Navotas, our home away from home
I love this church building in Navotas. It wasn’t easy to take it all in when we first arrived; the sense of the place, the tilework, the multitude of devices that are attached to the ceiling and walls (all Arnel’s MacGuyver-ish work). With so many new things happening when we first arrived there was only so much my brain could process. Coming back to this building after being in the provinces, and then again after visiting Kay, had given time and perspective to everything here.
After the first week we’d acclimated about as much as we could during the trip, and coming back to Faith, Hope & Love Navotas that Friday meant I could finally discern what had seemed so odd to me the first time I’d stepped down into the sanctuary from the street: it wasn’t cold enough. A lifetime of experience living in Montana had taught me that if you go down into the basement it’s going to be cold (weather and seasons excepting). Down in the refuge of the slightly-below-street-level sanctuary we could escape the sun and, while it was certainly cooler than the upper floor, the temperature was far from that “getting under a blanket would be nice” change in temperature I’d been used to all my life. It wasn’t that much different than how it felt outside. However, we had definitely learned that being out of the sun with a fan blowing on you was MORE than enough relief.
Orbit Fans: the real MVP
At Navotas we had time to rest and recuperate. I would charge batteries, clean lenses, dump footage onto hard drives, and we even got our laundry done the first weekend back after visiting the province churches. That weekend we were also able to interview the two ladies of what we would come to call “The Van crew”: Cindy and Jocelyn.
Cindy and Jocelyn
They’d accompanied us on our trip to the provinces, but didn’t join us for the trip to see Kay. I’d been looking forward to interviewing them for a while since I knew that they’d been an integral part of the ministry here for many years, and they knew all the dirt on Dale. What beans did they spill about our friend Dale?
None. He has no beans.
The guy is a superstar here and everyone we’ve talked to has expressed deep respect for him and his ministry, so even jokingly the folks here have had nothing but the best to say about Dale.
During our short layover I also had the wonderful experience of ditching Kendall for an hour or so and take a short trip with Arnel on his EV (electric vehicle) to the Malabon Public Market. Well, I didn’t actually WANT to leave Kendall behind, but remember when I said that the EV’s here are like golf carts but more narrow? We just weren’t sure we three could fit on the thing.
Our first stop, actually, was to some of the cemeteries. There are cemeteries in Navotas with graves and tombstones (which we drove by), but the one we went to was all above ground.
I know that cemeteries are not all alike, especially when comparing North America to most anywhere else in the world. This was a unique experience and my first real exposure to mausoleums. Most of the entire cemetery is made up of family mausoleums, each one uniquely constructed by the family that owns the plot.
Along the sides are stacks of individual tombs. The video below will show it better than I can describe.
A short drive from the cemetery was The Malabon market, with just about anything a person could want except elbow space.
The fish market outside of the market building is the largest fish market in the Philippines. We were there during the slow time of day so there wasn’t much fish for sale, or people wandering around looking to buy said fish, so I missed out on seeing the place in action. While I didn’t get many images of the market, it was the smell of a fish market that made the biggest impression on me. You have to experience it for yourself…
Kendall and the bucket of tiny shrimp Arnel purchased from the fishermen
On our way back from seeing Kay Dale had been organizing a boat ride for Kendall, Arnel, and myself with one of the FHL congregants: Fernando. Fernan(do) had a fishing boat, as many of the folks in Navotas did, and the next morning we went on a cruise around Manila bay. On the cruise we got to see the place where the new international airport is being built, acres and acres of mangrove forests, as well as a lot of the makeshift housing that was constructed by fishermen so they wouldn’t always have to travel all the way back to shore every evening. What was most difficult to wrap my head around was how incredibly shallow the water was. We were as far north as our trip would take us and had turned south when we came upon some men fishing for what we later found out to be very tiny shrimp, and the water was only up to their chests. Arnel, ever practical, bought a bucket of the shrimp.
On the way back from our boating adventure Fernan(do) stayed behind which meant we found out that squeezing into Arnel’s EV was actually about the same as squeezing into airline seats.
We made sure to get rested-up that evening because the next day would finally get to experience something we had been eager to see since arriving in Navotas: Saturday youth events followed by Sunday service.
Kendall slacking off while I do all the work again. Sheesh…
I love goofing around with kids, and with a certain age group I’m relatively good at it. When I was working at a daycare many years ago I often wouldn’t go with the children on field trips because they enjoyed playing with me so much that I had a tough time convincing them to NOT goof off (I admittedly wasn’t really great at that job). I’d also brought with me a sack of tiny rubber dinosaurs with the intention of handing them out to random kids during the trip. That Saturday was VERY enjoyable.
Kids lined up outside, and as soon as we had enough adults to watch them all they started to trickle in. There was a lot of singing, a lot of games, and we made a lot of new friends. There was some debate early on about which of us was more handsome: Me or Kendall. Service started with worship then everyone divided up into age groups for activities. The idea that the building would sometimes host 140 kids during vacation bible school was tough to imagine, but what was the best thing to see was how much fun everyone was having while learning and worshiping.
That evening the church played host to a young adult ministry. Kendall remarked on how awesome it was that a group of folks their age was spending a Saturday evening together doing a bible study at church. We later on found out that they’d moved it to that Saturday so we could participate, but it was still impressive. We were also informed that evening that one of the young men there bore a striking resemblance to Kendall, and we discovered that Kendall had a Filipino doppelganger. I spent the rest of the weekend getting them mixed up, but one can hardly blame me for being confused.
Kendall’s the one on the LEFT
By the time Sunday rolled around Kendall and I had both come to the realization that our time in The Philippines was actually nearing a close, which hit us both in different ways. We saw our new friends again during service, Kendall once again gave his message with Lyn interpreting for him, I handed out handfulls of tiny dinosaurs, and we got to feel the Navotas church’s sound system turned up to 11. For me it was all bittersweet. So many people had come together to get us to this place, and the hand of God had paved the way and made it straight. We’d met so many wonderful people. People who we weren’t sure we would ever get to meet again. This was the day that the longing to stay and the longing to go hit me the hardest. The only thing keeping me from getting too emotional about it all was the exhaustion.
Another of the almost countless group pictures we were in
The next day was almost a blur. We got our second interview with Dale, which was the last big piece of content I needed for the videos. We were also invited to a BIG seafood dinner where Kendall ate at least 14 scallops then wisely decided to stop. I decided that stopping was for quitters and ate as much lobster ball soup, tempura shrimp, calamari, and scallops as I could. I paid for the overindulgence later, but I regret nothing.
We even got to have a “tourist day” where we went to Manila proper for sightseeing and souvenir shopping.
The last evening of our trip was even spent eating pizza at Arnel’s house, and Kendall was able to re-defend the honor of the USA in the second round of the international chess tournament. I got to meet Arnel’s cats. We ate Pizza Hut pizza. Then we had to say goodbye to a lot of the folks we had gotten to know so well over the previous 2 weeks. That was not my favorite moment…
Writing the big summation of our trip, and a description of our combined experience from the perspective of hindsight, is not my forte. I can try and leave that to Kendall. Suffice to say that I felt changed, and challenged, and empowered by the experience. Going on a trip like this was a dream of mine for almost two decades. God willing, I’ll be able to do more in the future. In the meantime, though, I’ve got some MAJOR video editing to do. With over 20 hours of footage, and a lot of leeway with the final products, there is plenty of work ahead. But the chance to have been there, to have met wonderful people and to have seen the love and support of those folks back home who helped send us overseas, has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life.
