Christmas Parties

New Year's is fast approaching and will be very noisily celebrated in the Philippines, but we've just finished up some late Christmas parties in the past couple days.  Of the seven branches of the church that we visit, two had their parties on the 25th, one on the 27th, and two on the 28th.  We didn't hear about the other two.  We attended three parties and they were very different than the church Christmas parties we know from home.

At home, the tables are set up and decorated beautifully, there's a good dinner or at least a nice dessert, a nice program with special Christmas music performed, and, at the end of the evening, Santa makes an appearance for the kids.  And this definitely takes place before Christmas!

Parties here, in the branches, are more likely scheduled during the day, even at 8:00 a.m.  But we learned pretty quickly that they don't actually start until about two hours later than announced.  They'll begin with a carol sung by everyone there, and a prayer.  Then the branch president will give a little Christmas message, and then the party kicks in!

 

The chairs have been set up all around the room, but no tables.  The back wall of the stage has been
decorated with the name of the event, and streamers hung on the windows.

The activities/program of the party consist of games for all ages and performances by every age group.  There are relay races of all kinds, cookie-eating races, circle games, and dancing games.  We got pulled into a tomato-toss and did pretty well, including Tony diving to catch a short throw.  It ended when I made a really bad underhand throw that hit the ceiling!  (Fortunately, it was a green tomato that didn't splat!)

The performances are mostly dance routines and the music is always loud!  Not everyone has really learned the dance, but no one cares.  I think they're dances that they've seen on TV music videos.  Every age group is expected to have something prepared, and there are lots of laughs.

 Everyone has a great time, and if things aren't wild enough, someone will throw out a handful or two of candy, and all the kids scramble!  

This all goes on for a couple hours, with lots of loud pop music, until it's time to eat.  Some parties are potluck, some are bring-your-own-rice and the church provides the ulam - - whatever goes on top.  One branch had roasted a whole pig for their party.  All the food was in a side room and Tony went in to take pictures of the pig, which was something new to us.  The woman who was setting things up offered to turn the table so he could get a better angle.  Unfortunately, the legs on one end of the table weren't secure, the table went down, and the whole pig went sliding onto the floor!  They scrambled to get it back onto the table, and no one was the wiser.  (Don't tell anyone!)

These girls had seen me come in with a bowl of star-shaped sugar cookies and immediately became my best friends.

Lots of other cuties there . . .

As things are beginning to wind down, or you think they are, the karaoke begins.  Videoke, they call it here, or more like 'vidjokie.'  Everybody loves it!  So, while some are sweeping up candy wrappers and mopping up orange pop spills, some are singing their favorite popular songs, which, of course, are amplified.  It's funny - - babies can sleep through it.  Older people don't seem to mind it.  Maybe they're all deaf from so much exposure!

Anyway, we went to three parties like that, in about thirty hours' time.  It was a lot of fun, really, and great to see these people in their party mode, but it was pretty good to get outside afterward and hear the quiet!  We're told that New Year's is a much bigger celebration here than Christmas, and I'm thinking that's probably true, or at least, noisier.  As I write this, on December 30, late afternoon, I've been hearing a street party down the block, going on for a couple hours already.  We're told it'll go on until 4 a.m.  And that's just the music - - no fireworks yet!

So . . . Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Philippines!  : )

Work and Play

It's been a busy couple of weeks, with moves of furniture and supplies into three new apartments for missionaries, hanging curtains in those and other apartments, some leadership training, and lots of piano lessons.  And then we were asked to haul four desks and other supplies to a new apartment in Alaminos.  We'd not been over to that part of the mission yet, so we were kind of excited to see some new territory.  It's much farther west, out onto the 'hook' of land that forms the western border of the Lingayen Gulf.

We got a very early start yesterday morning, since the trip would take a couple hours and since the zone leaders there had a narrow window of time that they were available to help.  We drove out beyond Lingayen, previously the farthest west we'd been, and continued northwest.

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 Crossing the river near Lingayen, we saw all these fishing floats.  They don't seem to be manned, just anchored in the river, with huge nets suspended from their poles.

As you get away from the cities, you're more likely to see actual nipa huts.  Many have metal roofs, but these roofs are made of nipa palm leaves. 

We stopped for a minute at Labrador to look at the outrigger fishing boats.

After Labrador and Sual, the highway leaves the coast and heads into the mountains, zigging and zagging wildly for awhile.  (Wish I'd gotten a picture of the sign that reads, "Sharp curves / Godspeed.")

