You can see in the background the stairs going up and going down. I think we were on the second level. I am not sure I ever made it to the top level. And you will notice I am holding a Myrtle Beach South Carolina t-shirt. I had to get a shot of that. I only live a few hours from there and I can now buy the t-shirt for about $7. I digress. So we go here and in the mall they have a full grocery store. We buy snacks, drinks, toilet paper, stuff like that. We are not sure we are going to a place that has even heard of toilet paper.
Well along the way we stop at several places to visit people raising goats and/or making beads. And we see this house.
I have shown this before, I wonder if this is how the people live where we are going?
Maybe it is something like this.
Well this is where they have kids Bible class.
So what does this camp look like anyway?
OK here it is!
This is the “Camp” that we will be staying at for the next week and ½.
There was one lady with us and she got “The Queens Room”, it was the only room that had air conditioning. The bottom half was still under construction, and the other room for sleeping had the female interns and a mother and her twin boys staying in it. So David and I slept on the porch. On the close up side shot of the camp you can see a few shirts hanging over the rail to dry. That is where we stayed.
So how did the people around the camp live? Most lived in places similar to the house we saw on the way there. But some had much nicer homes. Concrete walls, not just bamboo, and real windows, not holes in the wall. I was impressed by some of the homes I saw there. Then about 15 mins from camp is a town called Bogo (Not Buy One Get One) and they have more American style homes and apartments.
Where would we live and what would we stay in? Good question. After throwing around some ideas with Salvador, we feel that living with in walking distance to the camp would be important. This camp is also going to be an orphanage when it is done, and we would like to help with that. Salvador said that it would be good to have leadership out there full time since he is spread all over. And being that the orphanage is funded by a lot of U.S. dollars have us there would be nice for a point of contact between some of the American churches and the orphanage.
The kind of house we would have would be a lot more American than some of the pictures I have shown, but it would be a lot smaller than you are used to looking at as well. I have discussed that I would like to have a door that locks on our home. I felt completely safe staying out there on the porch for the 10 days we were there, but I didn’t have my family with me either. Also we have gotten used to sleeping and knowing that there is something big between us and the outside world and I don’t want to give that up.
Again, I felt no reason for alarm when I was there, but just because you go on the mission field, doesn’t mean you need to give up Everything that gives you comfort in order to minister to people.
Education. That is another thing that has come up several times. Well, Amanda and I home school our kids. Home school is not were you give your kids hundreds of books on how to be weird and different from everyone else. It is another way to educate children, and we have found a school curriculum that can be done in association with a larger private school so our kids will have the same education they would in several private Christian schools in the states. They also would get a diploma from them as well.
But side note on the “weird” thing. I wondered for years if home school kids were weird because they were home schooled or what? I knew several exceptions to the rule, but I also knew enough that it made me wonder. Then upon further investigation, I found weird kids that went to both private and public schools! After years of research I have determined that “most” kids end up like their parents. Where they go to school has little bearing on that. I said all that to say; if you think we are weird then you can count on our kids being weird, no matter if they are here in public schools or home schooled in the Philippines. Now if you think we are cool! (Listen both of you that fall in this group;) Then our kids will be even cooler! They will have much better stories to tell when we come home for visits.
Which brings me to the next question. How often are you coming home? Well, we were thinking every year for about a month. This would give us time to travel to see family and friends, and supporters. Right now I get 2 weeks off a year. I haven’t been back to Kansas City to see my family in nearly 2 years! And I have used up all my vacation time so it will be December before I even get a chance to come back again. And I have only stepped foot in Texas once since I left 4 ½ years ago. Point. Most of you will see me and my family more with us living in the Philippines then you do now. Unless of course you live in Charleston.
Medical care. I have looked into health care there and here is what I have found with the help of others. Where we would be living we would have the town 15 mins away that could take care of almost anything we would need. Regular visits, broken arms/legs, most major and all minor surgeries, tummy ache from eating a bad coconut. Stuff like that. If we took the 2 hour drive to Cebu City we could get anything else done we needed. They have a lot of U.S. trained doctors there if we felt it necessary. It was described as living in the states a few hours from a metro-plex. You have local hospitals that can get 99% of stuff, but if you get some weird disease you are going to make the drive into town to get help from the leading hospital on (blank) instead of stay with your local doctor.
Keep the questions and comments coming! I have more to post but ran out of time. “Sorry for the long letter, I didn’t have time to write a short one” Benjamin Franklin
