Philippine Travel Log: John’s First Plane Ride

Posted on October 5, 2008 by Jeff Block

After church on Sunday in Dingras, we dropped the bulk of our full van off at Shekinah Home, and headed for the airport.  Our flight was at 7:35PM, and we left Shekinah for the hour-long trip at about 5PM.  We were advised that we should get to the airport 90 minutes before our flight, so we were pretty much right on time.

The only thing we had to do besides get to our flight was to somehow get John dinner.  Faith and I could deal, but we wanted to deviate from John’s schedule as little as possible.  The answer was simple:  McDonald’s, baby!

We stopped at the McDonald’s in Laoag City.  I have no idea how many McD’s there were in this part of the world, but I didn’t care that much.  Any would do.  This one had a drive-thru, but we didn’t use it – which I thought odd.  This was the first cultural practice in the Philippines that I didn’t relate to, so it was a massive shock.  Oh wait, haven’t you been reading these posts!?

Anyway, I went in and ordered food for the three of us, figuring it would be quick.  I wanted a bit of a variety, both because I didn’t know what John would like and I wanted to try things there to compare them, so I ordered way too much food…  2 McDo burgers, 2 chicken sandwiches, 1 chicken nuggets, 1 fries, and 2 apple pies.  They forced me to take the 2nd apple pie; I guess they only come in pairs.  They laughed at me (I’m serious) when I asked for grilled chicken.  And they made me wait like 7 minutes for the friend chicken.  Ugh.  I wouldn’t have cared, except that everyone was out in the van waiting for me.  It wasn’t even the airport, it was keeping everyone waiting that stressed me out.

Finally, with food in hand, I got back to the car.  John-John tore into some nuggets and fries, I had a chicken sandwich, and Faith waited (no idea why).  John ate half the nuggets, all the fries, and tore through an apple pie.  Go figure.  Eats the fries and dessert first.  I fear we’re bad parents.  The rest went into our duffle bag for later use (in theory).

By the way, for the record…  The chicken was good, but had a funky sauce on it that I definitely could have done without.  I’m typically very against ordering the deep fat friend sandwich with fat sauce, but I had little choice in this situation.

We got to the airport right on time.  As we got out of the car, everything went blurry.  People were grabbing our bags, saying goodbye, waving the van to move on, etc.  I abandoned concern for everything but Faith, John, and our travel documents.  Well, I kept an eye on the bags too, but they were fine.  They went in ahead of us, and we went through almost no security at all to ultimately be standing at the ticket counter.  There was only one – for BOTH airlines.  This was not a big airport.

There had been some concern about John’s ability to travel without a passport.  I started to explain the situation to the guy behind the counter, but he just stamped the tickets and waved us through.  It was ultra trivial.

Next came the guy who makes you pay an airport usage tax.  We got that done easily too.

We then walked through one more metal detector (I’m not sure our bags ever got scanned – at least not while we had them), and found ourselves in the gate area.  There was only one of these two.  I think it took us a grand total of 8 minutes to get through everything to our seats, leaving us a good solid hour to wait to board the plane.  Why again did we hurry?

We sat down, and almost immediately met a very nice pair of Chinese women who sat down next to us.  They were traveling around the Philippines, and were very friendly to John.  Faith swears he had a crush on one of the girls, Mi Mi, but I’m not as big a romantic.  Either way, it helped to pass the time, for which I was grateful.

John, Faith and Mi Mi. Mi Mi let John wear one of her souvenir hats.

John, Faith and Mi Mi. Mi Mi let John wear one of her souvenir hats.

Eventually, the plane pulled up, which got John all manner of excited.  We had continued the “we’re flying on an airplane today” routine all day, and John was excited pretty much every time we said it.  Now that he was watching a real life airplane taxi in, he was thrilled.  The gate area was just as small on the outside as it was on the inside, so when I say that the planed pulled up, I really mean it.  It taxied in from the runway, and pulled up to the gate parallel to the windows we were looking out.  A couple guys then rolled steps up to two doors on the plane, people walked down them, and in the door.  It was more the way we’re used to bus terminals in America, not airports.  But then, I’m not sure I’ve been in an airport this small in America either.

John watched every aspect of what was going on with great interest.  I got a big kick out of that.  I also got a big kick out of walking John in front of the powerful fans on the big air conditioning units in the room, and making funny faces when they suddenly chilled us.  I discovered them by trying to reposition John for better views of plane-related activity, but soon started making excuses to get in front of them to hoard cold air.

When the time finally came to walk out the door, across the tarmac, and onto the plane, John lost confidence.  It was dark and damp outside (had been raining), the planes engines were very loud, and everything was pretty big.  He had expressed fear at a couple points before, primarily upon noticing the size difference between a real plane and the little toy plane we’d given him that morning.  So, Faith and I were ready for his objections.  I carried our carry-on bags (mostly with a bunch of stuff to feed and distract John if necessary), and she carried John, and we made a beeline for the plane, giving him as little time to be afraid and (especially to express his fear) as possible.  It worked swimmingly, and before we knew it we were on board.

I knew instantly that it was all downhill from there.  John was wild-eyed, excited, and playful the entire trip.  He turned every knob there was to turn short of the cockpit.  He checked out the bathroom, other seats, the windows, the chairs, the tray tables, the seat covers, and on and on.  His absolute favorite item though was the safety information card.  He got all three out of the seats in front of the row we were in, and shuffled them and “read” them and played with them and handed them out and hid them and found them and it went on and on for the whole flight.  It was 10x easier than some of my early fears had thought it might be, and I praised God for yet again making the whole thing easy on us.

