11 Dec. 2022 Week #11: We LOVE the RACHEL
Dear Family and Friends,
Last Monday we started with our weekly meeting. One project (not ours, presented by the Haynes) is a $190,000.00 project for a hospital. If we go over $100,000.00 we have to have special permission from Salt Lake. So we decided to break it into two parts so we could pass it ourselves. It really is two parts anyway. We are helping a NICU and an ICU at the biggest hospital in Manila upgrade equipment, etc. With babies born at the hospital they have pretty good survival rate. However, a lot of babies are brought in that are in trouble, and with those they have a 40% mortality rate. That is a lot of babies not surviving. They say that can change with proper ventilators, incubators, etc. Hopefully this will help.
Another project is the fixing up of damaged rooms in 26 schools and providing some TVs, computers and other things for enhancing learning. (presented by the Huffs).
Another school project with technology, plus water catchment system, fix up CR’s (bathrooms, and you have seen better Outhouses than most of the restrooms at these schools), a fence around the school garden to keep critters out because the garden is the supplier for the school lunches, (the best meal of the day for a lot of these kids). Among other things, the list was long for this outback (last mile) school.
On Friday the 3 people who pass these projects were all sick and couldn’t be at the meeting so they are on hold until next week. It was still a long meeting with teaching and instruction for the rest of us. Things we need help on, so it was good for us.
In our office building we have a space that has 4 offices that we share with 3 guys who are the translation team for this area. Then there is a conference room. On the other side of the conference room are the offices for the FM (Facilities Managers) group. We share the conference room with them. Sometimes the FM group needs the conference room, sometimes the Translation team needs the conference room, and we need it for our Monday and Friday meetings. However, our office is small so if neither one of those two groups need the conference room, we use it so we have more room for our computers and folders, etc.
Later that day we went into the FM group and introduced ourselves. We met a couple of real good guys there. One guy covers 38 church buildings. Well, we learned from him that they have engineers who can go inspect sites for us to determine if a school can be repaired, or if it just needs to be demolished and rebuilt. We can do repair work but not construction, so we need someone to evaluate those situations in schools for us. All of his buildings are here in Cebu and north. A couple schools we are looking at are south, but he knows who to contact to help us with that. So that was a good discovery.
Monday evening we packed for a trip to Bacolod. We flew out Tuesday morning. We met the Leiningers who will go home in January. They had come to Bacolod, a mission in our area, to teach them about the RACHEL. It is our area, and we need to learn about the RACHEL, so we joined them for this. Erwin Boiser, the WSR manager that covers that area, and we work with him, was also there. Actually, this is Brother Boiser’s hometown. He lined this appointment up with this school district that has 30 schools. That is a small district for here. Elder Leininger did a great job presenting. There were about 8 cold participants and one warm one. The one warm one is an LDS teacher at one of the schools. An hour later when Elder Leininger asked if there were any questions, the curriculum coordinator for the district, who was the most excited by now asked, “Where have you been, and why has it taken so long for you to get here with this?” It was fun to see then warm-up and get excited. The IT person was so involved we couldn’t get her to quit. She was working on a programming project that it teaches. Elder Leininger had to turn off the machine to get them all reined back in. It was cool and fun! That was a fun afternoon. As far as I am concerned, education is the number one need here if life is going to improve for so many thousands, even millions, of these people. We can only push this so hard though. It is quite a process to get these RACHELS here. Also, we won’t be able to give them out forever. We hope to get the DepEd so excited about this that they will be willing to purchase them to put in all of their schools. Just getting rid of the internet in the schools and not having the cost of the unreliable internet could go a long way towards paying for the RACHEL. We will provide this district with 10 for three months. They have to sign some documents of agreement. We want them to be on Data Post. That allows us to see how frequent they are being used and to what extent. Then, they have to report to us if they feel like it has improved student engagement. Then they need to show us how test scores improve. After 3 months, if this is going well, we will supply them with 10 more. After that it will be up to them to get them for their other schools. This is just the second school district to see this in all of our area. I hope I get to share it with a lot of districts and help improve learning for the Filipino. Also, this can be used in the evenings for community members to come into the school and log onto to get their ASL certificate, equivalent to our GED, for people who didn’t graduate from high school and now want to. Also, just to enhance their learning about anything. Pretty cool!
