Normal in the Philippines

Last week I got the amazing opportunity to go on a two day outreach with Laura (one of my roommates) and some people that she knows. We drove four and a half hours in the back of a truck to a town between the mountains and the ocean.







Laura and I took way too many blood pressures to count. After taking one woman's pressure, I told her, "Normal. It's normal." But, just before I said that, a man leaned over her shoulder and asked me my name. All he heard was me saying, "Normal. It's normal." So then, he thought my name was "Normal". He proceeded to tell everyone that I was named Normal!





We met a lot of Filipinos.





Also, we watched Mordegai (the missionary doctor we went with) extract 167 teeth in just one afternoon. Ouch!! I don't have a picture of that now (I was too busy watching him to bother taking pictures :), but if/when I get one, I'll be sure to post it as picture of the week. The infections underneath some peoples' teeth were horrible, but they'll feel better now...once their gums heal.

After the teeth pulling, someone gave their testimony to the crowd that had gathered, and Mordegai showed some videos (pictures of other outreaches he had been on, the Filipino Jesus film, a National Geographic movie about the ocean, and others).

We ate a lot of rice, kinilaw (a mixture of raw tuna, cucumber, onion, ginger, and hot chilis...very good!), fish eyeballs the size of golf balls (okay, so I didn't eat a whole one), fresh coconut juice (my favorite!), more durian (it's starting to taste almost good), chicken, and banana cake.



So, now you know a little more about being Normal in the Philippines.