We got to Manila just over an hour after we boarded the plane.  John was all about the baggage claim and every other aspect of the new, much bigger airport experience.  However, it was clear he was starting to wind down … until he saw the luggage carts that is.  Then it was off to the races again.  He pushed the cart, then Faith pushed him, then he pushed the luggage, and then (my favorite) he pushed mommy on the cart while I was taking care of getting us a car to our hotel.

John pushes Faith on the luggage cart at the Manila airport

John pushes Faith on the luggage cart at the Manila airport

Once in the car, he tried to play the familiar flip-every-switch-there-is game, but tiredness got the best of him and he was pretty mellow by the time we got to the hotel.  I don’t remember if we put him through our night time routine.  I think we did.  But either way, it was fairly uneventful, and we all slept soundly after a big day.  I for one was thrilled to death to be back in Manila, which felt to me like a return to civilization.  At the very least, it was a return to a real bed, a real shower, and air conditioning.  And for Faith, morning couldn’t come fast enough, because a nice outdoor pool awaited her and her new water buddy!

BTW, in case you’re wondering, we got a room with two double beds, rather than one king.  The plan was for John to take one bed and us to take the other.  That worked most of the time we were there, but it definitely didn’t leave much in the way of privacy.

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Philippine Travel Log: Our Last Day at Shekinah

Posted on October 5, 2008 by Jeff Block

Day 5: Sunday, October 5, 2008
Our Last Day at Shekinah

John-John with Sadiri and Auring, his house parents

John-John with his houseparents, Sadiri and Auring

I guess I was anxious to get back to the world of western food and air conditioning, because I started packing the night before.  With Sunday, our 5th day at Shekinah, packing commenced in earnest.  Throughout the day, John seemed more reserved than usual.  We thought perhaps he was picking up on the connection between packing and leaving, but that seemed like a pretty significant connection to make for a little boy who knows only the orphanage.  Either way, we spent much of the day in fear of the meltdown that would potential delay our flight that evening, etc.

The schedule was pretty simple for the day…

  1. Do laundry
  2. Settle up with Shekinah, which boiled down to very little paperwork
  3. Go to church
  4. Head to the airport and fly back to Manila

We had no idea how John would react to leaving the orphanage.  We didn’t know if he’d freak out from misunderstanding, be really sad, not even notice, or any number of other reactions.  We also didn’t know how he’d react to the airport, the 45 minute flight to Manila, the city (once we arrived), etc.  So, we decided to try to prepare him for some of this ahead of time.

We woke up this morning, and the first thing we did was give John a new toy airplane, and start talking about how we were going to have the grand adventure of flying on an airplane today.  This is also the point at which I first used the term “adventure” with John.  Now, whenever we’re going to do something new, I get him all primed and excited by saying “we’re going on an adventure”.  He eats it up.  I think that started on this day, talking about the adventure of flying on an airplane for the first time.

We also mentioned that we were going to church, and he didn’t seem to like that at all.  When we got to church and discovered that the kids were made to just sit quietly in an adult service, it was clear why.  But we’ll get back to that.

So, after John’s morning routine, which included breakfast delivered to us in our cottage, mom started in on the laundry.  John absolutely *loved* that.  He was mom’s little helper from start to finish.  JoAnne had shown Faith how to use the washer the day before and they had borrowed a big bucket (with which to get water into the washer), so she hit the ground running.  Once through the washer with soap, then spin dry, then back through the washer to rinse (no soap), then spin dry, then hang out on the line to really dry.  There was no dryer.

After the first load, she headed out to the clothes line to hang the clothes to dry.  This was about 8AM, after the sun had come up at about 5:30AM.  The woman who was watching the babies in the next cottage over had beaten her to the punch and had a bunch of clothes already up.  Faith was going to give up, but I pushed her out the door with a “it’s about community” to talk to her.  I thought they could easily share.  But, of course, the generosity of Philippine culture kicked in, and she ended taking most of her clothes down, and moving them to a line all the way on the other side of the compound, so that Faith could have the whole area to herself by our cottage.  Way too generous, but we were grateful.  Three loads later, pretty much everything we had was washed and hanging to dry, along with towels and such which belonged to the orphanage that we had used.

I put off getting my shower until as late in the day as possible, as it was swelteringly hot.  Of course, going to church in the afternoon meant wearing nice clothes too, and I was just imagining the church to be small and confined, therefore additionally hot.  Ugh.  Wasn’t looking forward to that.

I was also concerned because the church supposedly got out at 4:45PM, our flight was at 7:35PM, it takes an hour to get from Shekinah to the airport, we were supposed to be there 90 minutes early (everyone told us that), and we had to drop the kids back at the orphanage, say goodbye, and get John’s dinner between church ending and arriving at the airport.  So, I was making a point to communicate with everyone that we had to move with a purpose.

Brian and family came back over after breakfast.  They were leaving at 11AM to head back to where they live, so we weren’t able to have lunch with them.  They said their goodbyes to John-John without incident.  I was a little concerned that the goodbyes would make a good meltdown point, but none came.  Praise the Lord!

After they were gone, we ate lunch, put John down for his name (without incident), I got my shower, we got the clothes off the line, cleaned, finalized packing, and got ready for church.

We were leaving for church at 2:45PM, so got John up at 2:15, thinking we’d have plenty of time.  And then, pretty much out of nowhere, he lost it.  I think we were trying to get him to go to the bathroom before we left, since it would be a long time until the opportunity presented itself again, but either way he ended up hiding in the corner by the toilet on the ground screaming.  We pulled him out again and tried to hold him again, as with the previous day’s episode.  And similarly, it wasn’t working. Now what do we do?!