We spent Wednesday as tourists with the Leiningers. We found out they have a grandson, Elder Leininger serving in Alaska. His first area was Wasilla and now he is in Eagle River. We took an hour drive through sugar can country on our way to play. We actually saw tractors, etc. That was amazing. We went to an island with a cool beach. We spent about 4 hours there. It was about a 30 minute boat ride out to the island. Later in the afternoon as we were about back to Bacolod we went to see some ruins. That was cool, but I’m not going to tell anything about those now. We just hope to go back sometime. We had a great guide there. Then on our way back to the motel we drove by the Bacolod Temple site. They broke ground a year ago. It is a huge piece of land. It will have a large temple, patron housing, and a stake center on the property. That evening was a fine dinner with the Leiningers with me asking plenty questions about the RACHEL, presenting it, and getting approval, etc. So much to learn. I feel like a first grader, but recognizing I am a first grader, and have a long way to go to ever graduate.
We flew back on Thursday. Another couple had arrived while we were gone. We spent the afternoon and evening with them. They are just here for a week or so. They are MLS (member leadership support) missionaries. They will be living on the other side of the island in Toledo. The place they will live in isn’t ready for them, so they are here for now. They are staying in this motel. We live in a motel. We are long term residents, but a lot of people come and go all the time. They are the Dickinsons from Portland, OR. They were both raised there. They have 13 children and 59 grandchildren.
On Friday it was off to the office for our meeting. After the meeting I was on the phone for quite a while with our boss, Jairus. I had a lot of questions about our visit from the previous Saturday up to Medellin. Questions about their welfare project proposal, etc. We also have some issues about a water project at a school where there was miscommunication and we sent them wrong supplies. Now we need to get them the correct supplies and get the wrong ones returned. I’m glad I wasn’t the one to make the order. However, I wish I wasn’t the one to try and straighten it out. Then, we spent the rest of the day in the office trying to develop a couple projects that we hope to present in January. That evening we went with the other missionaries to dinner at the mall and to see how it is going at the “Giving Machines” “Light the World”. A couple high school kids from one of the wards were manning the machines and they were doing a great job.
Saturday we went to the office again until the afternoon, continuing to work on the projects. At this point in time it is a double job, still trying to navigate the computers, and then trying to develop the project. You have to get everything right to get these passed. There is so much involved it keeps our minds spinning. It is a little different than teaching third grade and working in a garden.
Saturday evening was the Lahug Ward Christmas PARTY! We are talking about a PARTY! The only thing that resembled a Christmas party at a church that I have ever been to was, they had an opening and closing prayer and an opening hymn, “Angels We Have Heard on High”. When the closing prayer was offered I couldn’t hear it and he had a mike. It was a wild time. Every group did a line dance to some LOUD music. The Relief Society went first, I was shocked to see 30 sisters doing a rocking line dance. Later the Elders Quorum did the same rocking dance, but only about 15 of them, and they did the same dance. They must have practiced with their wives. The Single Adults had a number, the YSA had a number, the youth had two numbers, the Primary and teachers were rocking it with their kids. The YMYW dance had about 30 kids and they could dance. They were getting after it. I could tell why later when the Bishopric did their dance. Those guys could dance. They started on the stage and when I thought it was about over, no, they were just getting warmed up, off they jump from the stage with the counselors, both about 25, did somersaults and high kicks and things were going now. I was sweating just watching all of this. We were entertained with this dancing for about an hour. It was wild and crazy. A lot of audience hooping and hollering. The MC for the night was really making it happen and a lot of Cebuano talk with a lot of laughter. “Oh, What a Night!!”
Two big highlights of connections for me this week. I won’t go into much detail because it would take way to long. I contacted Teresa last week and asked her to get a hold of Diane Teichert and ask if she has any of Conrad’s journals from his mission here. (Conrad Teichert is the cousin that held the gun that I stepped in front of and lost a toe). Conrad died several years ago from brain cancer. He served his mission here back in the late 1960’s. Anyway, Teresa did as I asked, like any good big sister would. It was so cool when she wrote back with all kinds of details, (and just getting started). We found out that our cousins Marianne (Eastwood) Wardle, and Christina (Teichert) Clark, both married guys that served in the Philippines. At one time all three of them, Lynn Wardle, Jim Clark, and Conrad, were here at the same time. I learned a lot more about that from Teresa and looking forward to more as Lynn, Jim, and Diane supply more.
