Yes, indeed, the trip to Luzon was amazing last week and very much worth the effort. Marilyn and I travelled to Manila, then north to Baguio and Sagada and back in 4 days. (Did you notice, regular blog checkers, that it is I, Luvinder, at the helm on this blog posting?) Normally Marilyn is our go-to person on blogging but today she is working with Jen at the Glory Reborn clinic and it was left up to me to bring you all up to date. So here I sit with Jen's computer, watching Australian Open Tennis and NBA Basketball as I write. It could take some time.
In this situation, perhaps even more importantly than on other posts, pictures would definitely have been an asset to the writer. How can a person describe one of the "wonders" of the world, as designated by some? The terraces of northern Luzon can apparently be seen from outer space due to their sheer size and coverage of thousands of hectares on mountain sides mostly. It is estimated that the earliest terraced areas were developed more than 500 years ago. No matter how you discuss what we saw, we came away being impressed with the incredible work it must have taken to build these by hand, then plant fruits, vegetables and rice in terraces that lent themselves to particular crops and then nurture them through the growing season and then, of course, harvesting each terrace and then. . . .getting the produce up or down the mountain side to a road that could be used to transport the goods to market. Mind boggling!
Two final thoughts about the terraces in the Banaue-Baguio-Sagada area. The engineering marvel that these are cannot be overstated. One downside is that the entire area where the terraces were built was completely clearcut. FYI, most of the terraces were literally cut out of the mountain side. Some terraces were as narrow as 2-3 ft with the largest being acres in size. Terrace sides were built with rocks and somehow withstood extremes of weather and moisture.
To review the travels just a bit. Just so you know, we were able to secure access to a driver, escort and air conditioned van for the trip north of Manila. We arrived in Manila on Monday, Jan 19th, in the morning and were on the road by 8:30am on our way to Baguio, a city of 500,000. Though it is not a great distance, travel takes lots of time despite a beautiful divided highway for about half the journey. In Asia, we have found that when travel is slow, it is really slow. Including stops we arrived in Baguio by mid afternoon and were ready for some walking. We found this mountain city to be very beautiful and the walking was better than in many cities. There were parks, markets, shopping centres and numerous local historical sites, which we were able to explore a couple of days later after visiting Sagada still further to the north.
Early Tuesday morning we departed in our van to Sagada and that is where we were able to see the terraces described above. We could not get enough of the amazing vistas though the trip was extremely slow and bumpy for about on third of the trip. We were able to stop and really get some excellent pictures from the highest driving pass in the Philippines, which was about 7,000 ft. Road construction here is nothing like we are accustomed to and it would take far too much time to describe our observations.
Sagada is a community of 13,000 scattered over nearby mountain sides. Appropriately, Sagada is in the Mountain Province of Luzon. It was beautiful and what we saw will stick to the velcro for a long time. We were taken on a couple of guided hikes, just the guide, Pete a local bee grower, Marilyn and me. This was Pete's home and he was not only knowledgeable but also very honest about his own life as a farmer, father, and guide. We saw the hanging coffins, lots of them. These are coffins containing the remains of people, animists, who buried their dead in rather small coffins and somehow attached them to the sides of cliff indentations. Some were a hundred or more feet above the ground or down from the top of the cliff. They were small for two reasons. The people were relatively small but more importantly they were placed in the coffin in a fetal position. Their placement was for superstitious reasons and in some cases those who were from "christian" persuasion placed a cross on top of the coffin but still hung as usual.
On our hikes we discovered some underground rivers and the entire area is marked by thousands of caves, which can be explored with lots of help from the guides. We only looked in from the large cave openings. We could have stayed in Sagada for several more days.
We returned to Manila on Thursday afternoon and were caught in the usual traffic jam and that was also an experience to remember. The last 2 blocks to our hotel took 35 minutes. It was nice to hop into the pool.
Before we returned to Cebu on Sunday afternoon, we were privileged to meet with some Haggai Institute people, who blessed us with a wonderful lunch on Friday, a trip through the south of Luzon to a marvelous resort at Tagaytay on Saturday, where we saw some excellent scenery and another sumptuous luncheon celebration in a 5 star facility. Quite amazing.
Okay, that must be enough of the highlights from last week. Some of you might find it a bit troublesome that we are being so extravagantly treated but hey, someone has to do it. Really, it is only by God's grace and the kindness of people toward us that makes this so memorable.
We're into our last couple of weeks in the Philippines for this trip. It is such a gift to be able to spend time and experiences with Jen and Andrey and their friends in the area here. Priceless.
A word about this week. Yesterday we were fortunate to be able to visit the Children's Shelter of Cebu. The field director, Paul Healy, (I remembered Paul and his Dad Gerry, who was a prof at Bethel College) was a basketball star at Bethel College during the years when we were at Bethel Seminary in 1973-75. This 6'8" guy took us on a tour of the facilities of the Shelter and explained how this organization has seen God's hand over the years in finding adoptive parents for hundreds of kids and in His provision of facilities. He and his wife have been leading this ministry for 30 years. We were completely blown away with the quality of care given to orphaned or abandoned children, many of whom have various handicaps. The facilities and ongoing sustaining funds have come from a committed group of donors from various church and relational backgrounds. In particular, Harry Schmidt, of Abbotsford has been a significant benefactor through the Schmidt Family Foundation. They have built a school and several other buildings on the property. All high quality, durable, flexible and well-maintained by Paul and his staff. In final construction phase is a Medical Centre and another housing facility. You can find them at www.cscshelter.org or just google the name.
There are no words that can express our thanks to God for bringing us once again to the Philippine islands for an extended period of time. Can you believe it, there is still more to come!
On Saturday we along with some friends of Jen and Andrey visited the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center. We watched, cheered, danced, sang along as 1500 or so prisoners participated in a program of approximately 18 songs. It is a new program that was begun almost two years ago. They started performing just over one year ago. The performances are scheduled on the last Saturday of each month. This is a maximum security prison where there are murderers, drug dealers and many other kinds of major transgressors. However, the claims of the official are that the dancing program has revolutionized the morale, attitude of prisoners in the prison. They encouraged us to come down after the program and take pictures with the prisoners.
A performance from "Sister Act". There were some women prisoners in this as well as a few men who were dressed as women.