After a lovely drive through the mountains and hills, we drove into Alaminos City and found the church, where several missionaries were waiting.  It was transfer day, some had left for their new areas, and some were waiting for their new companions to arrive.  We picked up the zone leaders and drove to their new apartment.  (Sorry, no pics!)  It was a second-story apartment, but they got the four desks up there with little trouble.  Tony used his new power drill to install curtain hardware and we took care of a few other things there and were on our way.  (By the way, if you're ever a senior missionary in a country where most construction is concrete, don't bother buying a cordless drill.  Get a good one with a cord.)  We dropped off the elders at the church, ran and bought them some curtains, took their curtains back to them, then headed north on a little pleasure trip to Hundred Islands.

On our way through Alaminos, we passed the Oregon Building, of all things!  It's even green and yellow! 

 Hundred Islands is a national park on the Lingayen Gulf, which, to be fully appreciated, requires a boat tour out to the islands.  We decided to save that for another time.  There's a wharf there with lots of passenger boats.  And lots of ladies with baskets of souvenirs.  I finally decided to buy some keychains and was swarmed immediately by six or eight women, all wanting me to buy theirs.  I divvied it up as well as I could.  It was like throwing out one little piece of bread on the ground and have a whole flock of seagulls come after it.

The status of some of these islands must depend on the tide!

This boy's friend was in the water and gave him a shell he'd found.

After leaving Hundred Islands, we took a little side road which promised a beach and, eventually, a waterfall, according to our map.  We drove and drove, through some beautiful country and into a more and more remote, hilly area, on a remarkably good concrete road.  We drove until the pavement ended without finding the waterfall, which must've been up some trail, I guess. 

Rice paddies.

A carabao lounging in a field of rice straw, with fish ponds in the background.

Doubling back to the town of Bolo, we detoured to Bolo Beach, a beautiful little beach in a small cove, which was pretty much like paradise that day . . . a nice, cool breeze, a beach to ourselves, and shady palm trees to rest beneath.

The waves are small here, by the way.

Much of the beach is lined with resorts, which have nipa huts as 'cottages' to rent.

We parked and went out on the beach where there was a row of these funny mushroom-shaped umbrellas.  They had protective mesh over their tops, like hair-nets.

Directly overhead

Someone didn't want me to take his picture lying on the beach, but he took this one while I was snoozing.

Perfect.

 

 

I don't know if we were there for . . . an hour, maybe? . . . but it was heavenly and a perfectly lovely little rest from our labors and a break from the heat.  It was well worth the extra drive and we felt so refreshed for the long drive home and for the continuing efforts in the coming days.

We love our mission!  We love the work we're doing, the people we get to live among and serve, and the knowledge that we're helping with the Lord's work in many little ways.  And we're grateful for the blessings that come with our being here, and this day was definitely one of them.  Feelin' the love!  : )

Jeepney Ride

Our truck is in the shop, getting a little body work done, so we took our first jeepney ride today.  We had a meeting to attend in Mangaldan, maybe ten miles from here.  Since we're new to this, we arranged to meet up with our sister missionaries here in Manaoag, to go with them.

Jeepneys are a remnant of post-WWII days, when the resourceful Filipino people used the chassis of  US Army jeeps to create small buses.  Of course, these are newer.  Every jeepney has a custom paint job and a big name across the front.  It might be anything from 'Rosemary' to 'Desert Cruiser' to 'Las Vegas' to 'God's Gift.'  Each is licensed to operate in a specific area.

To catch a jeepney to a certain town, you wait on a certain corner.  There's no schedule.  You might wait a few seconds or several minutes, but there are lots of jeepneys, so you never wait long, during the daytime.   

This is the jeepney we rode to Mangaldan.  It says 'Manaoag - Dagupan & vice versa' on the side, but we only rode it as far as Mangaldan.  It cost us each 18 pesos one way - - about 40 cents.  You can pay the guy riding on the back or the driver, whenever.  It's all so unstructured, it makes me wonder how they keep track of who's paid and who hasn't.

So, you climb on through the back and sit on one of two long seats along the sides.  At the most, I counted twenty passengers on this jeepney, filled pretty snugly.  Filipinos don't seem too concerned about 'personal space' and, of course, they're small people.  There's plenty of breeze as long as the thing is moving down the road, since there's no glass in the windows, and that's fine.  It kind of reminded us of riding the old Rose City Transit buses when we were young kids - - the old, rattley ones before the days of TriMet.  There's a lot of noise from its motor and everyone else's motors on the road, and the radio playing.  Between towns, the jeepney will stop for anyone waiting along the road, and, to let the driver know when you want to get off, you rap on the ceiling.

