Meeting Nympha’s Family

      Our next step to marry required Trinidad’s birth certificate, a letter from her parents, and a letter from my parents to approve our marriage plans. Nympha and I called my parents via a phone that required we say ‘over’ as we conversed back and forth. When they learned I planned to marry my mother says my dad laid on the floor pretending to pass out. They sent the letter and a copy of my birth certificate with the fastest available mail service. I was 20 and Nympha became 21 one day prior to our eventual marriage date. We took a Victory Liner Bus from Olongapo to Manila to catch a flight to the city of Tacloban on the island of Leyte where Trinidad’s family lived in the town of Lapaz.  

     The road to Manila was all dirt with lots of potholes and ran through the sugar cane fields of Pampanga. The bus would pull over and pick up a club-footed young boy of about 12 or 13, he was an acapella singer and would walk the aisle of the bus collecting tips and blessing all with his powerfully beautiful voice. The bus would stop to let him out and he would cross the road to catch the next bus back to where he was picked up. He road back and forth on the busses all day, singing and earning some money for his livelihood.

     After arriving in Tacloban late in the evening we stayed with Nympha’s older sister Norma. Norma had a small store near the open air market. She sold mangoes and other fruits throughout the year. Early in the morning I went to take a shower and was told to walk down between the narrow space that separated the buildings. Norma’s storefront sat inward from the wall of the store next door. It was a passage about two feet wide. The ground had some boards on it to walk on rather than the mud from the evening rain. There was a piece of corrugated roofing metal placed to mark where the ‘shower’ area was. There was a spigot and a bucket, I hung my clothes on some nails in the wall and turned on the spigot. It ran very slow so I had to fill the bucket and use the plastic pot floating in the water to wet and rinse my body. Between the walls of the two buildings it was dark, wet, and a bit smelly. Then I heard a pig on the other side of the roofing metal begin to snort and bump the barrier of corrugated metal roofing. After showering I stepped out into the street, I was the first one up and the street was beautifully empty. As the sun began to rise and I viewed this strange new world, I knew I would return one day and start a church in this city.

Later that morning we rode a jeepney to the bus depot located along the harbor. A jeepney is an old diesel jeep converted into a brightly decorated passenger vehicle. Jeepneys are the major form of public transportation, however many only move people around within the city in which they work while a few make long trips. The harbor bus depot was a conglomeration of different busses going to various destinations. The market is located there with an assortment of fish and meat hanging in the open air. Men yelled for any last passengers as their busses were ready to depart. Trinidad and I found a smaller bus headed for Lapaz, (where she was born) and boarded the bus.

    The bus had plywood seats and was filled beyond capacity. The windows were all open and people were packed in like sardines. Some men with chickens and food items climbed on top of the bus to make the trip to Lapaz. Trinidad and I sat together as we began our life’s adventure together. She had her newfound faith in Jesus Christ and the curly-brown-haired American of her childhood dream at her side. We were filled with peace from Christ and an assurance that we were to have a wonderful life together.

      We had sent a telegram to Trinidad’s parents to inform them of our trip and our purposes. When the bus stopped, I noticed a tall Filipino man. He was wearing a cone shaped bamboo hat and bore a Fu-manchu mustache, alongside of his leg was strapped a large Bolo knife used for chopping wood, coconuts, bamboo etc. Then Trinidad nudged me and said, “That’s my Dad!” I thought to myself, “Oh boy am I in trouble.” Trinidad’s father Porferio turned out to be a very nice man, although he was an alcoholic addicted to the native drink Tuba, (a fermented concoction of coconut palm sap). Porferio could read and write English and did so with real flair. He had learned to read and write english from U.S. troops in WWII.