Manila Driving (Missionary Rant)

Just another day on Ortigas Avenue in Pasig City

Some people seem to think it's a "patience-builder." Others feel like it's "death by stress." Unfortunately, my experience over the last year has me siding with the latter. Take a look at this picture, friends. You can barely see the solid white line in the middle of the shot. Everything to the left side is supposed to be oncoming traffic. Notice how vehicles have formed their own lane in opposing traffic? That's TOTALLY normal here. No one bats an eye.

The vehicles to the right (with their brake lights on) are stopped because those in the make-shift lane are forcefully merging in. Why? They've finally run into opposing traffice and have to merge. I MISS THE USA! Oh, the open roads of California. Driving down the 5 from Fresno at 75mph...Oh the simple pleasure of driving..

This city is so congested, it's crazy---especially out where we live. It can take me between 30 minutes to an hour to drive 3 miles down the street to Messiah College. At night, it's even worse.

Forgive the rant, but it just took some stress off of my chest to share that with you, our blog-reading buddies! :-)

Family Days

Jojo's Play Class
At the beginning of July, we enrolled Jojo in Gymboree's Level 5 play group. He really loves it! Many parents agree that it's one of the few safe, clean and age-appropriate places to take toddlers around here. He has a nice teacher named Christine (nice name!). So these have become our Saturdays. It's something we can do together as a family and it's really helped our adjustment here. This activity is called "tip and fall." Basically, the kid rides on the airlog and then falls off into your arms.


Jojo riding the air log at Gymboree

Jojo's Crafts
He's such a toddler now and that means he can't stop moving for even a second. He likes to watch a lot of TV, but we want to try and curb that. He loves to get out into the village on his little three-wheeler bike, but it's the rainy season now and it rains constantly. So we occupy him at home with crafts and stuff. Here's something I made him out of a box of oatmeal: It's box-head boy!


For some reason box-head boy makes a roaring sound

Christine also bakes cookies with him and such. one day they made playdough out of peanut butter and then made peanut butter cookies afterwards. I took a break from my lesson prep to sample the goodies! Since most of my teaching ministry takes place either in the afternoons or at night after work hours, I try to spend time a little bit of time with him in the day. He also likes cars and dinosaurs now.

The adjustment is still ongoing, but we're no longer surprised at the horrible state of driving (Yes, I've been here a year and I still hate every second of it! The chaos continues to build!), lack of daycare at churches, and other cultural frustrations. Veteran missionaries say it stops being "Culture Shock" and more "Culture Fatigue" that gets to you after a while. Oh well, that is Manila living. No wonder most missionaries live out in the province. :-)

Messiah College Begins!

The School Year Begins!
Despite a number of setbacks, Messiah College opened in late June with just eight freshmen. One reason this happened was that even though the government approved our programs two months or so before opening day, they did not deliver the physical permits to Messiah College until two weeks before the first day of classes. It's illegal to promote the school without these permits in hand. So they only had a couple of weeks to recruit students.

Here I am at the first day of studnet orientation. This is just before I got up to speak, introduce myself and tell them about the classes I'll be teaching: Seminar in Worldview Analysis and Development and Biblical Doctrines.


Mikel at Student Orientation

One cool thing is that these eight kids got together for a leadership retreat before school began and really got to bond. They also did some street evangelism and such togehter. We just finished the Worldview Seminar and a few of them did well. Many of them really need to work on their English writing skills. Also, critical-thinking is a challenge for most Filipino students, since primary and secondary curriculums stress rote memorization here. Interestingly, teaching college here is like teaching high school in the US. Why? Most of these kids are 16, 17, and 18ish. That's really the age they begin college here.


Messiah College freshmen

Another cool thing is how God's already used Christine and I to help people identify error and stay away from false prophets and cults. The students' really had their eyes opened when we talked about Mormonism and the errors of Benny Hinn's theology, in the context of a discussion on polytheism. Also, it seems many well-meaning Filipinos have been duped by the theological errors of the Word Faith Movement. This is not just academics. Bad theology results in bad practice. And often times, people get hurt emotionally and spiritually by listening to false doctrine.