“Home is the really important thing, and always will be.” -G.K. Chesterton
A fond thank you to everyone who asked about the trip. We’ve been back home a few days now, but I cannot explain how hard it’s been to recover from jet lag. The 12 hour time change took maybe one day to get used to going over; but it’s day five now since our return and I can’t seem to shake it. I wake at 3 a.m. and can’t keep my eyes open past 1 or 2 in the afternoon. I’m hoping I can shake it by the time my ordination rolls around.
The last few days in the Philippines were wonderful. Well, nearly. I was sick as a dog on Saturday, and considering they skinned and ate one while I was up the village, that’s saying something. (Warning, these pics are not for the faint of heart; it was the birthday of one of the boys, and they didn’t have money for a pig, so they ate a dog.)
Sunday was perhaps the most memorable day for me; we went to Sunflower village and held the dedication for the church we helped put up there. It was standing room only with most of the village packed in. Afterward, we played games and enjoyed a meal with the people of the village. One of the girls we knew pulled some strings and got us a water buffalo to ride! Then we all piled on to the victory coach and drove over to the Pacific (or the South China Sea as someone corrected me) where we baptized an entire family while shooing away jellyfish. I even got to climb a coconut tree and pick a coconut! (In my shirt and tie, no less.)
Then it was off to the open-air market where I bought some caribow statues, bamboo banks and coin purses made from frog heads. What a wild experience haggling for a price. I kept thinking about how funny it would be to do that at the mall: “Oakley’s for $150! I’ll give you $125 for them…” We ended that day by taking Lorna (the missionary’s wife) and her family to one of the fancier restaurants in town. Even the filet mignon imported from New Zealand was a little under $5. Amazing how different the food prices were.
Monday we flew out to Manilla (not nearly as much waiting as the first time we were there) and stayed at a decent hostel. Much more industrialization there, so we explored and ate food that we were hoping was more like what we were used to. Wendy’s sure didn’t taste like the Wendy’s in America, but Pizza Hut did.
Early the next day we headed back to the airport where we enjoyed a smooth ride to Taiwan. Oddly enough, when we disembarked in Taiwan, a China Airlines rep was holding up a sign with all of our names on it. Turns out they had overbooked our flight and wanted to move us to an earlier flight. We were hesitant, but when they offered us business class for our longest flight (11 hours), we jumped right on it. And what a treat! They may be Communists, but boy they treated us well. Exquisite meals, a personal bag of toiletries, video game systems and then when we did finally reach JFK, they paged us and moved us to the front of the customs line, which was about 500 people deep at the time. My apologies if you were in that line.
I certainly learned a lot on that trip. In fact, I know how much everyone loves bulleted lists, so I’m going to write up one that encapsulates much of what I learned on the trip. I also need to write one more article about Pastor Rey. I haven’t said much about him, but there’s quite a lot to say. I think I was probably most challenged by him. Look for that in next day or so.
In the meantime, I’ve finished uploading the rest of the pictures from the trip. If you’ve not seen them yet, be sure to stop by and take a gander. Please forgive all the cloud pictures. (I’m a sucker for clouds.) Also, be sure to check out my panorama of Sunflower Village and Mount Kanla-on. It’s big, so a two or three monitor setup is best for viewing:
