This one takes the cake...

I think this one is my favorite scooter name yet.
Drum roll please....

the 'Spanking' .. (The dreaming touring motor with spanking)

Philippines! (a look back)

So this actually took place about 20 days ago now. But I've been awaiting photos and time to write this out before I make a post. So here it is... the awaited tale of the Philippines trip.

With our visa status about to expire Melissa and I had to flee the country.. and do so as cheaply and quickly as possible. The cheapest option being the Philippines. Coincidently, the brother that lives in the apartment above us also needed to do his visa run, so we all bought tickets to Manila.
The Philippines has a reputation for being a very poor country, regularly stricken by natural disasters, and not the safest place on Earth, especially for foreigners. The general review given by most people was "Watch your purse... pretty much everyone is looking to rip you off or mug you. Especially the airport employees. And don't go anywhere alone." So, with this in mind Melissa and I were happy that we had Nick to accompany us. Our plan was to spend most of the day at the Philippines Bethel and get a tour, but we weren't able to get through to our contact at the Bethel facility, so we had no address, directions, or apointment. But as it turned out, while we were waiting in line at the airport we ran in to a sister standing in line for our same flight doing her visa run as well. She is a pioneer from Czech Republic who is going to Kaohsiung English Cong. (which is the south end of Taiwan) She was headed to Bethel as well, and the branch had arranged to pick her up from the airport. So we were able to meet the brother that picked her up and get the necessary info. Jehovah came through once again!
We took the red eye Wed. night and arrived in Manila at about 3 am. For the next few hours we hunkered down in a couple restaurants and coffee shops near the airport and watched all the trannys and college kids wind down after what I expect was a long night of partying.
Around 8 a.m. we hopped in a taxi and headed for Quezon City where we would arrive at the Philippines Bethel. The facilities there were very nice, and the tropical surroundings and warm air was much like being back in Hawaii. As soon as we walked through the doors, everyone that we saw came right up to us and talked with us. By the end of the day we felt like we had met the entire branch. The feel of this Bethel was so incredibly warm, friendly and welcoming. And much more laid back than we expected. We got to meet many retired missionaries that had served all over the world, and many sisters who knew our friends in Taiwan. It was so encouraging to talk to all of them and listen to their stories. Then we got to take our tour, we watched a short video introducing the history of the branch which was very interesting. Then toured the facilities. It was really incredible to learn how immense the growth has been in the Philippines, but it seemed like every department we went to we were being gently nudged to come back and serve there. There is a big need for help, with over 7,000 islands, 3,000 congregations just in Manilla, and many languages they have an enormous task. The branch started with 2 bethelites in the 1930's and has grown to almost 500. They have only just completed translating the first volume of the Insight book. And the latest project of the branch is providing literature for deaf people. Because all of the literature had been presented in ASL up till now, they are developing a much more useful FSL (or Filipino Sign Language) system, and congregations are starting to form. There are over 220 deaf publishers in Manila, and more are coming in to the truth every day. We got to meet an awesome deaf brother that worked in the laundry department, and got to see how their sign language differs from ASL. They just released the very first FSL brochure at the last convention, which was a huge triumph for the branch.
We had the privelege of having lunch with the Bethel family (which was delicious!) and afterward a brother and his wife invited us to their room for coffee. We got to visit with them for a while and get to know them a little. They were really cool, they made us feel right at home and we all got to share a lot of laughs. To top it all off, the brothers arranged for us to be picked up by a local Elder who drives a taxi for a living and had him take us on a tour of Manila. He was so sweet, he drove an hour out of the way to pick us up despite the fact that the streets had just flooded from the rain, and then took us all over the place. He spoke a little English which was helpful, so he gave us a little insight into what was going on around us.
Manila is amazing. Picture something like a mix of the poorest parts of Mexico and Jamaica. There are colorful shacks and buildings everywhere, the streets are filthy, the place is total slums. But it's full of life. There are sooo many people. And I thought the roads in Taipei were crazy... this place blows Taiwan out of the water. Imagine driving down a freeway like I-5 with just as many cars, people walking around in the road dodging vehicles and trying to sell you vegetables or bottles of water while you're stopped. The crosswalks are wherever you find a space between rushing cars. It's a lot like an insane game of Frogger. Then there's the Jeepneys, these are like really old-school metal buses that have been customized and gutted and painted all kinds of colors. People who own them are the public transportation system. We would see them pull up on the side of the road and 9 or 10 people would run and cram into the back, some hanging off the back end. Then there are the 'Tricycles' which are either a bicycle or motorcycle with a side car. These are sort of like man-powered taxis. And although the side car is only big enough for about one person to sit in comfortably, I saw some with 7 to 8 people hanging all over them going down the road. These guys would weave between cars and then suddenly turn around and head in to oncoming traffic, then shoot out on to a sidewalk. It is absolutely nuts. There are lines indicating the lanes, but I never saw anyone stay within them for more than about a second.
The brother drove us through some reeeallly shady slums. If you want to see poverty, this is the place to see it. Shacks, which are basically sheets of old rusty aluminum screwed together, are literally stacked on top of one another making this elaborate rats nest of shantys. I would have liked to take more pictures but the Brother warned us that we should keep our doors locked and put our cameras and purses somewhere they wouldn't be seen. So we complied. I'm glad we were in the safety of the vehicle to be honest. As much as I'd have liked to walk around and see more, I'm fairly certain it would have ended in one of us getting mugged.
On the other side of the city though, huge modern buildings and giant shopping malls tower over everything. It's like day and night. We drove through Ft. Santiago and Intramuros which are historical ruins, monuments, cobblestone streets and old Spanish style buildings from pre-war times. Then when we asked the brother to take us to a place where we could eat authentic Filipino food, he drove us to the Mall of Asia and left us at a restaurant in the food court called KKK. It wasn't exactly what we had in mind, but the food was good, and we figure he probably had our best interest in mind by not taking us to any restaurants in the more dangerous parts of town.
After dinner he took us to the airport and we flew back to Taipei. We arrived home about 2 am, making it one LOOONG day. I think I was up for 43 hours straight. But it was well worth it.
Here's some pictures!

Bethel tour: Bara, Melissa, & Nick


Peyton and Shulamite Santiago: Bethelite couple that hosted us.

The Bethel grounds










The infamous Jeepney

More! from the 'My Scooter Baaadd' collection...

Here are a few more gems...

The 'Yup'. (just for you and me)

the "Herself 125' (not sure what the thinking was behind this name)

the 'Heroism 125' (powered by pure gallantry. Not however a reflection of the operators driving habits)

the "Top Gun" (status, stylish, sporty... obviously.)

the "Sniper"... (Just for wind cutting.... nuff said)

The week in review

To update you all on the last 2 weeks...

* The call I had in the park two weeks ago... (refer to the post entitled "A little taste of the field") We weren't able to meet up last weekend due to bad weather, but she texted me this week to make sure I would be there to bring her the book 'My Book of Bible Stories'. So Melissa and I got up at 6 am, did early morning witnessing in a nearby park, then commuted to the other side of the city to find my RV. We only had about an hour to locate her in this huge park, and when she didn't return my text message and we couldn't find her anywhere- I started to get discouraged. We had come a very long way and missed meeting up with the service group two weeks in a row just to find her. An hour had passed, and after praying to Jehovah to help me find her we decided to sit on a bench for just 5 more minutes and then we'd have to leave to make it back to the other side of town and meet the group.

Four minutes and 30 seconds later I heard... "Miss Katy!! Miss Katy!!! I found you!!"

She had run out of time on her phone so she couldn't text me, but her employer let her come to the park and find us. She was so happy to see us and to receive her new book. I also gave her an invitation to the meeting to which she said she would really love to come. And when I asked if she had gotten a chance to read any of the Bible Teach book yet she said "I've already read the whole thing! I read it before bed and when I wake up in the morning." Needless to say it was well worth the effort to get there, and we're hoping to bring her to the meeting next Sunday. I will keep you all posted.

*The laundry day fiasco- I'm beginning to think that our landlady (or Fángdōng as we've been calling her) is one of those all-knowing... all-seeing old ladies. She is so sweet, she continues to drop by unannounced to make sure we're okay, or to do little random favors. (For instance we heard rattling on our front door the other day and opened it to find her tying an old shoe-lace to our screen door handle so we would be able to open it more easily) But it seems like she knows exactly what things Melissa and I screw up and is there the next day to ask about that very subject... coincidence? I think not. So of course the day after we had to ditch our soggy blanket in the alley (several blocks from our house mind you) we hear a knock on the door and in walks the Fangdong. The purpose of her visit? To see how our blankets were working out. In our usual game of Chinese charades we tried to tell her that we were having it washed. To which she replied (in Chinese) "Well aren't you going to go get it?! You can't leave it in the laundromat or the dump trucks might take it!" So Melissa tried to explain that we had it under control. And the next thing out of her mouth was something along the lines of "Make sure you take the cover off and don't try to wash the whole thing, it will be very heavy! I will come back tomorrow and make sure it's okay" At this point I was having a very difficult time keeping a straight face. And I think Melissa was desperately trying to figure out how this woman knew so much.

So of course a midnight-ops run was going to be necessary so that we wouldn't hurt her feelings after all the trouble she went to forcing the brothers to give us the blankets and all. So we went back to the alley, and it still hadn't been picked up thankfully. Melissa took the cover off and we went home. She will be stuffing it with other blankets just in case the Fangdong comes over to check up again. *sheesh* (Oh! but in good news- we received our water bill yesterday, which was a little sticky note with some Chinese scribbles left on our door, we owe a whopping NT$15 for the month's water- which is equivalent to about 49 cents in the US. And that's even with a severely leaky toilet! I love this country)

*Work- The sister who actually introduced me to this job just quit, so I get to pick up two more days of work. Thankfully, they will let me leave early on Thursdays so that I can make it on time to meeting. Also, an interesting situation occurred yesterday when my boss left the days lesson on the table for me to teach to my small class (mostly advanced 15 year olds who speak and comprehend quite a lot of English). The assignment was 5 pages of Christmas vocabulary and the entire Christmas story of the baby Jesus, the manger, and the whole distorted inaccurate fable. I thought... 'Oh. Great.' And of course I didn't have any alternative material available. The story sounded very religious and of course was painted exactly how Christendom tells it, which is all new to these kids anyway because none of them actually celebrate Christmas. So I figured- alright if this is what they want me to teach, then I'm going to drop some knowledge on these kids. (One of the beauties of teaching in Taiwan is that there are very few rules and regulations as to what's considered 'politically correct teaching methods', which is why they can even teach such a religious piece of material in the first place) So for the next hour I helped the students to dissect the story, correcting any wrong grammar in the text (which only lent to the story's incredulity), and corrected any wrong facts as well as added the true facts in. Then I asked the class questions like "So what does Santa Claus and the tree have to do with Jesus' birth?", "Was the bright star actually a good sign or a bad one?", "Do you think it's good that parents lie to their kids about Santa? And why?", "Does it make sense that shepherds would be out at night during the dead of winter?", "Why do you think Dec.25th was chosen as the date?", etc. These kids are sharp, and caught on right away that these were all logical reasons why the holiday is not based on the Biblical records. I definitely saw some lights go on, and by the end of the hour they had been taught the REAL story of Jesus' infancy, King Herod's true intentions, what astrologers are, and what December 25th is really tied to. So all in all, it turned out to be a pretty good class.

That's the updates for now. I know I said I would post a blog about my trip to the Philippines, and I will! Just waiting for pictures from the brother we went with. Stay tuned.

Pictured below: Another unique service territory we got to work this afternoon- Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall.

Early morning witnessing with the Wanhua Chinese Cong.

Melissa in front of one of the massive buildings at C.K.S. Memorial Hall where our group preached today.

The dreaded laundry day strikes again...

Since arriving in Taiwan I would say about 50% of our experiences with laundromats have been a total disaster in one way or another. Laundry day has become a dreaded event, usually put off until the last possible moment. But I think today's experience takes the cake.

This is our first time utilizing the laundromat in our new neighborhood. It's not quite as conveniently located as the last place we lived, in fact it's about a 20 min. walk from our apartment. So Melissa and I waited until we had turned everything inside out for the second time before we embarked on our pilgrimage to the 'Asian Laundry' (as it's so aptly named)

{As a side note, it has gotten very cold here over the past few weeks so our little old landlady dropped in one night, rattled off something in Chinese, and forced the Taiwanese brothers that live nearby to give us some of their heavier blankets. So they obliged. They are more like foam mats with a blanket-like cover than actual blankets. I'm pretty sure one would suffocate if they actually slept under one of these things. They are heavy and dense, and of course they smelled like they'd been in a mold-infested storage closet with moth balls for an eternity. Thus the following events occurred... }

Melissa refused to use her "blanket" because of the smell, so we took it with us to the laundromat. After much debate on how to best handle washing it, Melissa decided to put the entire thing in the big washer, cover AND mat. Within about 2 minutes, we observed that we could no longer see the blanket through the window on the washing machine, it was just a thick white meringue of soap. We also noted an error message popping up every few seconds on the display.

"How much detergent did you add in there Melissa??"

"Ohh boy. Uh, I don't know. I didn't think it was that much, but I stuffed that thing like a sausage."

"Why has the machine been stuck on 11 minutes for the past 8 minutes?"

"Crap."

The machine would barely get through the load, and we knew we'd have a disaster on our hands if we opened the door. Fortunately someone had left a small styrofoam box with a lid (very randomly) in the laundromat, so when the machine finally gave up we opened the door and attempted to scoop as much foam and water into the box and run it out into the street. This of course barely put a dent in the amount of water that poured out of the machine. The floor was now a lake with foamy islands coasting by. Both of us tried to extract the now sopping wet 'blanket' from the machine, which ended in us both getting soaked and slipping all over the floor. We threw it in a rolling basket and decided it would be best to try and wring it out in the street. Problem was that it now weighed about 120 lbs., I never knew anything could hold that much water, it was like a giant bladder. So we rolled the basket behind a parked taxi cab and Mel proceeded to 'smash the grapes Italian style'. We flooded the sidewalk with foam and water. Both of us knew it was only a matter of time before someone would come over and start yelling at us in Chinese, but people just mostly stared. (It's not the strangest thing I've seen happening on the street here)

We decided it was best to flee the scene as soon as possible, so we packed up our stuff and tried to bag up the soggy blanket, of course the bag quickly tore right down the middle. So we decided the best move would be to find an alley and ditch it. So with both of us trying to carry the dripping monstrosity down the street, we found a suitable alley and dropped it. (Not to worry. This is how you dispose of odd garbage here, find a trash can and throw it next to it.)

