This is a long one, sorry

I was excited, myself, along with the Orleans family, were about to take off on vacation to a place called Sagada. Jessica’s parents had been to Sagada when they were younger but had not been there for about 25 years. Sagada is a town that is about 12-14 hours north of the busy city of Manila and is located up in the Northern Province of the Philippines. Tita Alice and Tito Audie (Jessica’s parents, Tita and Tito are used when talking about somebody older then yourself) had told me a bit about it and it seemed like it was going to be a big contrast to the city. Sagada is located up in the mountains so it is a lot cooler, it also is not commercialized and there is a native tribe that lives nearby. We started our journey with a bus ride that left Manila at 10:00pm.

This bus ride was about 10 hours and the destination was a town called Banaue. We had about 3 stops on the way so we were able to us the CR (comfort room = toilet) I slept for a bit on the bus and listened to music so it was not that bad. It was also a good time for jess and I to talk, and not just about little trivial stuff but stuff that matters so that was really cool. One thing that was funny was that they had the air conditioner on so cold that jess and I both put on our hoodies and had our hoods up most of the time. This was the first time I had used a hoodie in the Philippines so that was kind of nice.

We arrived in Banaue at around 8 the next morning.

From there we hired a jeepney;------>

a jeepney is a common way of public transport and is like an extended jeep with seats on either side of the back.

This trip was about 5 hours long and was on some pretty sweet roads. The roads were all curvy and mostly gravel or dirt and had a good size drop on at least one side. AKA, mom would not have enjoyed it J It was a good drive and we stopped a few times to take in the views. One of these views and a view that we would see a lot in the coming days was the rice terraces. The rice terraces of Banaue have been said to be the 8th wonder of the world.

Since it is in the mountains the only way to have fields is to build them on terraces of every size imaginable. This is truly an amazing sight and pictures do not do it justice at all. These things would go for as long as the eyes could see and were all the way up and down the side of the mountain. They mainly grow rice but also a variety of vegetables.

The road was really not that smooth so sleep was not working that well. We got to the town of Sagada in the early afternoon and checked into the place where we were going to be staying. The place we stayed at was called Saint Joseph inn and was the same place that Jess’ parents had stayed last time they at visited the secluded town of Sagada.

We were all pretty tired so we ended up grabbing lunch and then headed to our rooms and slept for awhile. We had two rooms so Miguel (Jess’ brother) and I shared one and jess and her mom and dad took the other. I got an “American burger” for dinner and then we headed to bed.
The next day was the 31st, AKA my birthday, turning 20 seems pretty crazy to me. One thing that was cool was to think back to where I was last year and compare it to where I am right now, physically and also spiritually. It has been a hard year in some areas but also an amazingly good year in others. I have learned lots and reliezed that I have lots more to learn.

We ended up hiring a guide to take us through the famous Sagada caves. We where underground for around 4 hours, it was probably the most hardcore caving I have ever done.

The rocks where pretty slippery so with the advice of our guide, we ended up doing most of it barefoot to help with traction. My favorite thing from it was when we got to stop and swim for a while in the caves as bats flew over head. It was pretty sweet.

Then the next day I started the day off with an amazing banana yogurt pancake, so good. It was all saints day and the local tribe was having a fall planting festival and they were all dressed up. They came walking out of the forest and walked through the town and ended up at a central spot to have their ceremony. This ceremony consisted of them killing a pig, dog and chicken and then burning the hair off and butchering it right there. I got some pretty sweet video of it but I won’t put that up in case you don’t want to look at it.

We continued the day and walked all over the town seeing the sights. We saw the hanging coffins; they are on the side of a cliff and the richer you where, the higher up the coffin is. We also got to go to a little water fall that we went swimming in the base and got to jump from the top, it was only lie 15 feet but still fun because you jumped right over the falls.

We headed out the next day and staying overnight in a town on the way home so we could break up the ride home. Over all a good trip and a really fun time, it was really cool to see the more relaxed and farming culture of the Philippines. We just relaxed the next day few days’s since we were all pretty tired from the trip and Jess and her brother started school on Thursday.

Ok, that brings me up to today, Thursday, I had the opportunity to go with some friend of Tita Alice to a maximum security prison and hang out for the day. I didn’t know what to expect and even if I would have had some pre conceived idea it would have been totally wrong. It was two American missionaries, myself, and another young American. I actually can’t say a whole lot of what we did and who we met. Just for the safety of the people in the prison and for respect for them. But I can tell you that prisons here are nothing like the US.

There were 12,000 inmates in maximum alone and they are all free to roam about as they please. There is an outer wall but inside of that is a huge area that contains all their houses, over 30 churches, a bible school, and an open market.

The open market is just like it would be on the outside, fish vegetables, anything you want and this is all cut up with knives of every sort. Yes the inmates are allowed to have knives for work and also make a multitude of other souvenirs for sale. It was crazy, so different from the prisons at home, they are so free to interact with each other but they have had peace for years.

We met with this group that the missionary’s have been working with for about 2 and half years. In this group of guy’s there were 5 that had been sent there for at least double murder, 1 for rape, 2 for kidnapping for ransom and multiple others. It was pretty crazy.

Some of them had been on death row and one guy had been scheduled for lethal injection 9 times. God totally got a hold of their life and now they are reaching out to the other inmates. We took a tour of the prison and some of the people that we met had been there for over 25 years. It was an amazing experience and one that I will not forget easily. I have tones of other stories from there but will not take up more space.

Sorry that this was long as but if you are still reading, prayer for the people in the prison and for the ministry going on there would be really cool. Ok, that’s it for now; I miss you all and hope that you are having a good time in the cold weather! (those in WA)

Christ in ALL.
Will