Two of the kids from the main building showed up, we think to get us to follow them back to the main building to get in the van to head to church.  We decided at that point that we needed to get John calmed down and ready to fly out, so we’d skip church.  We tried to communicate that to the kids, but they gave us blank stares and ran off.  I’m not sure their English was working enough to really get it.

A few minutes later the van pulled up.  Packed into it (as maniacally as they drive, there is no interest in seat belts at all in the Philippines) was pretty much the entire orphanage.  All the kids, Sadiri, Auring, one of their biological children, all the non-babies in the orphanage, and then room for Faith, John and I.

Sadiri and Auring got out of the van, started talking to John in Ilocano, and (with a bit of roughness I wouldn’t have used), finished getting him ready to get out the door.  It was clear that we were going to church no matter who didn’t like it.  And the weird thing was that John pretty much got a grip and went with it.  A couple minutes later, we were in the van on our way, and ended up being quite on time for church.  And John-John’s attitude wasn’t really even the worse for wear.

The church was roomy, had a lot of windows, and even more fans.  Also, God was good to me, and a cooler front was moving more rain in, so the temp was starting to back off its high of 125 or whatever craziness it was that day.  The service was like the TV and radio, a mixture of English and (I assume) Ilocano.  So, we had no idea what was going on at all.  The songs were all familiar, but that was it.  John clung to me the whole service, and was quite disinterested, which doesn’t surprise me.  The service was not at all setup for children.

At one point, the pastor, who clearly knew John-John and Shekinah Home well, had Faith, John and I stand up, and introduced us.  That was the only part of the 90 minute service that John found interesting.  When the pastor said his name (over the sound system no less), he sat bold upright and looked around trying to figure out where that came from.  It was pretty cute.

The message itself was extremely hard to follow.  Schizophrenic use of language aside, the sermon must have consisted of no less than 50 topics.  Before he really got rolling, he had a PowerPoint presentation that listed each book of the Bible and who Jesus was, as portrayed in that book.  So, for example, in Genesis, He is Creator.  In Exodus, He is Deliverer.  Etc.  He read through these and gave quick recaps most of the way through the old testament.

At first I thought this was awesome.  I was imagining that each of these books was its own sermon, and that he’d been working on / going through them for months.  I was all excited to see which book we’d talk about today.  But as it turned out, he was doing more like a dozen books per week, so this was only the 3-4 message in the series.  He covered a bunch of minor prophets at the end of the Old Testament, through the gospels, and stopped I think at Acts in the New Testament.  I was dizzy by the time he was done.  How could anybody actually walk away from that much information with practical application?!  Very interesting.

After the service, a number of people greeted us and congratulated us or expressed gratitude that we were taking John-John back with us.  It seemed like the whole community was excited about his adoption.  I wasn’t really expecting that, nor was I expecting to be introduced.  I also kicked myself for forgetting to bring the camera with us.  It would have been nice to get pictures of some of these people for John so that he’d have them when he got older and started asking questions about his past.

We only socialized for a few minutes, and then took off back for Shekinah.  I guess Sadiri had heard me loud and clear when I said that we would be in a hurry.  That was good. And the church, in downtown Dingras, was only a few minutes away from the orphanage, so we got back there in record time.

Upon returning to the compound, he drove right past the main building to our cottage.  Everyone hopped out of the van and started saying goodbyes.  I realized I didn’t have the camera, so I ran in to get it.  I took pictures of all the orphanage children, mama, papa and Mary Jane.  In case you’re wondering, she had jumped in the van and joined us in Dingras after church, because Brian had instructed her to go to the airport with us.  He was afraid that since John didn’t have his passport yet that he wouldn’t be able to travel, and wanted Mary Jane there to handle any related issues … which we greatly appreciated.

John said goodbye, for the most part, but wasn’t very animated … and certainly didn’t throw a fit.  The adults were far more emotional than he was.  While they were hugging and kissing him, I grabbed our bags and threw them in the van, and before we knew it, Faith, John, Sadiri, Mary Jane, Sadiri’s daughter, and I were off to the Laoag City airport.

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Philippine Travel Log: A Day with the Whittles

Posted on October 4, 2008 by Jeff Block

Day 4: Saturday, October 4, 2008
A Day with the Whittles

John-John with Brian Whittle, Director of Shekinah Home

John-John with Brian Whittle, Director of the Orphanage

Brian and JoAnne Whittle are the directors of Shekinah Home.  They founded the orphanage nearly 4 years ago as missionaries from the United States, and have served dozens of children there in Christ’s name.  John-John was the second child at the home, so he has seen many children come and go, some with forever families.  Brian has the children call him “grandpa”, and will remain a part of John’s life from a distance as he grows up.  Also, when he’s in the US on furlow and can make it anywhere near Chicago, we plan to get together with them so that they can be a part of John’s life in person.

Brian and his family used to live at the orphanage and invest in the children full-time.  Now, he works as a tentmaker a few hours away from the facility, as he trains his staff to carry on in the ministry without his constant presence there.  Currently he spends every other weekend or so at Shekinah.

When Faith and I arrived at Shekinah, we were told we would be staying in the Whittles’ cottage.  This is one of the 3 completed cottages in the compound where they stay when they visit.  The accomodations were very nice for us, and ideal for spending quality bonding time with John.

Brian and his family visited Shekinah the weekend we were there, so we got to spend a significant amount of time with them.  John and his youngest (adopted) daughter Angel are fast friends, so it was nice that they got to play together too.  And of course John enjoyed being with grandma and grandpa one last time before departing for the US.

