Sunday, Family day

I still haven't fully adjusted to the time change.  I am starting to go to bed later but for some reason keep waking in the early morning hours of 2-3.  I've been able to read or blog for an hour then fall back asleep until around 5:30AM when the kids in the boys dorm get up.  The sun comes up much earlier and sets much earlier here.  Your daylight is between shortly after 5am and ends shortly after 6pm.


We attended the worship service here at LCP.  A number of ladies and girls handed each of us flowers.  They have some rather exotic flowers here.  Many of the families traveled here from communities a long distance away just to worship with us.  There were a couple hundred, possibly a thousand people there this morning.  It was an amazing praise and worship service with a singing and dance number, some songs in English others in Cebuano.  Rather different from what Megan and I are used to.  The sermon was in Cebuano and I tried hard to catch words I knew.  We were all then introduced and had to give a few words.  Megan did a great job speaking in front of so many people.  I gave greetings from my parents (Nanay and Tatay) as well as myself.  I let everyone know how much they wished they could be here and tried not to break down in tears.  It was tough.  It's also interesting having to wait for a translator to finish.  In my case it helped significantly considering the knot in my throat.  The service went from 8-10:30 with a Sunday school afterward.  A little longer than what we normally experience in our services.  

We visited the Sunday school for the handclasp kids.  Kids disabled do to deafness, down syndrome, hemophilia, club foot, cerebral palsy, etc.  It was very touching.  We had to speak in front of that group as well.  I let them know how important their kids have always been to Nanay and tried not to break down again.  A girl with down syndrome gave us a solo dance routine.  A group of the deaf girls came up and danced.  A boy with cerebral palsy then sang.  They then showed us how the kids lives had changed since becoming part of LCP.  Kids who had operations to correct cleft pallet and club foot.  They also explained the boy who sang was now in a regular elementary school.

Cute downs baby

Afterward, we took a number of the sponsored children and their families out to eat at McDonald's.  It was a very large McDonald's with a special room we used upstairs.  Rice and chicken are a big part of the Philippine McDonald's menu.  The portion sizes were also much smaller but on the other side, the cost was have of what it would be in the US.  They also don't do free refills here.  So your medium drink is the size of a small with no free refill.  Sigh.

High Heel Shoe Phone

I looked out over the city and saw so many changes.  The movie theaters I used to go to were now shops.  The only theaters are now in the mall.  Dumaguete has a mall?  That's different.  The shops I used go to had either moved or closed and were replaced by other shops.  Another major change are the armed guards everywhere.  The department store we went into checked you for weapons and had patrolling guards.  Even the restaurants had guards.  The gates at Silliman University are kept closed and manned by guards.  And, so much traffic with tons of motorcycles.  Progress for the city?  Yes.  But I do miss the city I grew up in.


I'm going to visit the university tomorrow.  I'm meeting with the president who is an old family friend.  I'm curious to see all the changes on campus.  I also want to look for my old house or where it used to be.