Mission: Philippines Part II

During the week, we settled into more or less of a routine: the girls and 2 teachers took their shifts in the nursery, and Sharon and I spent our time with the older kids. In the morning, we went to the village school with them. March to around May is actually summer in the Philippines, so the kids just had summer school. Sharon and I tutored the kids in phonics and reading, and some of our girls helped out some days organizing and preparing materials. The school was very small and had very few resources like books and desks, and a lot of the older kids could barely read. The ministry built the school in the community center for the kids at the children’s home, and also some from the village. The ministry has done a lot for the community too: giving them water faucets to get clean water and designing some sewer-ish things.
In the afternoon, we would go back to the home and teach art, like painting, play-dough, or making cards. Two of our girls are very talented in art, so we tried to get them to teach the kids. We also played games outside, and I spent a lot of time playing tag or soccer with the little boys and reading to the older girls. After dinner, we would usually go back over and help them get ready for bed and then go to devotions with them.
One day early in the week, I went for a walk in a few free minutes after lunch while the kids at the home were taking naps. People were always hanging out all over the place in the village since a lot of people didn’t have jobs. But all the Filipinos I met were incredibly open and friendly. I found some kids playing pool on a board, and they pulled me into the game. One of the girls, Sara, was about my age and spoke good English. She took me to her house to meet her family, and we talked for a long time. They were Christians who went to a church started by a Korean missionary. Her little sisters sat on my lap and kept asking if my eyes and skin were real ‘cause they looked weird :^) Because most of them didn’t speak English, they wanted me to learn some phrases in Tagalog, and I promised to go back the next day to see them. The next day, Sara was waiting for me in the street, and she had written out a couple of pages of phrases in Tagalog to teach me, and as we walked around the village, she showed me around and introduced me to her friends and relatives, telling me to greet them and ask how old they were in Tagalog. They all loved that she was trying to teach it to me. For several days, I went to the village after lunch, and I loved that I couldn’t walk down the street without someone calling out to me by name or wanting me to play ball with them.
We didn’t work the whole time though, just almost all of it. One evening they let some of us go swimming, and one afternoon they took all of us shopping in downtown Manila in a big indoor market. It was great to get out for a while, even though most of it was closed for holy week. Because the Philippines was ruled by the Spanish for so long, it is mainly Catholic. It was interesting seeing holy week in the Philippines after seeing it in Spain last year (it was actually pretty anticlimactic). On Tuesday, some of the elders set up chanting “holy songs “in the village right across from the guesthouse, continuing for two days straight stopping only for meals (why meals and not sleep, I’m not sure). Fortunately we had earplugs and fans to help keep us from going insane. Then late Thursday night, I went with another missions team to see a procession going from downtown Manila to the oldest church on a mountain outside the city. Hundreds of thousands of people walk to the church to get blessed by the priest, and then walk back. It was very interesting to see… a few of the people were serious about it, but a lot were just hanging out with their friends and partying… the ones we talked to couldn’t tell us why they were doing it.
The Philippines was very interesting to me. The people were the friendliest people I’ve seen anywhere, and even though 80% live at or below the poverty line, they do not seem to be oppressed like they are in other parts of the world. It was also kinda weird to see the Spanish and American influence there. Because of the Spanish influence in the language and the tropical terrain, a lot of it seemed like something you might find in Central America, but not quite... just enough to throw you off Also, almost everyone speaks English well, which seemed odd. But one of the coolest things was the jeepneys- brightly painted bus/taxis that are old trucks left over from WWII.
So that pretty much covers my trip… a lot happened, especially funny stuff like the girls yelling for their teacher in the middle of the night when a hairy roach crawled across the room and they had no words to describe it, but it was a great chance time to spend with them. I would have liked to see some tourist things, but it was cool to just hang out with the our girls, the kids from the home, and the village people. I think we all learned about service through this trip.