While John and Angel played, we got a chance to discuss John’s background with Brian and JoAnne.  I was very interested to learn a number of things about John’s past and early life that we didn’t already know, including that a daily journal had been kept for John by the house parents at the orphanage for the first 6 weeks he was there.  Brian promised to get that to us, which is exciting, because I think it’s something John will treasure as he gets older and wants to explore his past.

It was clear to me early on that Brian’s primary concern for the children in the orphanage was their spiritual development.  He wants children placed in Christian families.  The way he put it was, “Every family that comes through here has the money, the interest in adoption, and the ability to be parents – or they wouldn’t be here.  The parents I want for my kids are the ones who, in addition to all that, can’t stop talking about Jesus.”  As is my common tendency, I was immediately on guard against being judged as inadequately spiritual.  This was also something I had to give up to God and let Him worry about.  Besides, it’s not like there was anything left in the decision making process.  Everyone had signed off.  So, even if Brian had had concerns, it would not have halted the process at the point we were at.  Fortunately, I feel like we hit it off really well.  Brian was a bit of a story-teller, and JoAnne was a fairly quiet person.  They were both very strong, and passionate in their unique ways about the kids and the home.

Brian was also excited to give us a tour of the property, and share their vision for where they’d like to see the orphanage go.  It became obvious that they are in need of money, and to have more children adopted.  Brian was also less than subtle about putting those needs out in front of us.  In theory, Faith and I would love to adopt again from Shekinah in the future, but right now our primary concern is adjusting to John.

While the adults talked, John and Angel played together on the floor.  It was nice to see him hanging out with someone his age.  Eventually, though, both of them had to go down for their naps.  We told JoAnne that Angel could have John’s bed, and that John could go down for his nap in ours.  So, she retired with Angel, Brian left to take care of some business in the main building, and we went to our room to try to put John down for his nap.

We were not prepared.

John got in the room, we kissed him, and laid him down for his nap.  Everything was going fine until I said “bye bye John-John”.  At that, he jumped out of the bed onto the floor, cowered in the corner (tucked behind the bed where it was very hard to reach him and impossible to get down on the floor with him) and started crying.  I say “crying”, but it was really more of a wailing – screaming mixed with crying.  That boy has some lungs on him.  We tried to reach him; he retracted, and we were afraid he’d go under the bed.  So, we sat on the bed and spoke soothingly to him.  I was a bit self-conscious about JoAnne’s being in the next room, feeling like we were already a little on trial and that this wasn’t what I wanted them to hear.  Another thing to give to God.

We sat there for 15 or so minutes – John wailing and us trying to comfort him, until finally I felt like it was important that we hold him.  So, I pulled him out from behind the bed, which took some force that I know he wasn’t happy with.  That didn’t help.  He screamed and kicked and balled like nothing I’ve ever seen.  You could hear anger in his voice.  He was *not* a happy child.

Everything we had read about adoption of older children told us that this was likely an attachment issue.  The books all said that he could push us away because he didn’t trust us yet, and that at those times we should hold him close and reassure him that we do.  So, we did.  He cried and yelled and kicked for 45 minutes.  A biological child we’d have just left in the bed and left the room, so he could cry himself to sleep.  But that’s a huge no-no with an older adopted child, because it confirms his fears that you will leave if the going gets tough.  So, we weathered it, and eventually he fell asleep.

Stress level was way way high.

JoAnne was sitting in the common area of the cottage reading when we came out of the room.  Finally there was quiet.  Angel had slept through the whole thing, and we were relieved that JoAnne met us with compassion not judgment.  We explained our thinking to her and confirmed it, so we felt even better, and sat and visited for a while.

John woke up all smiles, ready for playtime.  It was like nothing had ever happened.  Who knew that Dr. Jeckal was Philippino and waiting to be adopted.  But we were grateful for our return to grace as parents in the eyes of our child.

We wanted to do some laundry before we left Shekinah (which was to be the following day), so Brian and family drove us into town (Dingrass, about 5 minutes away) to pick up laundry detergent.  They don’t have boxes or bottles of detergent there like we do in the States.  Instead, it was P22 (about $0.47) for a three-pack of individual-load Tide packets, in powdered form.  We’d probably only need one of these, but we got a bunch for the orphanage.  Anything we could do to offset their overexerted budget was fine by us, especially when it came to such essentials and they came so cheap.  I didn’t even spend $20 on the stuff, and we practically bought out the store’s entire inventory.  Guess Tide isn’t the common everyday solution for laundry … or doing laundry isn’t common and everyday.  One or the other.

Anyway, after the market, we drove to a very interesting old Spanish church in Dingras.  Brian explained that, with the exception of a brief halt to services during the Japanese occupation during WWII, it had held continuous services for something like 450 years.  Whoa!  Now that’s cool. When you looked at this thing, it said, “I’m insanely old” too.  We were told that the stone walls of the church are 6 ft thick, and the flying buttresses weren’t exactly fragile either.  I’m thinking you could pretty much nuke Ilocos Norte, and that church would still be standing there.  We went inside and looked around, and found that bats were living there and openly flying around.  John didn’t go for that, but Faith was all over it – snapping one picture after another.  Unfortunately, the dark cavernous insides of the church just ate the flash, so there aren’t many good pix.  Here’s one though that turned out pretty amazing.  Wish I had a picture of the outside of the building, but I didn’t even think of that until it was too late.  Sorry.  😦

450 yr old Catholic church in Dingras, Philippines

450 yr old Catholic church in Dingras, Philippines

When we returned to the Shekinah compound, Faith and I presented the Whittles with the medical supplies and other gifts we had brought with us.  We had vitamins, antibiotics, bandages, and the like.  He was very appreciative, and I felt all good about myself until I started doing the math on just how many vitamins they need.  The rest of the stuff would last them a while, but at close to 20 kids taking a vitamin per day, it doesn’t take long to chew through even Costco-sized bottles of Flintstones.  Ugh.

