Pinoy Christmas party

Pinoys at Yanhee Int'l Hosp staged their Christmas party at the farm resort of Dr. Supot - owner of the Hospital. This was our first Christmas in Thailand. 

It's part of his 400 hectare farm located at Nakhon Pathom, an hour and a half drive from Bangkok. The venue was free including a/c rooms, bicycles, kitchen and bathing facilities, etc.. It took place on Dec 5, birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, thats the reason for the yellow shirts.

Fellowship in Bangkok

Christian fellowship on Sundays in the Philippines or the United States is just simply a way of life or an accepted norm, and finding a group of Christians is as easy as locating a fast-food outlet. 

In Bangkok Thailand it is the opposite. You have to get a map of the city that shows the location of hotels, train stations and churches or you search in the Web and try to imagine the church that you are looking for. The latter option was the one that I tried recently after living in the City of Angels [Krung Thep] for a week.

I will admit that the angels in this city were mostly not from my church, since I honestly had a difficult time deciding which church to attend, notwithstanding the few choices that the Web had on hand. Finding the actual location by public transportation is another challenge because most nationals don’t speak English; much less know about Christianity and the place where Christians meet for worship.

After getting the address in the Web I asked some friends how to get there and then I took off on my own. First I took a red-orange bus #18 that took me all the way to the Victory Monument. Then I took a ride on the BTS sky train and got off the Asoke terminal, which is on Sukhumvit. Then I walked two blocks to Soi 10 were I discovered two vans with the sign “Free ride to ECB church.” When the driver saw me smile as I read the sign, he motioned for me to get in and he drove me right to the threshold of the church. The ushers outside welcomed me in and I was seated in a jam-packed church. Wow, it was that simple.

I found out that I came in midway into the sermon of the first service which started at 9 am. The second service would commence at 11, and so I stayed on and soaked in on the praise and worship. I felt so at home and it was like I never left my beloved ANCF. The only thing that was not like my own was that the band members were stiff and too formal. I also didn’t have the guts to dance and wave my hands for fear of stepping on the toes of the two American ladies who had sandwiched me and were standing taller than I am.

God is good and I came out refreshed and recharged. I retraced my steps through the same rides, this time more relaxed and now with a praise song in my heart. Next Sunday will find me worshiping God again, even in the “Land of Smiles.”

Krung Thep [City of Angels] a.k.a. Bangkok

You won't see any angels here though. This album will show the uniqueness that is Bangkok. From transportation, food, temples, etc. I hope blogger could invent a way to display the scents/odors in this album. That would be a better way to know what Bangkok really is....

City Adventure in Krung Thep

Trying to get lost in some big city like New York or San Francisco is not easy. But why try to get lost in the first place? Getting lost is the last thing that anyone who is new in a strange city would want to do. It’s like being dropped from a helicopter in the midst of a thick forest and trying to find your way home. You’re lost the moment your feet touches the ground.

Getting lost in New York is not easy simply because the streets are arranged in an almost straight, parallel and perpendicular manner, and the street names are found on each corner with readable and understandable English. People you meet also understand what you are asking for and readily give you the directions that you can comprehend.

On the contrary, finding your way around Bangkok is not an easy job, which means that getting lost here is very probable and predictable, especially if you really want to get lost. This type of adventure really beckons to me, and I succumbed to its lure one hot and humid morning. I had all the chances of getting lost; the unreadable street signs and bus routes, the Thai who can’t understand or speak English, the curved and jigsaw puzzle-like streets, and the low hanging clouds to hide the sun and diminish all bearing of east-west orientation.

I decided to leave the security of the house, which is just outside the main city, across the Chao Phraya River, and stake out on my own on foot or by bus. Taxi and Tuktuk would be out of the picture now to make it easier to get lost, although they could be on hand just in case I couldn’t get home by bus and because I finally would have acknowledged the grim fact that I was lost. I made sure that I had enough cash and that my passport was inside a pocket. Breathing a prayer for protection and courage I closed the gate behind me and started to get lost.

