This week I attended Freegen Church in Lapu Lapu. This is my girl’s old church. This was our second visit this month. I was wearing a prominent colored shirt and made a short video of the praise music which I later posted on Facebook. Yesterday, I found out that the photo collage that went on social media after the Sunday service had a photo of me recording the video amongst their posts.
Folks, Freegen is a large protestant church by Philippine standards. I would guess their attendance is close to 450 people. The other church that we attend is probably about 70 people. Please don’t ask me about denominational affiliations because I can’t find much on such things here.
My concern with Freegen is that it seems to be into the prosperity gospel. In a country of poor people, I get the emphasis on money and blessings, but wow! At one time, my girl was in leadership in this church. They were expected to give ten percent plus more of their income or God would not bless them. Reportedly, this info was tracked by the church to keep you paid-up, oh, I mean honest. Following the sermon was the offering, it was not a simple passing of the hat but a multi-PowerPoint slide show of verses promising that God wants you to prosper and experience blessings both of health and finances. This begins by giving him your tithe—also called “seed money.”
Also part of the service was encouraging attendees to spend time with the Holy Spirit who would guide them with personal revelation. Folks, if I was just a bit more charitable, I might dismiss this as a cultural thing, but I can’t. What happened to testing the spirits to see if they are from God? Isn’t that why we have the Bible, to know God’s Word and will for our lives?
During the last two Sundays at Freegen, I never once heard the word “sin” nor anything about Jesus dying for our sins. The “blood of Jesus” was mentioned once in passing. Sorry, but I’m stuck on how any man can come to Jesus on our terms, without seeking forgiveness and feeling contrite for being a lawbreaker before a holy and righteous God.
The text two Sundays ago was John Chapter 3 verses 1 to 31. When is the last time you heard a sermon that spoke about John 3:16 and didn’t talk about Jesus dying for sinful man? I was stunned. Yet sin and our need for a Savior was omitted. We may have differences about what it means that “Jesus is the Savior of the world” but it is a biblical fact. When a man in the pulpit passes over a chance to share the Gospel, I have to question whether he is giving the full counsel of God.
Lastly, the first time that I went this month, all the songs were in English and the second time most were in the local dialect. I’m sure the music wasn’t Hillsong because nothing had a musical “bridge” in the middle of it.
The following day, I spent my day in bed. I have a lousy cold, I caught it from my girl, but she has been a good nurse. We did get out for a little while yesterday. I wanted bland food and some iced tea, so we made the trek to Tom and Tom’s coffee shop. I bought her a nice lunch and ate two pretzels and enjoyed two cups of English breakfast tea.
Lately we have watched a few movies in the evening. Some I brought on my laptop and a few on Amazon. Please note that offerings on Amazon are different here than in the US. One of our first movies was Up.
Once she got into it, it was fun. I have many memories of the movie; many tied to our time at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Elk Grove. I thought about Jesse Winton’s Sunday School class on the movie, watching it with Sheryl and James, Jesse’s renunciation of his faith and James walking a similar path of rebellion, and of course my marriage to Sheryl and her death. Up is, in part, a movie that encourages the old man to start a life after his tragic loss; something I can relate too also.
My girl also liked the movie Red so I rented Red 2 the following night so she could see that too. She is ok with action movies as long as the good guy gets the girl; so am I by the way.
Folks, I’m gonna get honest and slightly graphic on this next subject. Please don’t read the next couple of paragraphs during or immediately after a meal.
The offensive subject is toilets.
Yep, being in a strange country and eating food with questionable handling is a risky proposition. I never will claim to have a cast iron stomach. In the Philippines, many toilets don’t have seats, and no I don’t mean the paper liners that you put on the seat, I mean the actual seat. Also, optional is toilet paper. Recently, I had to use the recently installed toilet in my girl’s apartment.
Folks, the standard bathroom in the Philippines is a “wet room.” The shower, toilet, and sink are in the same place with no division. If the engineering is right, everything drains to the shower. (Yes, Virginia, the toilet does flush but if you wash it off, the excess goes down the shower drain.) Next to most toilets is a flexible chrome hose with a spray nozzle. Nope, it’s not for people experiencing “that time of the month” but for use when there is no toilet paper. Using such a toilet configuration requires preplanning—at least if you want to depart said facility with dry clothing.