Brian and JoAnne ate dinner with us, which was nice, and stayed late visiting.  It was at this point that John and Angel decided to take apart one of the dressers in the cottage and play with it.  I have myriad fun shots of this, but thought I’d share at least one…

John and Angel playing in the dresser

John and Angel playing in the dresser

While John played and the adults talked, the rain that started just as we were leaving the church earlier that afternoon continued.  Whatever cold front brought it, I welcomed gladly, because temperatures dropped down into the low 70’s for the afternoon and overnight.  It was glorious!  And with the cool night air blowing through the windows, we kicked Brian and family out about 9:30PM, took John-John through his evening routine without incident, and hit the sack.

And there was evening and there was morning the forth day.

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Philippine Travel Log: New Children at Shekinah

Posted on October 4, 2008 by Jeff Block

The day before we left Shekinah Home to take John to Manila, and ultimately to the United States, the home took in four new children – a sibling group.  I don’t know any of their names, and I wouldn’t publish them in this forum even if I did.  For the sake of reference, we’ll call them Peter (age 8), Susan (age 6), Lucy (age 3), and Edmond (3 months).  They’re not in the same order as in the Chronicles of Narnia, so it may be confusing to those close to that story, but we’ll run with it.

Brian Whittle expressed concern before the children arrived that they might be in pretty bad shape.  He told us how their father(s) was/were long gone, and mom’s current boyfriend was pretty much known to be abusing the children.  For instance, at least Susan had been sexually abused.

When the children arrived, his fears were confirmed.  Lucy and Edmond had boils, burns and scars on their feet.  They had clearly been tortured.  All four children were malnourished, but Lucy was the worst.  She could not stand up without assistance (I think she was about 3), and her legs were bowed and visibly atrophied.  The younger children were coughing a lot too.  And none of the children would talk to anyone other than each other.

It was heart-wrenching to see them cowering away from the group, but then when left alone, they’d play together (with no toys) and whisper and giggle.  It was obvious both that they loved each other and that “each other” was pretty much all they had.

Within hours of their arrival, Brian stopped by our cottage to let us know that they were taking the youngest two to the local hospital.  They were concerned because both appeared weak and more malnourished than they were comfortable treating directly.

When we got home, we received a prayer request by email.  Brian informed us that in fact Lucy has meningitis – which was the reason she was so weak.

Please pray for these children, and for Shekinah Home, which gives them hope, a chance at life, and lifts them out of a very dark place.

I published this entry to make clear that good and evil are real, and that innocent children like these get caught in the middle of it.  How hard is it for this sibling group to be adopted together (FOUR children)!?  How much emotional and psychological damage has been done to these poor kids (torture and sexual abuse)!?  How sad is it that Lucy may not even live, given the serious of her physical condition (all of which could have been avoided with just a little love, even in the midst of radical poverty)?!

I was told in the process of our adopting John that there are 200 million children in the world who live on the streets.  I can’t imagine how many more are orphans.  It’s a God-sized task to care for them.  No wonder Jesus commanded us to pay special attention to widows and orphans and the most defenseless among us.  These four kids were them.  Thank God that He’s brought them to Shekinah.  Pray that they can stay (that’s not a given yet), and that He restores their souls.

America, bless God!

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Philippine Travel Log: Outing to Laoag

Posted on October 3, 2008 by Jeff Block

Day 3: Friday, October 3, 2008
Outing to Ilocos Norte Museum and Fort Ilocandia

Fort Ilocandia

Fort Ilocandia

Of the 5 days we had planned to spend at the orphanage, there were three outings scheduled.  Today, the plan was to visit Fort Ilocandia, a resort outside Laoag City, about 40 minutes from Shekinah.  I don’t remember who it was that suggested that we also visit the Ilocos Norte Museum in Laoag, but that ended up on the itinerary as well.  At the suggestion, I was immediately unsure how John-John would handle a museum.  Doesn’t really feel like a good fit for a 4 yr old.  Also, I knew it’d be incredibly hot, and as per their customs I’d be stuck in jeans.

We got John up and went through our morning ritual without incident.  Sadiri brought us breakfast at our cottage, which we greatly enjoyed.  We then headed over to the main building, gathered up Jackie and her things, and headed into town.  We were dropping Jackie off at the bus station in Laoag City to head back south; she was willing to stay with us the whole 5 days, but we sent her packing so that she could visit her family, from whom she’s away for two weeks at a time for work.  If she could get extra time with her, then go for it.  We were doing fine.

We had to stop by the market, because I wanted batteries (for the flashlight in our cottage with which John-John loved to play) and some chewable candies (for John-John on the airplane flights we’d be taking over the next few days, so that in swallowing he would equalize the pressure in his ears).  Travel tip #9: Always have something for the children to chew on and have to swallow.  Gum works, or if they’re young, then it’s hard or chewy candies, like Starbursts.  Jackie had introduced us to Mentos, which were fruit chews that we really liked, so we got a bunch of those.

Jackie was my guide to the market, while Faith stayed with John-John in the van.  Sadiri was driving of course.  After the market, we went our separate ways.  She took a tricycle to the bus station, and we continued on in the van to the museum.  We drove past the parking lot, so Sadiri circled back through a number of alleys to get back to the parking lot.  This was probably the least comfortable I felt driving the whole time I was in the Philippines.  The alleys were congested, both with tricycles and pedestrians, so we moved at a snails pace.  This meant three things:  the frustration of driving in gridlock (which we’re familiar with in Chicago), no relief from the heat due to open windows, and breathing the exhaust fumes from the tricycles.  Also, I didn’t feel safe.  The people staning in the alleys stared at us (look at the white people!), and they didn’t look at all friendly.  If they had wanted to make trouble, they easily could have.  But they didn’t, and I was very relieved to finally arrive at the museum and get out of the van.  We even found a tree to park under.