Last night at the ward party we were sitting with the young Elders and Sisters. The two Elders, one from the Philippines, the trainer, and his new Elder from Lehi, UT. They seem to get along great and the Filipino is only on his fourth transfer but seems like a great trainer. I am impressed with both of them. The two sisters, a 4’10” Filipino trainer and a 5’10” California girl. They seem to get along great. The CA girl has some Asian blood. Her mother was raised in Hawaii on the big island in Kona. Anyway, her family goes to Hawaii a fair amount. This Sister Noble, mentioned she worked in Laie, Hawaii, last summer. Well as any good inquisitive mind would do, I kept asking all kinds of questions to get to know her better. It finally came around to her knowing quite well the James and Melissa (our niece from Alaska) Faustino family. When we told her that, she almost yelled, Uncle James. He really isn’t her uncle, but her dad and James were roommates at BYU when James and Melissa were dating. Their families have vacationed together. They have kept in close touch through the years. Sister Noble was in Hawaii when her mission call came. She showed us pictures of Melissa, James and family, who were present when she opened her mission call. Pretty cool! Fun connections!!
Yesterday and today, three different times, because of shifts, we (meaning Elder and Sister Woods, Sister Garner, and us) have given gift baskets to the two ladies at the front desk, the two security guards (who always open the front doors for us coming and going), three housekeepers, and two maintenance guys. We sang “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” when delivering them. It was fun to see their reaction. We hope we can have a positive influence on these wonderful people who take such good care of us and always greet us with positive comments and smiles as we come and go. They were excited and touched as we sang to them. It was fun. Sister Woods and Sister Garner both have good soprano voices and Elder Woods is a good tenor so with Clyda as an alto and me as a bass we did pretty good.
The gospel is true and this is a great work we are involved in. Do your best at whatever calling you have and you will be blessed. As President Uchtdorf would say, “Lift Where You Stand”. We are grateful for your prayers. We continue to be impressed with these great Filipino people. The Lord is blessing them and us.
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
Week #11 12/5-12/11
Last Monday we started with our weekly meeting. One project (not ours, presented by the Haynes) is a $190,000.00 project for a hospital. If we go over $100,000.00 we have to have special permission from Salt Lake. So we decided to break it into two parts so we could pass it ourselves. It really is two parts anyway. We are helping a NICU and an ICU at the biggest hospital in Manila upgrade equipment, etc. With babies born at the hospital they have pretty good survival rate. However, a lot of babies are brought in that are in trouble, and with those they have a 40% mortality rate. That is a lot of babies not surviving. They say that can change with proper ventilators, incubators, etc. Hopefully this will help.
Another project is the fixing up of damaged rooms in 26 schools and providing some TVs, computers and other things for enhancing learning. (presented by the Huffs).
Another school project with technology, plus water catchment system, fix up CR’s (bathrooms, and you have seen better Outhouses than most of the restrooms at these schools), a fence around the school garden to keep critters out because the garden is the supplier for the school lunches, (the best meal of the day for a lot of these kids). Among other things, the list was long for this outback (last mile) school.
On Friday the 3 people who pass these projects were all sick and couldn’t be at the meeting so they are on hold until next week. It was still a long meeting with teaching and instruction for the rest of us. Things we need help on, so it was good for us.
In our office building we have a space that has 4 offices that we share with 3 guys who are the translation team for this area. Then there is a conference room. On the other side of the conference room are the offices for the FM (Facilities Managers) group. We share the conference room with them. Sometimes the FM group needs the conference room, sometimes the Translation team needs the conference room, and we need it for our Monday and Friday meetings. However, our office is small so if neither one of those two groups need the conference room, we use it so we have more room for our computers and folders, etc.
Later that day we went into the FM group and introduced ourselves. We met a couple of real good guys there. One guy covers 38 church buildings. Well, we learned from him that they have engineers who can go inspect sites for us to determine if a school can be repaired, or if it just needs to be demolished and rebuilt. We can do repair work but not construction, so we need someone to evaluate those situations in schools for us. All of his buildings are here in Cebu and north. A couple schools we are looking at are south, but he knows who to contact to help us with that. So that was a good discovery.
