Philippines

For the past two weeks I've been on a crazy adventure in the Philippines. The country is beautiful, the people are some of the friendliest I've met, and the food is quite good.

One of our first stops was this church. It's supposed to be one of the largest in all of Asia. A wedding was actually taking place the day we visited. But the church is so large I doubt the wedding party even noticed the tourists who wondered all over taking photos...

View from the bell tower

Taking photos out the car window never really works, but I had to post just one:

The mountains are amazing. The city where we spent our time is also home to what some call the world's smallest active volcano, which sits in the middle of a lake several hours from the country's capital city.

That second photo above came courtesy of a roadside stop. We paid a guy out tending his cattle about 50 pesos to let us walk down, and then up, a bunch of stairs to get some photos.

We spent one night at the beach in a tree house:

The local market scene, just like in my country, is a busy place to be:

This vehicle is a common form of public
transportation. There's a version similar in
my country, but the vehicles aren't as long.

They're called tricycles, and they
are lined up to take people home
from the market. 

View from a bridge overlooking the market.

Huge veggies!

I tend to be on the picky side about what I eat, but this dessert is delicious. It's coconut sticky rice and they wrap it in a banana leaf. I can't remember the fruit name, and it looks odd hanging from the tree, but it's really good:

Some of the new friends we made live in the compound featured in the first photo. They don't have much as far as material possessions, but they started a fellowship that meets here every Sunday.

The other two photos are the view outside a church that literally sits in the middle of rice fields.

Riding in a tricycle helped us feel more like locals. One of the tricycles we rode in even had wifi-that actually worked!

The Philippines is a beautiful country, but it is one marked by religious tradition. For many people it's less about faith and more about keeping up the traditions of generations.

We're asking that our friends there can help point people to the one who can make life worth living.

Flower Festival

The city where I live is all about festivals and celebrations! And when the locals party, they do it big. Holidays and other festivals are usually celebrated for several days, sometimes even weeks.

I'm posting a few photos from the most recent festival/tourist attraction, which was the flower festival:

Tacos and apple pie

This week I spent some time visiting a woman in a city a couple hours south of me. She is a volunteer English teacher at a Christian center in the city. During her English classes she very naturally finds ways to share the gospel. Some of her classes are more informal, with students just dropping in anytime during a three-hour period for help with their English. During one of these informal classes the woman shared the creation story and the story of Moses. Several students said this was their first time to ever hear about Moses.

She is loved by her students and other teachers. They say that just her presence at the center makes things better.

This lady left her home and family in America to follow the Lord's leading overseas.

Here's the thing: She is 93 years old! And in a couple months she'll be 94. Maybe I enjoyed hanging out with her because she helped me feel young :)

She knows exactly how many steps she has to climb to get from her favorite restaurant up to the sky train platform. But she knows the city and gets around with no problem using the sky train. "If you put one foot in front of the other, you'll get where you are going," she said as she put on her sunglasses and got out her walking cane.

She was a gracious host, wanting to cook tacos and apple pie for me in her dorm-sized apartment (actually, it was probably smaller than a dorm room). "I love to share," she told me as she went down the hall to see if other teaches wanted to join us for lunch.

Her life of faithfulness reminded me of this verse:

"...aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one."

English camp

Earlier this week I helped with an English camp at a temple school. The children who attend this school are all from the same people group, and they come from migrant worker families. The school only goes to grade 6 because by that times most students have to go work and help earn money for their family. 

Last month I helped a team host a Christmas party at the school. We played games and shared the Christmas story. The "stage" for the Christmas drama was actually right in front of the temple. A few young boys who are monks weren't allowed to participate, but they watched us from inside.

For the English camp, the school asked us to help teach the students the English words for the measuring unit they had just learned. So words like centimeter, kilometer, gram, liter, etc. I kinda had to laugh the night I sat down to write a lesson plan on distance, length and height using the metric system, which I hardly know myself!

Several people who live here, as well as a volunteer team from America, helped with the English camp. We taught in the classrooms in the morning and then set up a "market" in the afternoon, when the students could practice using English to buy things and make things. 

A few pics from the day from a friend:

Craft time at the market

Using their ruler to practice measuring 

Busy buying at the market 

India

About a week ago I returned from my first trip to India. "You'll either love it or hate it," frequent travelers told me. "India is an assault on your senses" and "India is an experience unlike any other," they said.

I wasn't really sure what to expect. Actually, I had just read the book and seen the movie "The 100-foot Journey," so I think that's the image I had in my head.

The area I was in definitely had more of the big city feel than I thought. But one day I went out to a village, and another day a local showed me around some markets. Those experiences felt more like the India I was expecting.

One thing that seemed every bit India was the traffic. The number of lanes changed constantly, because cars made new lanes with every (every!) spare inch of space, and the blaring horns never ceased.

I loved "tea time" every day (I LOVE chai!) and the beautiful, colorful dresses of the women.

I didn't have a lot of time for taking photos, but here are just a few.

First, I know this doesn't look like India, but let me explain:

One sip of my chai latte at Starbucks and I knew I was in India. Here, they make GOOD chai. And they DON'T use a tea bag like they do in my country. I went to Starbucks twice and savored every drop. AND, I hit up Krispy Kreme (but only once).

Can't go to India and not take pictures of the holy cows:

  A few village scenes:

And some street shots:

There's a McDonald's sign in the distance.
Some things are universal.

The yellow cabs are called
autos. I was glad for them
because it meant we didn't have to drive!

I have no idea how they sit like this all day:

Lots of Hindu temples and statues of gods:

Signs of Christmas:

Even found some
nativity scenes 

It's hard to tell in the photo, because I couldn't get much closer, but there's a parrot in that little box next to the woman. She was sitting in a line of other people along the street trying to tell peoples' fortunes. Not entirely sure what the parrot had to do with that...

Decorating

When I moved overseas for the first time decorating my house wasn't a high priority. Too many other things, like learning to drive, learning a new city and just adjusting to culture competed for my attention.

Now, I see that taking small steps to make my space actually feel like my space would have gone a long way in helping that adjustment.

I should have done this a long time ago, but finally, some of these blank walls are covered.

This is the elephant wall. Figured I might as well embrace it!

An elephant actually painted the tree on the right.

This picture is on paper known as Saa paper.
It's made from the mulberry flower. 

A fabric I found at the night market. 

Can't have an elephant wall without a North Carolina wall!

Wall hanging from India:

Even if I could read the local language, no way my penmanship is decorative art worthy. My language teacher translated the words "suffering," "endurance," "character," and "hope" and a local artist made these paintings for me:

The couch cushions, which are now a nice neutral green color, replaced some quite awful looking fabric. I braved the day market to get the fabric and a local seamstress re-covered the cushions.

I couldn't find cork boards like I wanted so I made my own:

These are from a big local craft event that happens every week. They just happen to be from the same place where a few months ago a bird pooped on my head and I learned that it's good luck...another post, another time:

I got the clock from a great pottery place in town. And the tree and ornament came via a care package from America.

And the kitchen:

Good thing about writing this post is that I had to clean up before I could take the photos :)