Before sitting, you must remove all clothing below the waste and find a place to hang it. Then do your business. Next, using the spray nozzle and your hand of choice, clean your backside. Hopefully, some soap is handy to help. Once your backside is clean, wash your hands and then get dressed. Bonus thought: some public toilets don’t have doors for privacy either.
Yep, in a city of 200,000 plus people and zero pine needles, sometimes it’s the best you can hope for.
On to the next subject.
Lastly, we played the part of rich tourists. I actually did this twice in the last week.
The first time was this story.
At Mactan Newtown, home of the Gordon Ramsey’s restaurants, we kept getting flyers encouraging us to purchase a condo in the area. After initially declining, we decided to check it out.
We looked at a two-bedroom condo on the 7th floor of a building. It actually had a third space that could be used as a laundry room and or baby room. I think it was supposed to be for the maid, but whatever. Folks the space was about the same size as the barn that I live in—my house is 840 SF. The things that came with it were several swimming pools, weight room, a private beach with full-time staff, a few bars, parking and other amenities.
Oh, the beach area has parking, if you want a designated parking space at the condo, that’s an extra 2 million pesos or about $32,000 for the privilege.
The cost of the condo proper was 20 million pesos or about $330,000. The HOA fees were on a square footage basis (actually per square meter, but you get the idea) and came out to about $160 per month. The condo had three different ways to get you into the place at some outrageous monthly payments that all stopped at the 3-year point and then required a balloon payment of 70 percent—the remaining balance or third-party financing. We were told the builder would finance you at 12 percent or try a local bank for a rate near 8 percent on the balance.
Besides the fact that I don’t have an idle $300,000 sitting in the bank, my questions about long term outlook for the place kind of nagged at my conscience. The builder wanted the first 30 percent rather rapidly and then cast folks adrift to figure out how to finance the rest. This begged the question of what happens when all the spaces have been sold and the builder moves on to other projects. Do the maintenance and facilities still get serviced or do the fees—be they called HOA or whatever—truly cover the costs or is that a loss leader to get you on the hook for a huge increase later.
The places that we were shown had plumbing for electric instant water heaters—which was an extra charge—and some low-tech stoves. Folks, for $300,000 I really want some type of glass convection cook top and a decent oven. No demo housing had microwave ovens, garbage disposals, or dish washers. Please understand that many places with these on demand water heaters do not have both hot and cold running water. You set a temperature at the water heater and that’s what you get for the shower; period. There is no way at the shower valve to set a mix of hot and cold water to give you the temperature that you desire. In the case of married folks, one person is comfortable and the other gets frozen or scalded; sorry but there is no middle ground. I have to question if the shower is pure hot water or is able to mix hot and cold sources. I base that on my experience in the hotel where I am staying now as well as the fact that the laundry area in the condo had only one water hook-up valve. Oh, said laundry area had no ability to vent the dryer outdoors either.
The other issue we encountered was ownership. Per the salespeople, 40 percent of ownership was designated for foreigners. Ownership of the condo was 50 years, but for an extra fee, it could be extended another 25 years, for a total of 75 years. However, if a Filippino bought the condo, they could own it forever.
Somehow, I think the local government has property taxes waiting in the wings for people like me. Do locals and foreigners get the same tax treatment? Somehow, I have reservations about this but since I didn’t buy, I may never know.
Oh, my other moment as part of the one percent was at the local political rally on Saturday. For a few minutes, I was asked to pass myself off as a foreign investor in the local “barangay”—think police precinct or neighborhood. Yep, I was given a place on the platform with all the local honchos but thankfully, nobody shoved a microphone in my face. I just sat there and smiled—ok, maybe like a deer in the headlights but I had the presence of mind to not say anything dumb. It was a ruse to get the local police chief to come out to our car to get his birthday surprise. The old gent turned 61 and his co-workers got him flowers, a cake, and other fixings. Folks he gave a very long-winded speech. I think we had to wait about two hours to spring the surprise on him. (Thankfully, I didn’t get on the stage until he was finished talking.)
Anyway, it ended well and happily. We hit the Cabana, the sister restaurant to The Cove, on the way home.
Anyway, that’s my week so far.
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