HXP - Cebu, Philippines (Part 2)

(published 5/7/24)

The activities and service we did with the local wards were highlights of the trip for me. Below is the "cultural night," where we shared dances and food from our different countries.

The Filipino youth performed tinikling and other traditional dances for us.

Our group demonstrated "Cotton-Eye Joe"

A charismatic young married brother performed both parts of "Endless Love"
and it was the most entertaining act of the evening!

Cat and Mishelle performed "Love is an Open Door" from Frozen

The American food we shared was Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.
The Filipno food the locals brought was balut.

Balut is a fertilized duck egg. Some of them are more developed than others.
(Mine was much less developed than this one - no beak or bones or feathers at all.)
The Bishop of the ward demonstrated the whole process, how you crack it open,
drink the broth, finish peeling, and eat the whole thing with a vinegar sauce.

It was amazing to me how quickly the members
of this ward became our friends.

The planned activity for our second Saturday in the country was island-hopping, but the water was too choppy for boating. Our leaders and drivers decided to turn it into a beach day at a beach popular among locals. It was small and crowded, and the shoreline was rocky and difficult to walk on, but the kids had a lot of fun anyway. We played a little volleyball on the beach, wrestled on the floating structures in the water, and went on banana boat rides. There was a big company picnic going on so a live band was entertaining a big group, and they ended up letting some of our kids get on stage to sing. After that we went to a Filipno fast foot place that served all-the-rice-you-can-eat, then we did some black market shopping.

If you look closely, these shoes are labeled "Air Iordan"

I accidently led a coup for fresh mango milkshakes.
They were delicious. Nobody got mad.

We attended a different ward our second Sunday in Cebu. This time, the leaders arranged for all the YM and YW meet together for the second hour (which was actually before Sacrament Meeting). I loved seeing our group mingle with the local youth, and everyone participating in a New Testament lesson.

After Church we went on visits with the missionaries. The missionaries in our group didn't have any teaching visits for us to participate in so they took us to see a Senior missionary couple and we ended up all having a good talk about the experiences they'd had.

When we got back to church, we participated in a boodle fight - perhaps the most delicious and fun meal of our trip. A boodle fight is a party where food is served on banana leaves and you eat everything with your hands. We had rotisserie chicken, sticky rice, lumpia, and mango slices.

A few more miscellaneous worksite pics:

JP (on the left) was our driver almost the whole time and spoke pretty good English.
He acted like he was part of the group and we all had so much fun with him.
Lorie was with us on and off throughout the two weeks and we loved him too!

This painting task might have been the worst job we had to do.
Not only did we have to crane our necks to see the ceiling, but the
paint was thin and smelled awful, and instead of proper rollers, we
were using small rollers that were taped to poles.

The view from the balcony of one of the schools.

One of the nutrition centers we worked on.

We ran into this couple two or three times. They are serving a mission
coordinating humanitarian efforts and had some awesome stories to tell.

Love these strong young women who weren't shying away from heavy labor,
including digging in hard ground so that concrete footings could be poured.

One day toward the end of the trip, we left the worksite
early to have a little ziplining adventure.

We also did a baptism session at the Cebu temple, which was so beautiful.
I loved seeing the young men who sometimes acted like total knuckleheads
performing the sacred ordinance of baptism in the temple.

It was also inspiring to talk to a group of Filipino youth who had flown to
Cebu from a faraway island so that they could spend two days doing as many
baptisms as they could for the hundreds of names they'd brought.

That afternoon we spent a few hours at Anjo World, a small American-style
theme park whose tag line was "A Funtastic World of Surprises."

During our evening devotionals, Mallory asked everyone to write a
miracle from the day on a Post-It note. By the end of the trip there
were hundreds of these in our rental house.

On our last day at the worksite, our nutrition center was pretty much finished
so the school held a ceremony to recognize the work we'd done and the good
it would continue to do. As part of the ceremony, a group of students performed
the binasuan, a Filipno dance in which each dancer does a series of impressive
 moves while holding two glasses of water.

This is our group, plus some of the representatives from the local
organizations HXP partnered with, and our drivers.

Flying Home!