Monday evening we packed for a trip to Bacolod. We flew out Tuesday morning. We met the Leiningers who will go home in January. They had come to Bacolod, a mission in our area, to teach them about the RACHEL. It is our area, and we need to learn about the RACHEL, so we joined them for this. Erwin Boiser, the WSR manager that covers that area, and we work with him, was also there. Actually, this is Brother Boiser’s hometown. He lined this appointment up with this school district that has 30 schools. That is a small district for here. Elder Leininger did a great job presenting. There were about 8 cold participants and one warm one. The one warm one is an LDS teacher at one of the schools. An hour later when Elder Leininger asked if there were any questions, the curriculum coordinator for the district, who was the most excited by now asked, “Where have you been, and why has it taken so long for you to get here with this?” It was fun to see then warm-up and get excited. The IT person was so involved we couldn’t get her to quit. She was working on a programming project that it teaches. Elder Leininger had to turn off the machine to get them all reined back in. It was cool and fun! That was a fun afternoon. As far as I am concerned, education is the number one need here if life is going to improve for so many thousands, even millions, of these people. We can only push this so hard though. It is quite a process to get these RACHELS here. Also, we won’t be able to give them out forever. We hope to get the DepEd so excited about this that they will be willing to purchase them to put in all of their schools. Just getting rid of the internet in the schools and not having the cost of the unreliable internet could go a long way towards paying for the RACHEL. We will provide this district with 10 for three months. They have to sign some documents of agreement. We want them to be on Data Post. That allows us to see how frequent they are being used and to what extent. Then, they have to report to us if they feel like it has improved student engagement. Then they need to show us how test scores improve. After 3 months, if this is going well, we will supply them with 10 more. After that it will be up to them to get them for their other schools. This is just the second school district to see this in all of our area. I hope I get to share it with a lot of districts and help improve learning for the Filipino. Also, this can be used in the evenings for community members to come into the school and log onto to get their ASL certificate, equivalent to our GED, for people who didn’t graduate from high school and now want to. Also, just to enhance their learning about anything. Pretty cool!
We spent Wednesday as tourists with the Leiningers. We found out they have a grandson, Elder Leininger serving in Alaska. His first area was Wasilla and now he is in Eagle River. We took an hour drive through sugar can country on our way to play. We actually saw tractors, etc. That was amazing. We went to an island with a cool beach. We spent about 4 hours there. It was about a 30 minute boat ride out to the island. Later in the afternoon as we were about back to Bacolod we went to see some ruins. That was cool, but I’m not going to tell anything about those now. We just hope to go back sometime. We had a great guide there. Then on our way back to the motel we drove by the Bacolod Temple site. They broke ground a year ago. It is a huge piece of land. It will have a large temple, patron housing, and a stake center on the property. That evening was a fine dinner with the Leiningers with me asking plenty questions about the RACHEL, presenting it, and getting approval, etc. So much to learn. I feel like a first grader, but recognizing I am a first grader, and have a long way to go to ever graduate.
We flew back on Thursday. Another couple had arrived while we were gone. We spent the afternoon and evening with them. They are just here for a week or so. They are MLS (member leadership support) missionaries. They will be living on the other side of the island in Toledo. The place they will live in isn’t ready for them, so they are here for now. They are staying in this motel. We live in a motel. We are long term residents, but a lot of people come and go all the time. They are the Dickinsons from Portland, OR. They were both raised there. They have 13 children and 59 grandchildren.
On Friday it was off to the office for our meeting. After the meeting I was on the phone for quite a while with our boss, Jairus. I had a lot of questions about our visit from the previous Saturday up to Medellin. Questions about their welfare project proposal, etc. We also have some issues about a water project at a school where there was miscommunication and we sent them wrong supplies. Now we need to get them the correct supplies and get the wrong ones returned. I’m glad I wasn’t the one to make the order. However, I wish I wasn’t the one to try and straighten it out. Then, we spent the rest of the day in the office trying to develop a couple projects that we hope to present in January. That evening we went with the other missionaries to dinner at the mall and to see how it is going at the “Giving Machines” “Light the World”. A couple high school kids from one of the wards were manning the machines and they were doing a great job.
Saturday we went to the office again until the afternoon, continuing to work on the projects. At this point in time it is a double job, still trying to navigate the computers, and then trying to develop the project. You have to get everything right to get these passed. There is so much involved it keeps our minds spinning. It is a little different than teaching third grade and working in a garden.
