Things are going well here. The day to day stuff takes a while to learn...laundry is done by hand and although they want to spoil me and do it, I need to learn. The hard part for me is they don't really use toilet paper or tissues. There is a faucet with running water and a dipper bucket at most places so if it's just pee I'm good, but we try to carry baby wipes and alcohol cleanser everywhere. Showers are cold water dumped over you (or occasionally a shower head) which actually feels pretty amazing most of the time. If there isn't a shower head it takes forever to just get my hair wet through to get started! Thankfully Jonah got spoiled living in the States so here at the house there is a shower head and usually TP.
The food is pretty good. Every meal has rice...breakfast isn't usually any different from the others. The first few days it was lots of fried pork and that cleaned me out to put it politely. When they realized I like vegetables and am willing to eat just about anything that changed. Most meals consist of some kind of soup. The liquid is spooned over the rice and is quite delicious with a variety of flavors. Jess doesn't eat much fish so I'm saved there!
Life is Juagdan is so much simpler than back in the States. I think some of it has to do with the fact that I don't understand all that goes on yet. The house and the orphanage are right next to each other in what Jess usually refers to as 'The Compound' because the church is also here as well as the two businesses that support their ministry (laying chickens and purified water). Pastor Iggle and Pastora Melina also have a house in the compound. It is always busy around here and that is something I have to get used to as I have not been surrounded by people in a long time. That and my introverted self needs some space at times.
The kids were a bit shy at first, but have warmed up to me. It seems amazing how quickly time flies and that I have been here for more than 3 weeks already! I'm getting a fairly good idea about how the regular routine works, but things could even change by the time I come back in a year. I do know that this has been a good opportunity to meet people and get reacquainted from the 6 year gap since my last visit. I am hopeful it will not take too long to raise the financial support necessary to get started on my way back to this beautiful country.
Just as I was starting to get used to Juagdan and the people around we headed out for 9 days! Jonah helps leading the young people from the church and they have some great outreach activities. This particular trip was a two fold experience and that is why it was so long. Traveling here takes a lot of time. You drive to a port, see if you can get the ferry to the next island and if not drive another hour to the next port. To go to the first event we drove about 2 1/2 hours pre-dawn to a particular port, then caught a 2 hour ferry ride to Cebu, then drove another 2ish hours, found out the boat we wanted was full but thankfully they had another in a couple of hours, that was just a short 45 minute ride, and finally about a 3 hour drive through the mountains of Negros Occidental. We spent 4 days in a very, very rural community where the young people lead a worship conference for a church in San Agustin on the Northern end of the island. We celebrated their church thanksgiving on Christmas day with them. It was quite the feast and activities, but no ham and pumpkin pie!
After this we picked up 6 additional passengers from their church to go to the next event. That meant we had 19 people in all as well as luggage in a Chevy Colorado. You can't do that in the States! Thankfully it was only about a 3 1/2 hour drive to Dawis, Negros Oriental on the south side of the island. Here is was sort of like a cross between the CRC's youth convention and a classis meeting. The pastor from Juagdan met us there and lead the last session while our young people lead worship. Despite not understanding most of what was said or sung I could feel the presence of God and young lives being touched. Pastor Iggle is a very passionate man and isn't afraid to show it! We left there yesterday morning only 14 passengers strong this time! We were inland enough we had a minimum of 2 hours to the first port and thankfully they had boats leaving every half hour because it is a short distance to Cebu from that port. We only waited about 20 minutes and it was maybe a 20 minute ride. We stopped for breakfast and then headed out to get to Cebu City to extend my visa which would have been about a 3 1/2 hour ride. Jonah realized it was a national holiday the next day and we have time to renew my visa, so we were just going to find the closest port to take us to Bohol just to make sure we could get there. Turns out three ports didn't have openings so we ended up in Cebu City anyway. We stopped at the very Western mall for lunch and the rest of the group shopped while Jonah and I found the immigration office just to find out they had closed just an hour before due to the holiday weekend...Good thing I have until the 7th because they won't even open again until the 3rd! Due to the extra load for the holidays we weren't able to get a ferry until 9pm, thankfully it was the closest port to Juagdan though. We finally arrived home at 3 am, nearly 24 hours after our departure from Dawis!
Now we are settling back in to the regular routine, but the local church is having their holiday parties today and tomorrow. Considering the late start to my day (9:00am) I feel very accomplished. I bathed, unpacked, cleaned up the kitchen, cleaned out the truck, and washed equivalent to two loads of laundry... all by 1:00. Now I've been resting and writing this update.
To review a bit about the English program... We have had a few miscommunications, but are working on it. I've heard from a fair number of church members and know I have a lot of ahead of me. There is already a lot of interest even though they know it will be at least a year if not more before the program even starts. I have also gotten a lot of great questions about how things will work for timing and covering all levels. It excited me that at least some people here understand the difficult task I have ahead! Pastora Melina (aka Mama Anging) has been very busy at their store because her boys have been called away to their other jobs so we haven't worked out details yet, but she promised me some time when we came back from Negros. I already have a list of questions for her and hope to get a letter of invitation by the time I leave. I already have pages and pages of notes for planning, I just want to work out details with Mama before I get started.
My biggest prayer requests are for good health to return and time to meet with Mama Anging. While traveling several of us caught some kind of cough and runny nose...hence my struggle with the lack of tissues. I'm on the mend and have finally found the appropriate relief meds as well as a more relaxed schedule. At least 2 of the kids are still sick as well as 2 or 3 of the young people and they have to get back to working after 9 days away. Hopefully by Monday Ken will be feeling better and can watch the store while Pastora and I talk.
I hope Christmas was wonderfully spent praising God for sending his son because without Christmas we don't have Easter! May God bless you all in the new year to come and I will talk to you in 2017!
(Pictures to come sometime in January, hopefully ☺)