After our meeting in Mangaldan - - and, by the way, try pronouncing that without a hard G sound in the middle, like 'singer,' not like 'finger' - - we let a couple jeepneys go without us, because they were too full to accommodate the six of us.  The one we ended up riding was older and a bit shabbier inside.  It was filled to capacity once we got on, and someone was also carrying a large folding table with them, so that stood between the two lines of passengers until its owner got off.  It was tall enough that we couldn't see the people across from us.  You often see all manner of cargo on top of a jeepney, as well.

We thought this 'buckle up' sign was pretty funny, since, of course, you can't.

  The trip took about 35 minutes, each way.

 I enjoyed watching this little princess on the ride home.  : )

Going to church

Senior-couple missionaries are treated like celebrities when they show up to church.  Of course, our first time in each of the seven branches where we serve, everyone was anxious to see who would be replacing Elder and Sister Dinkel, who served here before us.  We got lots of big smiles and handshakes, even from the youth and the little kids.  And lots of questions!  Are the Dinkels gone home?  No, they've been transferred to Baguio.  Where are you staying?  In Manaoag, in the same house where the Dinkels were.  Where from you are?  (Every single time I've been asked where we're from, it's 'where from you are?')  We're from Portland, Oregon, in America.  Is that in California?  No, it's just north of California, by the Pacific Ocean.  (Then they tell us what relatives they have living in California.)  How old are you?  (Perfectly acceptable question in the Philippines.)  How many children do you have?  How many grandchildren?  Oh, and questions about what we'll be doing while we're here - - visiting members?  teaching piano lessons?  I think that I was asked on our first Sunday here if I would do some Primary leadership training a few weeks later.  I've been asked to pinch hit at the piano a couple times (not really a good idea), and Tony's been asked to speak once, just as we were going in the door.

Most of the church buildings are very modern and clean.  Most are H-shaped, with the chapel and the hall are in one wing, classrooms and offices in the other.  Some are air-conditioned, some not, but they're loaded with ceiling fans and windows.  The floors are usually white tile, and the benches are wood, not upholstered.  Some smaller chapels use stacking plastic chairs, rather than pews.  Nothing cushy, anywhere!  Classroom chairs are all of the Filipino-sized plastic stacking variety, too - - not too comfy for three hours, though it doesn't seem to bother anyone but me. 

One creative use of plastic stacking chairs!

We'd bought ourselves a Tagalog hymn book when we were in the MTC and were surprised to see that they only use English hymn books in the churches here.  Hymn-singing is accompanied on piano or electronic keyboard by whomever has enough skill to play from the book, "Hymns Made Easy" or sometimes "Simplified Hymns."  No one in our seven branches plays from the standard hymn book. Each branch seems to have a small handful of beginning-to-intermediate-level pianists, some of whom are now students of mine.  Hymns are directed by one of the Young Women, all of whom seem to have had a little training, and most of them do pretty well.  In the classes, where there are no pianos, the person directing just sings the first line of the hymn, then says, "sing," and we start singing.  And everyone loves to sing the hymns.  They may not have learned them all correctly, having sung them a capella for years, but they sing happily.

The meetings and classes are conducted in whatever language a person is comfortable with.  In Manaoag, where we live, the native language is Ilocano (there are well over 100 languages spoken in the Philippines), and I suppose that's what most of them speak in church, though it's pretty well mixed with English and maybe Tagalog.  It's funny - - most speakers and teachers use English terms for gospel-related words, even if they're speaking another language, so often it's fairly easy to follow.  And when they read from scripture, it's usually in English.  Also, when they write something on the chalkboard, that's in English, because it's a lot shorter.  There are some speakers or teachers who speak only in Tagalog or Ilocano, but mostly we get enough 'Tagalish' that we can kind of tell what's going on.  

 Rainy days . . .

 It seems that women in the church here all call each other 'sister,' whether they're just meeting or are lifelong friends.  (At home, we call each other 'Sister Last-name' until we know each other better, then we just call each by our first names.)  Here, it's 'Sister First-name' all the time, once they reach adulthood.  I'm trying to remember this, to fit in better, but they do have some funny names and it's hard to call someone 'Sister Susie' or 'Sister Lady,' with a straight face.  : )

One thing we've found to be annoyingly common is the children running freely in and out of church meetings and classes.  No one seems to mind that the kids just come and go and spend half the time running around outside, unless they get too noisy.  Teachers prepare lessons for them, but they don't keep them in the classes if they want to leave.  Kids are always coming into the adult classes to get snacks, which their moms readily dispense from their purses.  It's a big cultural difference we're trying to address . . . gently . . . little by little.

But mostly, it's been delightful to get acquainted with the church members here and to begin to realize how much they do to build up God's kingdom in this little part of the world.  Their lives are not easy and, for many of them, just getting to church at all is a sacrifice, but they are so dedicated.  In Manaoag, in particular, Sunday is a big market day, because of all the weekend tourists visiting the Catholic shrine here.  With tiny businesses providing the livelihood of so many here, it takes a lot of faith to close up shop on Sundays and keep the sabbath day the way we're taught to do, but many make that choice.

