This past week was our major travel week. We combined a lot of things that were loosely in the same area and drove, drove, drove. First stop was Gapanin, the province of Nueva Ecija. We had a request at the high school there, so just a super quick stop. Our destination that night was the Cabanatuan Mission office, where we met with an absolutely delightful senior couple from England. They wanted to take us to a girls’ home for vulnerable girls and a boys’ home. If we drove by ourselves, it would take around an hour to get there. However, we had a police escort so we got there in 30 minutes! And what a wild ride that was. Elder Furbank was driving and we followed the police vehicle, weaving in and around trucks, tricycles, motor scooters, all the while his wife was tapping the dashboard and exclaiming “toot toot!” to remind him to honk. It was terrifying, actually.

When we got to the girls’ home, the power was out and had been out all day up there, so we toured it in the dark until the power came on. It had been raining and isn’t unusual for the power to go out when it rains or storms. The rain actually cooled it down quite a bit, so it was comfortable. Sister Furbank had been there before, with treats, so the girls clamored around her and greeted her warmly. She is a gregarious, warm person, so it was fun to watch her in action.

We then repeated the scary drive to go another 30 minutes to the home for delinquent boys. This place also had no power and the boys here didn’t seem nearly as happy as did the girls. A lot of the boys were coughing, but that didn’t deter Sister Furbank. She went right in their midst and mingled, shaking hands and spreading her usual cheer. Amazing!

After looking into their needs, we went to another senior couple’s house and had dinner (around 9 pm). They were equally delightful and it was so nice to be in their company. Then they transported us to the mission leaders’ home where we spent the night. What a lovely home they have! I dare say that is the nicest place we have stayed since we’ve been here- right on a golf course, large rooms, lovely, lovely. And the mission leaders seem like delightful, hardworking people as well. We were sad that we didn’t have more time so we could at least take a walk in their gated residential area. Peaceful, clean, and no cars! But alas, off we went to our next appointment.

Click any image to enlarge and view in gallery format.

ZAMBALES:

After our fun time up in Cabanatuan, we headed about an hour down to San Antonio to do a monitoring and evaluation of the RACHEL servers we donated to the school division there. We visited three schools, then because it is SO HOT right now, the students are let out of school at 12:30, so all the teachers who have been using the RACHELS from 11 schools gathered and we had a large focus group to discuss the pros and challenges with using the RACHELs. We had given them surveys to complete beforehand, so we had all that good information, then were able to talk to all of them. This was very valuable! We did find that they find them a useful tool and many schools are using them quite well, but there is always room for improvement. In this area, some of the schools have the students borrow their parents’ phones when it is “RACHEL DAY” so they can have a device to use. Other teachers, like a first grade teacher, simply downloads the material for her students to use. She really likes the phonics materials and the little books, so she prints them up. Smart! They could use further training, more devices and just more time, but they gave a positive report. Now if we could just find a good way to import them into the Philippines! We felt like our day here was very productive: not too much fanfare, which was a welcome change.

ZAMBALES:

Now for the truly beautiful part of our trip. We headed over to the Zambales province. This is a combination of mountains, farmland and ocean. What a great combo, right? Our purpose here was to go the town of Santa Cruz, where we were scheduled to have a turnover of donation for an elementary school. This wasn’t a large donation- just a photocopier, printer, etc. but it was the first project in this area, so the stake president was super excited! It was his first time to host a turnover in the chapel, so he really wanted to make it special. It was really heartwarming to see how he prepared for it. He is a fairly young stake president and hasn’t been in for all that long, so it stretched him a bit, I think. He did well.

He even had the Stake Choir come and sing! They had matching ties and shawls and the whole works. I have never ever seen a choir sing at a turnover. I’m not sure the teachers knew quite what to make of it! They even had the big photocopier at the church (we thought it would be delivered directly to the school) where they had to unpack it, only to pack it back up again. The good thing about this is the delivery truck for the photocopier was able to take all the other goods as well. We gave a lot of paper as well, so that worked out. The Stake President’s son attends the school we donated to, so that’s how we received this request. Then of course, since the stake choir was there, and the women there have children in many other schools, they were all wondering how they could go about getting donations for their schools. We shall see….

Oh yes, I forget to mention that we finally got to see Elder Sharp. He is serving in the Olongapo mission and we have tried to hook up with him for months! I felt strongly that we should stop and see him on our way up to Santa Cruz, even though we had a tight schedule. It’s a good thing we did stop! He was at the mission office chapel, giving a talk to incoming missionaries, but he was being transferred that afternoon, so wouldn’t be right there any more. Providence! He was our driveway neighbor in Laie, so it was so good to see him. He has such a good, happy countenance! As Elder Huff said, “He is the Sharpest missionary we know!”. I also have some pictures of the area we spent the night in Subic Bay. We saw more people on the beach here than any place we have been yet. The beach itself was one of the dirtier beaches we have seen, so not our favorite.

Morning at the Beach!!!

We decided we needed a break, and what better place than right where we were staying: The Sunbloom Hotel near Santa Cruz. This was our second time to come back here. We love it here: clean beach, nice people, British food, and very peaceful. We called the Hotel and let them know we were coming later that day and would they please make their sticky toffee pudding cake? They were very accommodating. The beach has nice soft sand and there are no rocks (and no garbage). It’s black sand and the water isn’t that nice aqua color, but it was still so nice to spend time in the water. We even snorkeled (not the greatest, but it was still so nice to be able to do it). So that was our respite. Sadly, we had an appointment in Olongapo with the school division, so we had to make our way down and had to leave the area by 10 am. On our way down, we saw some missionaries gathered along the side of the road, so we stopped and bought them all some fruit at the nearby fruit stand. One of them was James Ledesma’s niece!

Last but not least, on Friday morning, we flew off to Legazpi again to do our Stake Literacy trainings with both Bulan and Sorsogon Stakes. Diana Cruz, who started this program in her stake here in Taytay, and updated all of the curriculum, came with us and did a wonderful job of training. She is such a treasure! She is a single woman who eventually started up her own preschool and also has the calling of training all the new leaders in several areas here. She is a wonderful mixture of capable, humble, willing to sacrifice her time and talents and inspirational.

Most of the trainings were in Tagalog but we understood the basic drift. We were there to organize the materials and lend support. We organized the supplies on Friday at both Stake buildings, then on Saturday, we held the training at Bulan in the morning and Sorsogon in the afternoon. Busy day! We had an interesting walk in Bulan that included going to the fish market. I just about got my leg smashed between a truck and a tricycle with a cart, but I survived. They had so many small sardines! I wondered how many mornings it was like that. If too many, I wondered if there would be any fish left!

Sorsogon is a really unusual city. The mayor there seems to be progressive and has built an amazing sports arena (think Greek colliseum). They have a wonderful walking area that goes out to a pier and lighthouse. Too bad we didn’t have more time to enjoy it there. After the training, we just headed off to the airport and had to go back to the heavy traffic of Manila.