My trip that day took me by bus, then train, then by canal boat, then some 3 bus-rides more and a lot of walking in between, while trying to decipher and unlock the mystery of the colors of the buses, their numbers and eye and tail-like figures, and I was finally approaching the familiar bridge that told me that I was just a few miles to home.

This was the most challenging yet frustrating trip I had ever made, because I didn’t get lost. Calcutta? Maybe.

Six Weeks in the Life of an Infant

Neonates born in the hospital are either kept in the nursery [in or outside the incubator] or they may room-in with mom. Most Filipino parents in their overly concern for these helpless and frail progeny keep them in a sterile environment, and even visitors and  well wishers are instructed not to kiss or touch, some sort of a quarantine so to speak. To many parents the outside world after dusk and during rain is taboo for infants, and to go out with the head and limbs uncovered is unforgivable. Love may be the driving force behind such behavior and this is easy to understand.

Born in the 22^nd of June 2007, Kailee was destined to be on the go, because at the age of seven days she was already out in the opposite side of the city in a party, which lasted until eleven in the evening. She was present in church on the first Sunday after her discharge from the hospital and she enjoyed every minute of the service. She attended three farewell parties, one at the church, one at her great grandfather’s house 18 kilometers away and one at a friends place, and she was smug and relaxed all the while.

Twenty one days after she was born she was on a plane to Manila and then on another plane to Bangkok on the same day. She accompanied her mother on shopping trips to furnish the apartment that they recently moved into, and she was with her on every trip to the market for groceries no matter if it was seven or ten in the evening [shopping malls in Bangkok close at 11 pm] or whether it was raining or gusty. At 6 weeks of age she was practically all over Bangkok by either Chao Phraya Express boat, BTS Skytrain, Bus, or taxi, and she enjoyed every bit of these trips.

This incredible infant at six weeks had traveled through 2 countries, had 2 plane rides, a couple dozen of bus, taxi and boat rides, and it looks like she’ll be traveling all her life. “Well that’s life!” she may exclaim if only she could talk. But she’s only a babe!

Bangkok Exodus

July 14 was the most important day in my recent years due to the fact that we had sold most of our earthly possessions and gave up the house to move to a foreign country to start life anew. It was also to be an exciting one because I would be traveling with my grownup children and my 21-day old granddaughter.

Some weeks before this day, I was already praying that God would take charge of every single detail of this move. I knew I had no control of the many aspects of the trip like the baby’s disposition during the long haul, the flight schedules of our connecting flights, the expenses that we might incur outside of the fare and a lot more. I also fairly well knew that God in his might had all these concerns in focus and that he was just waiting for the right opportunity to display his power to some vulnerable earthling like me.

True to my personality I had everything planned, and executed every detail to ensure that the trip would be the least stressful, and this included the packing of our baggage to the exact weight that was allowed us for free so that we wouldn’t have to pay for excess of the total of 80 kilograms. To do this I bought a cheap China-made weighing scale and meticulously weighed each piece of the 6 bags that we planned to check-in. No matter how much I shifted the contents between the bags I was still at least 13 kilograms over the weight limit, which is about Php 3,900.00, times two plane trips would mean 7,800.00. I knew I didn’t have that much money for excess baggage and yet I couldn’t leave these things behind because we needed them.

I then chose a medium-sized red trolley bag, which I singled out as a hand-carried item aside from a backpack that I planned to carry. The size of this bag was way over the allowed maximum size but which I figured out would fit in the overhead compartment of the plane cabin. It weighed a little over 11 kilograms, which is 4 kilograms over the allowable hand-carried baggage limit. This placed two odds against the ‘wonder’ bag. Three things could happen to this ‘damned’ bag. Either the airlines would demand that I check it in during check-in time or I would be apprehended and forced to check in the baggage the moment I would enter the predeparture area where they have a weighing scale and a measuring device for all hand-carried items or it would escape attention at the two points and yet wouldn’t fit in the overhead storage compartments of the plane cabin.