This is typically how many vehicles you'll see at church on a Sunday, because most members don't own vehicles.  They walk, or hire a trike or pedicab to get them there and pick them up afterward. 

Here's one trike owned by a family.  I counted seven getting out/off when they arrived one day.  : )

We attended a convert baptism soon after we got here.  It was scheduled for 6:00 one evening but didn't start until 6:30, after everyone arrived in the back of one pick-up truck, coming from San Jacinto, the next town over.  There's no baptismal font in the San Jacinto building, so they come to Manaoag for their baptisms.  It was funny to us, though, to see that truck pull up with all those people in the back.  : )

 Neighborhood kids love it when the church gates are open and they can play on the lawn.

So, what are we doing here, anyway?

Our call as 'Member & Leader Support' missionaries means several things, and sometimes I think we're just starting to learn what our job is!

We've been assigned by our mission president to assist in seven branches of the church here in this area.  The Urdaneta Mission covers, pretty much, the province of Pangasinan, with is about 2100 square miles.  The seven branches we serve are in the five towns of Manaoag, Mapandan, Mangaldan, San Jacinto, and San Fabian.  We attend Sunday meetings in two branches each week, and try to meet with branch leaders, also, to see what needs there are that we can help with.  Some of these leaders are fairly new to the church, themselves, and don't have the background that would help them in their callings.  (Remember, our church has a lay ministry - - unpaid and not professionally trained.)  We can provide training and support for these leaders.  Occasionally this is by specific assignment from our mission president, but more often it's at the request of local branch leaders, or maybe that we see a need and approach it.  We're also trying to promote more missionary work among the local members.  So, much of this part of our calling is kind of self-directed.

                                                            Our chapel at San Fabian. 

                                     Some chapels are smaller, like this one at San Jacinto.

I've also been asked to provide some music training.  About 10 women and girls in the branches had begun piano lessons with the senior missionaries here before us, and most of them have continued with me, and I've added a few new ones, too.  I'm certainly no great pianist, myself, but have enough knowledge to help these students, and it's fun.  Most of them have already completed the church's piano course and they learn hymns from the book, Hymns Made Easy, and some have moved on to Simplified Hymns, and they all play in Sacrament Meeting.  Before the senior missionaries started teaching piano lessons here, piano accompaniment in church meetings was pretty scarce and congregations just sang a capella.  So, while at home a pianist is usually pretty accomplished before accompanying in sacrament meeting, here in the Philippines, any level of skill is valued and utilized.

Another thing we've been asked to do is to secure and prepare housing for the new missionaries coming into the mission.  Well, we actually have four assignments involving apartments:

• First, we inspect missionary apartments in four 'zones,' quarterly.  This is to check not only on their housekeeping practices, but also to see if the places are in good repair and if there are any landlord issues.  Tony brings his tools along, because we're always finding faucets or light switches that need repair. 
• Secondly, we've been converting some 2-elder apartments to 4-sister apartments.  This sometimes requires some upgrades and moving in more furniture, etc.  (I'll tell you more about Filipino housing another day!) 
• Third, a few apartments have just proven to be too awful for our missionaries -- repeated flooding, leaky roofs, theft, electrical issues, unresponsive landlords -- and we're having to find better places for them.  This is done mostly by the missionaries and members by word of mouth (no craigslist here), but we have to check out the places they find and get them approved and take care of getting leases signed, etc.  
• Our fourth task is similar:  finding places in new areas where we'll be adding missionaries. With the increase in the number of new missionaries coming in, we've been busy with this, too.  We have new missionaries coming every six weeks, with a large increase in the number of sister missionaries, especially.  This is due to the lowering of the minimum age requirement a year ago.  (Young men can now serve a mission at age 18, rather than 19, and young women at age 19, rather than 21.)  So, these are exciting days in the mission field! 

                                        Getting ready for group photos at a transfer meeting.

Our four sister missionaries here in Manaoag:  Sisters Va'enuku (Tonga), Augustin (Utah), Bonifacio (Philippines), and Palmer (Utah).  Bonifacio and Palmer have now been transferred and replaced.

So, we are keeping very busy, but we are loving this life!  It's a good mix of spiritual and physical kinds of work.  Getting to work closely with all these young missionaries is great, and we love the Filipino people, too.  I love seeing new areas and each new (to us) apartment or house is remarkable in one way or another.  So much of what we see here makes us grateful for the comforts we've always been blessed with.  This is an incredible experience and we highly recommend it!

                                                   Sunset over the river near Dagupan