philippines: day 7, friday, april 14

Early start to get to Pampanga to see the penance stuff and witness to people...and then car trouble with the other car...great! Been delayed about 1.5 hours so far; stuff has started there by now and we're sitting at a gas station waiting for the car to be fixed. Yeah, this rocks! And my cold seems to be worse this morning. Hopefully the rest of the day will be much better.

Car fixed, showed up only an hour late, not bad considering all things. First sight of what was happening was turning around to look out the back of the van and seeing a guy's back covered in blood and his pants stained red for the first few inches. Yikes! Perhaps the most gruesome thing I've ever seen. A guy beating himself with what appeared to be a sort of modified bolas (which I bought a set of as a souveneir), blood all over his back and the seat of his pants, a procession following him and encouraging him to keep on hitting himself, blood splattering on anyone and anything around him, blood spots on the street...just an ugly sight. This was the first time I can remember convulsing and feeling a bit nauseous at the sight of blood and gore. I wasn't at all prepared for this.

We went on and parked, then walked and walked and walked an dwalked to the crucifixion site. Scenes along the way included rows and processions of more proud masochists, a guy laying down with a child doing some beating on him, a child trying to mimic the self-beaters by standing at the back of the line and hitting himself with the bolas thing, me getting speckled in blood - but not bad - as the self-beaters walked by...what a weird experience. So disturbing on so many levels.

Then on to the crucifixion site...corded, lots o fanticipation in the crowd. The crucifixion itself was almost anticlimactic in that it wasn't nearly as gruesome as I expected. But that's a good thing. It took probably an hour, and the guys were up there for maybe 15 minutes. But they were nailed and that made up for it. It was like a spectacle. The whole scene was like one big carnival of sorts.

The rest of the day was low-key. Home, shot some hoops for a bit (by myself), dinner, good discussion of the day's events. Finally got the internet to work on my computer so that's cool. I finally have a way to serve the team I guess. But this head cold is back with a vengeance this evening so I haven't been able to do much. I did help clean up after dinner, though, and that felt good just to be helping the others.

Not sure what to make of the events we saw. In some sense I felt guilty for how I behaved at Pampanga, like a tourist instead of a missionary. I felt terrible for the kids there; they wouldn't know what to think and could so easily get the wrong impression. Our team was very distraught. Predictable reactions though. All of the women crying, Travis doing his best to comfort people despite what was probably a tough experience for him as well, Curtis with his trademark sense of humor throughout, Walt just sitting there deep in thought and saying nothing, me sitting there trying to figure out what to make of it all and showing no emotion whatsoever but daydreaming a bit.

Overall I'm very glad we went. No matter how bad anyone felt, it was worth the experience. And people being impacted so much is a good thing. That's God teaching us all something. Had we not gone, we'd always wonder how it would have been to be there. Overall a great trip and a totally unforgettable experience. And the pedacab ride was awesome!

Didn't get to do much witnessing though. In fact, I didn't talk to anyone about Christ there. How inexcusable is that? Good thing some people on the team weren't that self-focused. Man, I really feel like a camera-clicking tourist now.