Nehemiah Update 8 - Bulalo

It’s 6:15 AM and we are already loaded on a boat, heading across the bay, around the peninsula, into the south China towards the village of Bulalo. We are shooting to be there at 7 o’clock to give us a little time to prepare for classes. But before I go on, let me catch you up.

Yesterday was a long packed day. We were up early and at the school by 7 AM. Luckily it was only a 10 minute walk, the last couple minutes straight uphill. The school is situated up a hill overlooking the Bay; it’s amazingly picturesque and calendar worthy.

But this is a low income rural area. The schools are basic and have few amenities. But the Filipino people are resourceful and do a lot with the little that they have in these out of the way places. Houses are situated along the side of tall hills, most sit completely over the water on long homes standing on stilts. This is an island community, and each morning instead of cars like at home, it’s the boats that start up, usually between 430 - 530 am. Then they are off to fish shop, or head off to their job. One of the school teachers was late because his 45 minute commute was delayed when his rudder broke and he was unable to steer the boat.

There is one street outside the church, in fact, the only real street in all of San Jose. There are less than 1000 people in the village and we only get electricity from 600-10:00 six each evening. The lights die without warning, unless you’re fortunate to be able to afford your own personal generator. But then they have to have the money to pay for the gas, which few do.

There is very little indoor plumbing, and most people either have water delivered in 5 gallon jugs or they draw it from the 3 inch PVC pipe that runs along the side of the street. There are various places where it has been tapped with a rudimentary faucet. This morning there were three teenage girls squatting next to the faucet outside the church fully closed, but bathing, and getting ready for school. In fact, people are using the taps to bathe all through the early hours of the morning.

You would think it would be quiet without any automobiles but that’s just not the case. The windows in the church don’t have any glass, so all of the rooms are open to the street and the sound of all of the boats that start up early comes in our rooms.

But far worse than the boat engines are the roosters. The overachievers start crowing about 330 to 4 o’clock, followed by the vast majority which start making a loud cacophony between 530 and 6 AM. A number of students have requested to….. eliminate the roosters, but it would be bad form for us as guests to kill the livestock of our hosts. So those who can’t sleep through the noise just have to deal with it, but they are indeed loud!

At the school, the 11 Nehemiah were divided between seven classes. So a few of classes had two of us in them. The rest of the students did it solo. It was an elementary school, and after introductions there was an icebreaker as well as a game. Then we got onto the lesson. As I mentioned before we are able to teach our values curriculum from the Bible. our topics were patient respect love one another forgiveness. After 55 minutes we would switch classes and repeat the same lesson. We did this three times. Unfortunately the monsoon rains tended to to time their downpour just when we were changing classes, and though we had rain gear, many of us were soaked. After the three hours of teaching classes we gave a performance at the “chapel “, which consisted of a packed red dirt area with some chairs. We did a half an hour performance which included puppets, a drama, skit, and teaching them some songs. Afterwards, everybody’s shoes were caked with a red dirt, the stains don’t  want to come out.

Around noon, we walked back to church and ate a quick lunch of PB&J sandwiches  (for the 10,000 time of this summer) and then walked uphill the other direction to the high school. The vibe was totally different. It was so much easier to do games and interact with students because they could speak English so much more. But still, two - three hour, back-to-back hours of teaching is tiring. We also followed the afternoon session with a ministry performance. About 100+ of us were packed in a small tile room. But the spirit was present and the atmosphere was electric! You could tell that the Filipinos were tracking with us and they cheered and participated in everything we did. You would have thought Nehemiah team were rock stars.

I happened to notice the way some of the teenage Filipino girls were watching our boys. All the guys got a lot of attention from the Filipino girls, but Colton seemed to get more than his fair of attention. It occurred to me that he could go home married if he was so inclined. But he just wasn’t interested and probably didn’t even notice all of the longing glances and soulful eyes aimed his way.

We walked back to the church, tired but well satisfied. After dinner, I sent them out for quiet time. We were reading through the first three chapters of first Peter as well as the 14th chapter Proverbs. Even after seven hours of ministry our discussion time on Peter had to be cut off at an hour and 10 minutes. We often have a lively discussions each evening and lots of questions during our debrief of our time in the word. I love it. I had cut it short because we need about an hour and 15 to get everybody through the showers…if the tiny bathroom where they dump a bucket cold water qualifies as a shower. I’ve been told multiple times that they’re actually glad that there’s no light in the bathroom at night because it’s far easier to shower when you don’t see how nasty the place is and all of the spiders. No amount of cleaning can touch those bathrooms! But they don’t complain and they just get on with life.

Who are these my students? They embrace every trial thrown their way with a positive attitude. I think they’re aliens. Sure they may be zombies in the morning until music is turned on, but otherwise I think that somewhere aliens secretly took their place because I never experienced a team with such positive attitudes. I know this might not be the reality of them at home, but in this environment, when we’re depending on one another and on Christ, spending each day in the Word, doing ministry, they are not letting the circumstances dictate their response. They have developed a strong community among them all.

Today is an especially good day, because the lady should deliver our clean laundry. Some students don’t have clean clothes left. Though they don’t smell yet, it’s only a matter of time so I’m glad we’re getting fresh clothes today.

One things become clear since we’ve been here is that Abigail is a kid whisperer. Maybe it’s her infectious smile, or the gentle intentional way in which she talks to each child, but when she leaves a class, she is mobbed by girls hugging waist and legs (that’s as high as they can reach) to say goodbye.

I should call this running blog, but we’re now leaving Bulalo. It was a small school in a tiny village. We were told by the pastor that we were the first people ever to come and do outreach in the village, let alone the school. School was kindergartners to sixth grade probably about 50 and all. We were received well and the teachers gave us a lot of latitude to do what we want. As in the schools yesterday we were able to be very upfront with the gospel message. The values teaching brought our faith component into it. We also performed a drama we call clocks - or frozen in time - and it gives Pastor Christian an opportunity to explain the drama and then share all about Christ in the local dialect.

Well, we’re heading back to the ranch and we are all pretty hungry. We should get back just about 1 o’clock. We’ll take some time to rest and recuperate a bit today and get ready for the next few days of ministry.

For the Nehemiah Family,

Tom

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