We went through the museum fairly quickly.  As I suspected, John-John really didn’t care all that much.  Honestly, I didn’t either.  It was hot, as I predicted, and of course John wanted me to carry him (doesn’t make it cooler).  So, I wasn’t particularly interested in reading plaques about the region’s history, etc.  There were a number of interesting artifacts there, and I imagine for the region it was a very nice museum.  We did, however, make it to an air conditioned gift shop at the end of our time there, which I found much more interesting.  😉  Not only was it a chance to rest and cool off, but John-John found many more interesting things to touch and play with that he shouldn’t have been picking up.  Faith also found a number of souvenirs for people there, which were extremely affordable.  John-John particularly liked this hat, but I wasn’t sure how we’d fit it in our luggage…

John tries on hats at the Ilocos Norte museum

John tries on hats at the Ilocos Norte museum

From the museum, Sadiri took us to Fort Ilocandia, a local resort frequented by (particularly Chinese and Japanese) tourists.  It was a very upscale place, at least the lobby, restaurant, and courtyard were.  We didn’t see the rooms.  Ironically, this was another place Faith had discovered in her online research, so it was vaguely familiar to us even prior to arrival.

We played in the lobby for a while.  John-John was all about running up and down the steps (must have done so 12-15 times), and watching the fish swim around in an indoor pond.  The hotel had a beautiful indoor courtyard area where both the pond and the steps were. We took great joy in listening to John-John say “Hi, Fish!” in his enthusiastic voice over and over.  We were also thrilled that he counted with us when we walked up and down the stairs.  With some help, he was able to make it over 20, but I think on his own he starts getting stuck at about 12 or 13.  This was all great fun (and indoors out of the brutal sun, so dad was happy).

We then went to the mini-zoo in the outer courtyard.  John wanted nothing to do with that.  Even the statues of animals scared him, let alone the real things.  With monkeys, tigers, alligators, etc, that didn’t surprise me.  But he didn’t even want to pet the little chicks or the bunnies.  I guess he *really* doesn’t like animals.  So much for Faith’s theory that he’ll want a dog.  *whew*!

We had an interesting cultural experience while there.  While we were wandering around amongst the animal cages, without a word, Sadiri ducked a fence, crossed a road, and headed off the property.  We weren’t sure where he was going, but went ahead and followed.  He had a head start on us, so we were trying to catch up.  I was carrying John-John, so naturally it was Faith who first noticed that he was trying to get somewhere to relieve himself, and here we were following him.  Faith was so embarrassed.  It was kinda funny.

After that, we headed back inside to the hotel restaurant.  It was wonderfully air conditioned, and the food was very good.  John-John, Faith, and I all had spaghetti, and Sadiri ordered some pork-laiden Philippine soupy dish.  Ugh.  Not to worry though, when we got the spaghetti, it had pork in the sauce.  lol

We also got fruity drinks with lunch.  I got a watermelon shake, while John-John and Sadiri each got mango.  Faith sampled mine and John’s.  You could tell Sadiri was uncomfortable through the whole meal, not used to the environment of the semi-posh western-style restaurant.  It created more than one awkward pause during lunch.

Another funny experience came with our drinks.  My watermelon shake came with a piece of melon as garnish.  I know John likes watermelon, so I asked if he wanted it.  Of course, he did.  So, he’s happily eating that and Faith and I are talking with Sadiri.  Suddenly I hear a nice strong *crunch* come from John.  I look over, and he’s eating the rine of the melon right along with the meat.  We thought about stopping him, but he was more than content, so….  at least it wasn’t a catfish head.

After lunch, we wandered the grounds.  We wanted to go to the beach, but the security guard wouldn’t let us.  Only for those staying at the resort, he said.  That was okay.  We were about to leave when he – I think took pity on us; I was sopping wet from sweat again – told us that there was a playground that John might want to play on.  So, we walked him over there, and he and Faith had a BLAST playing on it.  He climbed and slid, and had a generally great time.  He was tentative at first about everything.  Don’t know if he’d ever played on a playground like this.  He loved crossing the rope bridge too, but never got up the nerve to go himself.  Mom had to carry him.  Where was dad?  Well, the sun pretty much wussified me again, so I spent most of our time at the playground sitting in a bungalow provided for us weaklings, cheering John on … especialy when he’d do something he previously hadn’t been willing to do.

John plays on the jungle gym at Fort Ilocandia

John plays on the jungle gym at Fort Ilocandia

John was not at all happy when it was time to leave, and threw a bit of a tantrum.  It was also due to the fact that when I asked him for a water bottle, he refused to give it to me, so I had to explain to him that although I love him greatly, it’s unacceptable for him to refuse to do something I ask him to do like that.  Between that and having to leave, he got all withdrawn (as is his custom), and Sadiri had to jump in afterward and pull him back to the land of fun.

We left the fort at about 2PM, and headed back.  John fell asleep in the car for a while, but still needed a nap afterwards.  He wasn’t too thrilled about going down for his nap, though.  He cowered in a corner, and Faith had to sooth him back into letting us lay him down on the bed.  She stayed with him until he fell asleep.

