5 cultural experiences in one day

With no fixed appointment and no long drive to do, we let Hamish have a sleep in – breakfast at 8. Enough time for a leisurely swim beforehand. We cleaned up , checked out and headed to the markets for our first cultural experience.

Culture at the markets? The seafood of course, with the highlights being the still live cuttlefish, the large parrot fish and the woman sawing through the huge tuna fish! If only Coles North Richmond was this interesting!

It was all too much for the shop attendant at this stall (no sign of an adult)

Then to the mall for our second cultural experience. We happened to notice a price in a shop window for an unusual item: ‘unprovoked murder.’ Suspecting another cultural experience, we looked more closely and discovered it was just a list of benefits for a life insurance policy. If only we made things this explicit back home.

And if only we could have Christian songs like 'Blessed be the name of the Lord', and 'In Christ Alone' pumping through our shopping malls on Sunday, plus this great range of clothing and merchandise in the department store - 'Worship Generation - making worship a lifestyle.' Which, it now occurs to me, is exactly what worship is - a lifestyle of giving all that He deserves. 

   

Then back to our Compassion friends for our third cultural experience. I didn’t mention before that as well as the monthly church service for the families of sponsored children, today also happened to be the 3 monthly birthday party celebration. And where to go for a party of one hundred children who have had their birthday this quarter? Jollibee of course! They booked out the largest fast food restaurant party room I have ever seen and held a 2 hour party, complete with oodles of cheesy yum burgers and Jollibee chicken, hyped up party games and dance music, and best of all, Jollibee and his best friend Twirlie.

Despite my best efforts I was roped in to have a photo with Jollibee and Twirlee and the Compassion team.

The children loved the whole thing, and were clearly made to feel very special for their birthdays.

(In case you think that Jollibee is just a Philippines things, 'it's a Jollibee world' and this cultural experience could be coming to you soon. 

What happens at Christmas I hear you say? Sponsors give an extra amount to provide a gift, and the project arranges for all 565 children to go to the mall on the one day and choose their gift. Now that would be a cultural experience!

Of course hype and games and fast food was the ideal preparation for the children to sit through a long church service, but they were surprisingly well behaved. The pastor seemed to speak well from the Bible, at least judging by the lines of English that he interspersed with Filipino, perhaps for our benefit. The service was more liturgical than we are used to, including sung responses and a choir, but perhaps that works well for the mainly Catholic background families who are coming to the service.

I was delighted to speak about our church’s joy in partnering with this church in caring for their children, and they showed the videos that the sponsors had made again. Hamish and Elijah led our song again, which seemed to go down well.

Afterwards we chatted with the Project Director Jessilyn. She started as a book keeper when the project started with 175 children 17 years ago. Her husband works as the captain of an iron ore ship sailing between Australia and Japan for 9 months at a time, then having three months at home.

How did we feel as we drove away from our last Compassion engagement? So thankful to have had the opportunity to get to know the children and the workers, so impressed by the effectiveness of  the work here, and so thankful for our own material and spiritual blessings and the opportunity to be a part of this.

And as we were feeling these things, we realised that we were now making the transition to simply enjoying this wonderful place for a holiday.

Jessilyn had told us about a python zoo on the way to our next accommodation, and we had a great time there.

Many different pythons and an unusual tour guide 

who threw in a solo performance of a Disney melody just for us. 

Our fifth cultural experience of the day: our next accommodation. Loboc River Resort - a picturesque resort on a pretty river complete with a water buffalo and lots of geckos. At dinner by the river Hamish had the largest bowl of soup I have ever seen.

Then we capped off the day with the firefly cruise - beautiful creatures, though they don't look as good in our pictures ...

Here's a better picture from the cruise ...

Looking forward to exploring tomorrow....