Baguio City – Day #3

Baguio City – Day #3

I awakened more rested than yesterday morning. YAY! My mom would say that good rest and stable blood sugar always helps one’s perspective. I must say this is most certainly true, even on the other side of the planet, because our seminary dorm rooms are beginning to feel homey.

For our breakfast today, we walked down to the seminary’s cafeteria. Breakfast consisted of rice, 2 different types of sausage choices, pork choice, “taquito” type thing choice, water or coffee. It was okay. It was a good “daily morning breakfast options for the seminary student” immersion moment.

After breakfast, we returned to our rooms and changed clothes for the graduation service, which was held on the seminary campus in their gymnasium.

The graduation ceremony was fantastic. Their music department is very impressive, with the choir singing several numbers. The keynote speaker was tremendous – she was very easy to understand and a very gifted, engaging speaker. (I don’t think that I mentioned it, but both baccalaureate and graduation services were primarily spoken in English, which was a great blessing for us to be able to literally “partake” of each speaker’s “shares” during each event) The keynote speaker’s name was Dr. Nativity Petellar. She was an alumni of the seminary. The theme of graduation was “Looking back, moving forward.” She used the story of the Red Sea to illustrate this theme. One of her quote’s was the following, “Looking back is redemptive remembering. A time to thank God. Moving forward is advancing, knowing that God is on our side.” Amen.

Another fantastic speaker was the president of the student council. He was A.B.S.O.L.U.T.E.L.Y. dynamic. I wish I would have thought to record some of his speech, or written down a quote or two, however, I was totally wrapped up in his presentation. I get the feeling that he might have an unusually out going personality for a Filipino. One thing that I do remember is him listing the difficulties that he and other student’s faced during their time at seminary. He emotionally shared how there were times that he didn’t have enough money to eat at the cafeteria, or times when he didn’t have enough money for the bus ride home. His vulnerability caused an emotional response within me – I thought to myself, “When I get home, I am going to set up a “lemonade stand,” with all proceeds going to a fund that could be available for students here whenever they were short on funds. …Kind of like the ministerial alliance fund that we have at home for people who cannot meet pay their bills, or buy groceries. I will keep you posted ~_~

When it came time to announce each of the graduates, they recognized several who had won various awards – awards that they did not know they had won until this moment. Each award had a monetary attachment. CP is a very talented student. He won the following awards: Proficiency in English Award, Silbor-Escobar Old Testament Studies Award (GPA of 97.5%), and Christian Education Award.

At the end of graduation, it was very evident to me that these students were receiving quality education, equipping them for both vocation and ministry. I am excited for them as they “go forth” from here.

There is a fairly large group of students from Myramar. After graduation, their friends and family had prepared traditional “snacks” (steamed rice, boiled eggs, different “greens,” some kind of broth? – it was almost like a soup..combine everything in a bowl and pour the broth over all of it) while students mingled and took pictures. After we took our photos with NP’s family, we politely declined the snacks, headed up to our dorm rooms, changed clothes, got in our rental car, and drove into town in hopes of having lunch at Chilies – on the top floor of at the big mall. The online pictures of food looked like home. We were all ready for an American meal.

Alas, after driving around and around for about an hour and a half with no parking to be found – every parking lot was full…“Are we in New York City?” – we decided to drive back to the seminary and eat at the Hatch coffee shop that we walked to for breakfast on our first morning in Baguio City. I dropped off my dad and MC, and was in process of finding a parking spot when MC called and said that there was a wait to eat. With no indication of how long the wait would be, I drove around the block and picked up my dad and MC. Back to the seminary we went. At this point, my dad said he would be fine with eating his snacks for lunch and wanted to rest. Meanwhile, my husband, MC, and I walked to a local “burger joint” that my husband found on Google and had lunch. I had a burger, sweet potato fries, and a freshly squeezed lemonade. The sweet potatoe fries and lemonade were extraordinary. The burger was interesting – it was supposed to be 100% beef, but to me it looked like an albino patty. Still…it was tasty and nice to have some comfort food.

Our bellies full, we walked back to our dorm rooms (which we now felt was a place of refuge and called “home”) and rested until the evening meal. For supper, CP had arranged for us to eat at a very special restaurant called, Aqua Garden Cafe. NP and his family took a taxi, and my husband navigated us “the back way” to the restaurant. I didn’t think that driving in Baguio City could get any more diverse than it already had been, but I was VERY wrong. This back way took us up and down VERY steep and VERY narrow streets, as in “one car at a time” narrow. My husband said, “Sorry, Card. I had no idea.” Suggestion to Google maps…could you please provide a topography map for streets with extreme inclines and declines, as well as notification of street width, so that it doesn’t look like a person will be driving “flat” and “normal” roads to their destination? I did not envy my husband’s navigational roll.

Once at Aqua Garden Cafe, we were delighted with the views of our surroundings… the views of the valley below, the colorful birds in cages, and the fish in various aquariums. We ate together, visited – again, as best a we could, although CP’s English is very good, and CP opened his gifts from Texas. At the end of the night, we said our goodbyes. In the morning, they were headed to a beach about 2 hours from Baguio City and we would be headed to Clark International Airport to board a flight for our next leg of our trip – several days of beach vacation on the island of Busuanga.

Bless his heart, my husband figured out a different route back to the seminary. Much. Much. Much more “normal” streets and travel. All of us breathed a sigh of relief when we arrived back at the seminary. If you are familiar with the movie “The Pacifier,” all I could think of was the girl who flies out of the van that her student driver sister was driving, flings herself on the ground in front of her school, and gratefully cries, “LAND!!!” (To be honest, this is not the first or the last time that this movie clip popped up in my mind)

Back in our dorm rooms, we have the routine down now! We are practically honorary students now! …A hot shower, fans plugged in, fan app on, and off to sleep we drift… The adventure of tomorrow awaits.