Faith read while he slept, and I was able to sneak over to the main building and get some time on their office computer to send out a “We have John” email, and update Facebook.  When John awoke, he and Faith came over to get me, because he had been asking for me.  We played there with the other children for a while, and eventually headed back to our cottage to get ready for dinner, which they brought over to us.  We clearly observed that John got jealous every time we devoted too much attention to the other children at the orphanage.  I became very sensative to always making John feel special.  I rarely held other children, and when I picked John up, I always did so in a unique way (tossing him up in the air) and told him he was special.

Dinner and the remainder of playtime went well / were somewhat routine.  Before bed, John refused to go potty, which put a wrench in the evening routine.  Came out of nowhere, since we were having such a good time with other things.  He just got it in his head that this wasn’t something he was going to do … to the point that he plopped down on the bathroom floor and cowered in the corner by the toilet.  Yuck!  I’m thinking “Not there!  It’s disgusting down in that corner!”  We tried to coax him out, but eventually just pulled him out of the corner.  We played for a little while to snap him out of it, and that worked until we said we were going back into the bathroom.  Then back to tantrum mode.  So we took his clothes off him (he wasn’t happy), and put him in the shower.  He *loves* the shower (water in general), so he warmed back up immediately.  Guess there’d just be no potty tonight.

It was here we learned / made a vow that we would not ask him if he wanted to do things which he had no choice whether or not to do.  Duh!  Aren’t we brilliant.

He wasn’t too thrilled to go to bed either.  Got all sullen while we were having story time.  We tried to snuggle with him and tell him we love him repeatedly, but he would have none of it.  This little guy just doesn’t like going to sleep.  Eventually, we left him in his bed to just fall asleep, and he did.

Before I close, I thought I’d share a few other observations we made of John that day that I think are worthy of note:

  1. We started worked on “Please” and “Thank you”, which is new to John.  He’s doing pretty well, but that’s going to take a while I’m sure.
  2. He started posing for pictures today, which is really awesome, because now we actually have a few non-candid shots were he’s actually smiling.
  3. He played by himself a couple of times.  That’s huge, and would prove to be an ongoing struggle.  He pretty much wants constant attention frommom and dad.

All in all, John-John is such a good kid.  He’s well-mannered and compliant 90% of the time.  He shares with other kids, is fun and energetic, and has the best facial expressions ever.  There were quite a few (new) challenges today, but we made it through.  We’re also fairly convinced that the challenges will only increase, so welcome to parenthood, right?

Either way, there was evening and there was morning the third day.

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Philippine Travel Log: A Day at the Beach

Posted on October 2, 2008 by Jeff Block

Day 2: Thursday, October 2, 2008
A Day at the Beach

Faith and John playing in the tree house

The beach we visited in Pagudpud

We learned early that John is an early riser.  Whether by personality or by practice at the orphanage, he’s used to getting up about 5:30 or 6AM.  We rose early on Thursday (the day after we met John) as well.  He got his shower, brushed his teeth, put on clothes the orphanage was lending us (so that we wouldn’t have to use the new stuff we brought with us until we left Shekinah), and headed over to the main building for breakfast.

We had a delicious breakfast (the food at the orphanage was actually very good; traditional Ilocano in many ways, but vastly better than the stuff we ate in Laoag).

After breakfast, we all (Jeff, Faith, John-John, Jackie, and Sadiri) piled into the orphanage van and headed to the beach.  Jackie had picked out a beach resort called Arinaya in Pagudpug (that’s the town where the resort is located), on the northern coast of the island.  In our (read: Faith’s) research re: places to stay and maybe spend time with John within striking distance of Shekinah, we had actually discovered this resort online, and had considered checking it out anyway.  So when we heard that they were planning a trip for us there, we were excited.  We thought (as did they) that it’d be good bonding time for us and John to just hang on the beach.

The trip to Pagudpud was about 2.5 hours from Shekinah.  John fell asleep early on, and ultimately ended up with his head in my lap and his feet on Faith’s.  We were all thrilled as new parents that he seemed so comfortable with us.  About 3/4 of the way there, we stopped at a scenic overlook to check out a beautiful view of the mountains, coast, a few villages, and a string of windmills.  Check this out…

View from a Scenic overlook near the coast in Ilocos Norte

View from a Scenic overlook near the coast in Ilocos Norte

Unfortunately, the stop woke John us, and we hauled him out into the hot sun out of the nice shady, breeze-cooled van.  A few minutes at the overlook, then back into the car, then winding roads down the mountains.  By the time we got to the beach, he had thrown up all over me.  Welcome to fatherhood!

Once at the beach, we rented a bungalow, and made it our base of operations.  Faith was SO excited to get John into the water (looking forward to having a tadpole for a playmate), that she didn’t even consider that he might not like it.  Of course, the crashing waves and the newness of it all (never been to the beach) scared him, and he wanted nothing to do with any of it.  He stood in the bungalow and made it clear he wasn’t going anywhere.  When she picked him up and tried to take him down the beach, thinking he would just run with it, he started to kick and cry and get generally unpleasant.  Oh no!  We broke him!

She let him go immediately, and he ran in the bungalow to Sadiri, with whom he was more comfortable.  I tried to talk him into trying it out, and that didn’t help at all.  Sadiri had calmed him, so at least he wasn’t crying.  But he sunk into his patented withdrawl mode that clearly said, “Get away from me; I want nothing to do with you.”  We’ve become much more familiar with that zone and how to navigate it, but we had no clue then.

So, Faith and I went out to the beach to play (hoping it would look fun and he’d join us).  Meanwhile, Sadiri talked with him in Ilocano, and (I can only assume) told him how fun it would be to check this whole ocean thing out.

