Shackeldorf Plaza Hotel, Part 2

The Dollens left Friday evening and the Ganzang's arrived for breakfast on Saturday morning! It was good to see the two older girls! Maymay is our godchild and we had not seen her for 4-5 years. They are really nice kids! The girls played nicely with toys and looked at books and helped look after their little brother. They took the top bunk mattress down and all slept on the floor in the 'kid's guest room.' Dad took the little girls up to the mall when he needed to get something, and they were very well behaved. The Dollen kids were too, but these are younger.

They go to a Bible Baptist Church in Nasipit. The pastor there is a nice guy, Bebeng says, but very strict. He's been pastor there for about 20 years. The ladies can't wear slacks (at least not to church) and they are told not to use Christmas lights or lanterns for Christmas. I asked why, and she said because it is not in the Bible... I pointed out that electricity wasn't in the Bible either, so does the pastor use electricity? He does. He also says Christmas is supposed to be in the summer. I asked if he accepted Chrsitmas gifts, and she said, 'Oh yes! Since the wisemen brought gifts to Jesus, it was okay.' Sigh. But she wondered about that because she remembered that WE (Sir and Ma'am) had Christmas lights and all the fun stuff... I told her that the pastor means well, and that she shouldn't be rebellious, but she shouldn't take that sort of thing very seriously, since it is the heart God looks at, not the clothes and the Christmas lights, and so on. The things that God wants to see in our hearts will make us happy and give us long life, but are a lot harder to do than the outward things. She agreed. It is hard because there is so much English and they use the King James Bible for everything, and American hymnals... Ack.

They went to church with us on Sunday morning. Our church was all in English too, so it was a waste for them. Ugh. But it was a good sermon for us, nevertheless. They were planning to leave on Sunday afternoon. Maymay fell asleep on the top bunk and about 2 pm fell off onto the cement floor and landed right on her mouth. It was awful! Her top front tooth went through her lower lip and popped completely out. her lower three front teeth were pushed way in. There was blood everywhere, and Bebeng was really upset with Maymay for falling off the bed! This seems to be a typical Filipino response, to get mad at the child who is hurt, and I don't understand it. Anyway It was awful. We had her bite on a teabag to stop the bleeding and put ice on the front bottom lip. We ended up taking her to the hospital to have the lip stitched up; two on the inside and three on the outside, and she was very brave. There were 4-5 tooth fragments in the wound. They stayed another night and we went to a Christian dentist the next day to see what could be done about the lower teeth. She X-rayed them and none are broken, so later they can probably be pushed forward. In the meantime, I told Maymay to push on the teeth with her tongue. Later, Boboy asked Dad, "Another tooth will grow in on top, right?" It was hard to tell him that she had lost her adult tooth and no more would be growing in.

They left on Monday night, and we were exhauted! We went to bed early and slept long and hard! Today we went out for a transfusion from the bank, and to buy some more food for our empty freezer. It was a good week, but It will be a while before we have two families stay in one week!