivalent of McDonalds but it is much better. We were skeptical to try it a couple months ago, but now here it has become our backup plan, because we know that we enjoy their food, it’s cheap and they have AIR CONDITIONING...which feels glorious in this heat.

Yesterday we got to go to a studio and record a CD of the music we have sang here in the Philippines. There were a total of 28 tracks, including program songs, sing-a-longs songs, and some cultural songs that we have learned here. We thought it was going to be a pretty long and painful process but it actually went really well and we had a lot of fun. There were only a couple songs that we decided to run twice, because of some small mistakes. Pastor Chris was there while we recorded and he brought in his one and a half year old daughter, Chelsey. She is pretty cute!
After we recorded we got to listen to a couple songs from New Dawn 95-96 and New Dawn 04-05. They also recorded in the same studio when they were here. It’s exciting to know that our music will be distributed to the churches that we visited and we hope that it can be a good ministry tool. We also won’t mind being able to share this CD with our friends and family back home.

When we were in Nueva Vizcaya in Kayapa we saw a guy with a monkey on his shoulder. We were hoping we would see a monkey during our time in the Philippines and then there he was walking down the road! We were all pretty excited about this! Here's a picture of the monkey, eating a roll, sitting on the guy's shoulder.


I don't think I have posted a picture of a Jeepney yet, so I figured I better do that before leaving the Philippines. This is one of the ways that we got around the Philippines. Most of the Jeepneys blast loud music and cram as many people into them as they can. The ones in Manila are much noisier that the ones in Baguio. You see them all over the place around here, all decroated differently with their own style.


I can not believe that we have already spent three months in the Philippines. So much has happened and I am thankful for every minute of it. I am not the same person that I was when I arrived here. This has been a stretching experience for me and such a time of growth.

I am so sad to be leaving the Philippines and the amazing people that we have met here. It’s hard knowing that I may never see some of these wonderful people again. I am so thankful though, that through our time spent together God has used us to impact each other. I have seen Christ in the people here, through their generosity, the way they take care of us and the way they love us, and I hope that they have seen Christ’s love in us the way we have in them.

This will be my last blog entry from the Philippines, tomorrow we will be in Taiwan. Even though I am sad to be leaving the Philippines, I am so excited for what Taiwan will bring: meeting many new people, a new culture, new foods, and new opportunities to spread Christ’s message of unity and peace.