The first two scenarios never happened and I ‘luckily’ pass through both check points with the bag unnoticed. Boarding time comes and I maneuver towards the plane entrance with the bag in tow. In the boarding tube a uniformed maintenance man approaches me and asks if I would want to have the bag checked in free of charge. Without much thought I oblige and he hands me a claim stub after attaching a sticker tag to the bag handle. I notice that he exits through a side door of the tube, carries the bag down a ladder and heads towards the fuselage of the plane. I try to imagine the scenario of me trying to lift the bag to the overhead compartment and failing to make it fit. A sigh of relief escapes my lips.

Three and a half hours later I am in another airport checking my baggage in for the second and last plane ride to our destination. The officer there weighs and measures it and tells me that the red ‘wonder’ bag was too big and too heavy for a hand-carried item; he also tells me that I didn’t have any choice regarding its passage. So I check in all 6 bags in and inquire from the lady at the desk how much I had to pay for the excess weight. She shrugs her shoulders and tells me that my baggage is just within the allowed weight and that I didn’t have any surcharge to pay. [This made my China-made weighing scale and the digital meter at the first airport look obsolete and malfunctioning] I look up to the ceiling and force back an escaping tear as I realize that my God is not sleeping on the job.

The entire trip took two mini bus and two plane rides between two countries for a total of 9 hours, and the baby was as comfortable as though she was in her own room all the time. We were able to manage through two “poopoo” diaper changes in flight and a lot of breast feeding, and it was if she was sedated. A few days before the trip someone suggested that we drug her to minimize the crying and bawling, which is expected of babies who are not comfortable. I tried to entertain the suggestion but I realized that it would be tantamount to trusting a drug to take care of this particular detail of our trip and leaving God out of the picture. The drug could either fail or manifest an adverse effect but God never fails, I reasoned out.

God proved it again! He is awesome!

Balabagan

A rustic town that knew better times in the 50’s, situated in a stretch of land that is partly beach east of the Moro Gulf. It could be accessed via a riverbed of a road from an inconspicuous junction at the Narciso Ramos highway in Lanao del sur. A highway that is punctuated every few kilometers by armed checkpoints and stern-faced military personnel.

This town has an unkempt bodega-like municipal hall manned by officials who have better constructed houses in the metropolises of Davao, Manila, or Cagayan de Oro and who most of the time manage the town affairs by remote control. Public services are either insufficient or virtually non-existent, notwithstanding the up-to-date disbursement of money budgeted for these operations, by and for employees whose names are aliases of the officials themselves.

With these facts one could imagine the plight of the residents who by this time have accepted this fact of life and have learned to “live and let live,” but when it comes to their hated ‘infidel’ Christian neighbors it should be “live and let die.”

Into the picture comes “Kalilintad 2.” A team organized by the Mindanao Peace Volunteers on a tour of the Muslim villages to give humanitarian assistance. The team arrives dressed in the traditional Muslim garb on board an open-bed truck outfitted with church pews. The truck maneuvers through a winding cow-path under the coconut palms through cassava fields to a village called Magulaleng. The villagers have been informed beforehand that a team of this sort would be arriving and in a few minutes the team is surrounded by mothers with their children and some gun-toting men.

Today would be a different day in the lives of many who have long been suffering from physical ailments but didn’t have the money and the means to see a doctor. Many would also be freed from a nasty tooth or two by a lady dentist who had the stomach to withstand the red betel-nut-stained smiles and the frequent spitting of the patients. The children would also have their first taste of a nutritious and palatable porridge, and the men would be taught how to make a garden that could always supply nutritious vegetables for the table.

At the end of the day the tired yet elated team members are treated to a bath by the light of some fireflies in a cool clear creek that is home to some innocent turtles. The following day sees action in the beach where the team intends to have a picnic, but which is cut short by the arrival of four young men with assault rifles who fire their weapons in the air in what they perceive is a display of courage or marksmanship, but to the team is a threat and necessitates a hasty retreat and a search for a better and safer place to have lunch.

Balabagan, you are held hostage in the grip of your own sons who have the intentions of keeping their constituents in ignorance and poverty, but Kalilintad has opened your doors and the future will be bright if only you will realize the truth of the gospel. May Allah smile down on you.