Saturday evening was the Lahug Ward Christmas PARTY! We are talking about a PARTY! The only thing that resembled a Christmas party at a church that I have ever been to was, they had an opening and closing prayer and an opening hymn, “Angels We Have Heard on High”. When the closing prayer was offered I couldn’t hear it and he had a mike. It was a wild time. Every group did a line dance to some LOUD music. The Relief Society went first, I was shocked to see 30 sisters doing a rocking line dance. Later the Elders Quorum did the same rocking dance, but only about 15 of them, and they did the same dance. They must have practiced with their wives. The Single Adults had a number, the YSA had a number, the youth had two numbers, the Primary and teachers were rocking it with their kids. The YMYW dance had about 30 kids and they could dance. They were getting after it. I could tell why later when the Bishopric did their dance. Those guys could dance. They started on the stage and when I thought it was about over, no, they were just getting warmed up, off they jump from the stage with the counselors, both about 25, did somersaults and high kicks and things were going now. I was sweating just watching all of this. We were entertained with this dancing for about an hour. It was wild and crazy. A lot of audience hooping and hollering. The MC for the night was really making it happen and a lot of Cebuano talk with a lot of laughter. “Oh, What a Night!!”
Two big highlights of connections for me this week. I won’t go into much detail because it would take way to long. I contacted Teresa last week and asked her to get a hold of Diane Teichert and ask if she has any of Conrad’s journals from his mission here. (Conrad Teichert is the cousin that held the gun that I stepped in front of and lost a toe). Conrad died several years ago from brain cancer. He served his mission here back in the late 1960’s. Anyway, Teresa did as I asked, like any good big sister would. It was so cool when she wrote back with all kinds of details, (and just getting started). We found out that our cousins Marianne (Eastwood) Wardle, and Christina (Teichert) Clark, both married guys that served in the Philippines. At one time all three of them, Lynn Wardle, Jim Clark, and Conrad, were here at the same time. I learned a lot more about that from Teresa and looking forward to more as Lynn, Jim, and Diane supply more.
Last night at the ward party we were sitting with the young Elders and Sisters. The two Elders, one from the Philippines, the trainer, and his new Elder from Lehi, UT. They seem to get along great and the Filipino is only on his fourth transfer but seems like a great trainer. I am impressed with both of them. The two sisters, a 4’10” Filipino trainer and a 5’10” California girl. They seem to get along great. The CA girl has some Asian blood. Her mother was raised in Hawaii on the big island in Kona. Anyway, her family goes to Hawaii a fair amount. This Sister Noble, mentioned she worked in Laie, Hawaii, last summer. Well as any good inquisitive mind would do, I kept asking all kinds of questions to get to know her better. It finally came around to her knowing quite well the James and Melissa (our niece from Alaska) Faustino family. When we told her that, she almost yelled, Uncle James. He really isn’t her uncle, but her dad and James were roommates at BYU when James and Melissa were dating. Their families have vacationed together. They have kept in close touch through the years. Sister Noble was in Hawaii when her mission call came. She showed us pictures of Melissa, James and family, who were present when she opened her mission call. Pretty cool! Fun connections!!
Yesterday and today, three different times, because of shifts, we (meaning Elder and Sister Woods, Sister Garner, and us) have given gift baskets to the two ladies at the front desk, the two security guards (who always open the front doors for us coming and going), three housekeepers, and two maintenance guys. We sang “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” when delivering them. It was fun to see their reaction. We hope we can have a positive influence on these wonderful people who take such good care of us and always greet us with positive comments and smiles as we come and go. They were excited and touched as we sang to them. It was fun. Sister Woods and Sister Garner both have good soprano voices and Elder Woods is a good tenor so with Clyda as an alto and me as a bass we did pretty good.
The gospel is true and this is a great work we are involved in. Do your best at whatever calling you have and you will be blessed. As President Uchtdorf would say, “Lift Where You Stand”. We are grateful for your prayers. We continue to be impressed with these great Filipino people. The Lord is blessing them and us.
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
Text and Photos received from Mom:
Some shots from our day at Lakawan Island. It was a fantastic day in the sun with a great breeze. We didn't take our swimming suits, but I got in up to my knees anyway and thoroughly enjoyed it all. We were there for about 4 hours. Then we went to see "the Ruins". It was cool as well.
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