So now Melissa is back to being blanketless, and I am glad I decided that smelling like moth-balls in the morning was better than trying to wash one of those beasts.

I think we might seek out a different laundromat for next time. I'm not sure we could show our faces at that one again.

*sigh* ...

(photos...)

"smashing the grapes"

Pre-flood...

"Maybe if you jump on it"

... I think this is working.

A little taste of the field...

Today was one of the best service days ever. I placed 9 magazines 1 brochure 1 book and possibly started 2 bible studies. We preached in this huge beautiful park in the city and then went through the Jade and Flower market nearby. The brothers have started to take a home-made literature display on wheels in the field to see how successful it is. It is loaded with the current magazines in 5 different languages. They just stand nearby and watch as handfuls of people take the magazines all on their own. I think they had to refill it twice today.

I had a cool experience at the end of the day- we were leaving the territory when I spotted a lady who looked very familiar. I ran up to her and said hello. It turns out she is a Filipina that a missionary sister and I had placed magazines with a week or two before. So I asked her if the sister had gotten in contact with her yet, but she said she had lost the sisters phone number. So I gave her mine and told her I'd like to bring her more magazines. She said "Yes okay!! I really want that book too.. the small one about the Bible", so I pulled out a Bible teach book in English and gave it to her. She was really excited, but I asked her if she would like one in Tagalog as well. Her eyes got huge, she couldn't believe she could have one in her own language. So I told her I would get one for her, and she was so thankful. After we parted ways, I met back up with the brothers and told them what happened, and as it turned out one of them had a Tagalog BT book with him, so once again I chased her down and gave her the book. She was so thrilled! And then told me she really wanted 'the big yellow book that had all the stories and pictures, I really like that one' (aka the My Book of Bible Stories) So I arranged to meet her at the park this coming Saturday to bring it and hopefully start a study.

After a full day of service we were invited to the missionary home for hot cocoa and toast. The missionary home is in what used to be the Branch facility, so it's reallllly nice. I got to meet some of the other missionaries that serve in the Chinese congregations and learn about their stories. Most of them have been here for 40 years or more. It was a great finish to an already awesome day.

Last weekend we got to spend the day preaching at the zoo. About 20 people showed up for service that day, it was a lot of fun. Pictures of that below.

Also, on every full moon the fisherman come in to port and the brothers go to the ports to witness to them. The response is phenomenal! The brothers go into the belly of the ships and give short talks to handfulls of Filipino and Indonesian fisherman, all of whom are interested in studying and coming to the meetings. They all keep their invitations to the meetings in their wallets and each time they come to port they look for the brothers so they can get the latest magazines. So, now they are trying to arrange some way to hold a small meeting or public talk down there each time the fisherman come in.

Our newly formed English group in Shulin is doing awesome as well. It has only been one month and already the bible studies are pouring in. There is a consistent attendance of about 45 each meeting. And the amazing thing is the bible studies are actually helping other bible studies to get to the meetings and supporting each other so that they all can attend or make their study times. So needless to say Jehovah is blessing the new changes. They are expecting it to grow to a full congregation by this time next year.

All in all... it has been really incredible to watch how Jehovah continues to draw the 'desirable things of the nations'

In front of the zoo with the new literature cart.

I tried to leave magazines with this guy but he just ate them.

Some of the Filipino brothers and sisters and two of our missionary sisters at the park.

The new digs..

Here is a little photo tour of our humble abode...

This is our shower/toilet... equipped with bucket to catch the mass amounts of water that leaks out the back.

Our kitchen.. this is the handy work of the previous tenants. What is on the other side of that tin foil you ask? The outdoors! Which means I can reach my hand between the fan blades and grab someone in the alley.

Melissa and I enjoying a home cooked meal on our one plate. We can't afford another plate just yet, so we each have one bowl, silverwear, and we share a plate and coffee mug.

The refrigerator is conveniently placed on top of bricks in the doorway of the kitchen. The other side of that screen door is the alley.

My room... all 7 ft. x 7 ft. And the lovely flooring patch job on the wall of course.

Kitchen. We're still not entirely sure what is behind that wood panel under our sink. It makes a lot of noise though.

Our living room. Furniture courtesy of the brothers who lived here before.



So for all you back in the US of A ... I will say this... appreciate what you have. ^_^