Eventually, he came down to the surf and played there with Sadiri.  Mom and dad joined them.  Sadiri was really good, not only this day but every day, at being in the background until he was needed, then calming things down and pointing John back to us.  We both thought that was really a gift, and we were grateful.  This was one of those times.

John never got to the point where he full-on jumped into the ocean.  We had to hold him pretty much at all times.  But he got wet, played in the surf, played in the sand, jumped around with us at the edge of the water, etc.  Compared to where he started, he was now an olympic contestant.

It took me about 90 minutes to approach heat exhaustion.  I was pounding water as fast as I could get it, had sunblock and a T-shirt and hat on, and was taking frequent breaks back in the shade of the bungalow, but it didn’t matter.  By the time the 95 degree, 90% humidity, few-hundred-miles-from-the-equator sun was done with me, I was practially unconscious.  I ended up taking a few as-cold-as-possible showers there just to try to regulate the temperature of my large mass.  Faith’s indian blood plus a little sunblock and John’s Philippino blood put them in a position to spend all day there.  It was just dad that was a total wuss.

About noon, we moved over to the main pavilion and ordered lunch.  Faith and I had chop seuy, which I thought was just vegetables.  We were already tired of the pork, and still reeling from the catfish experience two days prior.  The Philippinos ordered some craziness that was dripping in pork (they ordered pork adobo and sinigang – which is Ilocano for “pork soup” – j/k), but I was all about my veggies.  I think this is where I learned that in the Philippines, even an order of veggies is sauteed in pork fat.  Chop seuy in fact has bits of pig liver mixed right in.  O.O

After lunch, it was back to the surf and sand for Faith and John, and back to the semi-unconscious half-cooked sit-in-the-shade every 10 minutes zone for me.  I kept running out to play with them for a few minutes and jump in the water to cool off, but then had to head back in almost immediately because I just couldn’t take it.

Just before we had to go (to get back in time for dinner), Faith and I were chasing John around the sand near the bungalow.  At one point, he stopped, lifted up his foot, picked something off it, threw it on the ground, and kept running.  I didn’t think anything of it, but Faith (who has better eyes than I do) stopped the presses.  She picked it up and discovered it was an earring.  John had stepped on it, and the half-inch post had dug itself into his foot.  He had pulled it out and was ready to just keep playing.  He didn’t cry.  He didn’t even exclaim.  I was amazed.  I’d have cried like a little baby if that’d been me.  We washed it off good, but it wasn’t bleeding.  When we got back to the orphanage (where our first-aid kit was), we looked at it again and it looked fine.  So we didn’t really do much.  But that does lead me to travel tip #8:  Always have a travel med kit with you when traveling abroad.  If it had been bad, we’d have wanted the neosporin and a bandaid right there to patch him up.

John slept all the way home.  No more throwing up this time, thank God.  That also qualified for his nap, so we didn’t need to put him down.  It was later than he was used to, but that just meant we adjusted bedtime to make it a little later.

Just as we were approaching Dingras, we caught the tail end of a typhoon that was blowing through.  Rain came down in buckets.  Lightning and thunder rolled.  Streets flooded.  Absolutely the gravel driveways, etc at the orphanage flooded.  We got home about 10 minutes after it started (praise God for holding it off as He did), and Sadiri dropped us off at our cottage.  John woke up when we got there, and played inside with little interest in what was going on outside.  My parents would have wanted us in a bomb shelter, but it was funny to see how used to it he was.  Not even phased!  Even the loudest claps of thunder and brightest flashes of lightning had absolutely no affect on him.  I was impressed.

Faith and I got our shower when we got home.  John discovered a plastic bag full of cars that the orphanage had left in our cottage (we had sent the cars over ahead of us for the children to play with, and they had put all such toys in the cottage in anticipation of our arrival).  He promptly dumped out the cars and played for over an hour with the bag they had been in.  We immediately thought that he just didn’t need that many toys when we got home, so now we have to convince friends and family not to give toys for Christmas and birthday gifts.

We walked over to the main building for dinner after the rain subsided.  Again we were grateful to God for his timing there.  But it was pretty dark and the path we normally took was flooded.  So we had to make our way around in squishy super-wet areas we weren’t used to … in the dark.  At one point, Faith pushed back a bush with her left hand, and held it there while John and I (he was on my shoulders as usual) went past.  After she let go, she started jumping around and shouting.  I couldn’t see her, but I found out later that a bunch of big-ole’ honkin’ ants had taken the opportunity to climb on her arm and start biting her.  Ugh.  That sucks.  To hear her tell it, they were like 4 ft long, had glowing red eyes, and were probably from Jupiter.  But either way, I’m sure they were painful and freaky.  So we were glad to put that moment behind us.

We had a great dinner at the main building.  Afterwards, they drove us back to our cottage so we could avoid ants and flooded walkways (thank you!).  We shot a video of John with our camera, and watched it together with him like 5 times.  He absolutely loved that whole thing.

The next play toy discovered was the flashlight.  He was all about shining it on the floor, while Mommy jumped around trying to catch the beam of light (like a cat with a laser pointer).  It was quite funny.  Got a few great pictures of that too.

Then we had snuggle time (a first, so we were ecstatic).  We were amazed at how well he was taking too us.  We never in a million years expected that he’d be snuggling on day 2.  But he was.  And we were eating it up.

Eventually, we dove into our bedtime routine – brush teeth, go potty, shower, jammies, Bible story, prayer time, then bed.  He didn’t fight us at all.  Rock on!

After John was down in his room, Faith and I got to pray together and talk.  We revelled in the horrifically unrealistic thought that perhaps every night would be this easy / go this smoothly.  And there was evening and there was morning the second day.

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