Community with a Capital C

One of our favorite things about traveling is the chance to visit other churches. It is interesting to see the impact (both positive and negative) of the West on churches around the globe. Throughout the last few days, I’ve met lots of people who are in the Philippines because of their faith (short-term, long-term, local ministers).

Left: On Sunday, I attended a church called CCF in Pasig City. It is a megachurch with streaming videocasts to several other sites in the Philippines. They were more versed in the latest Christian trends than I was, which always kind of annoys me. Their next series is the “40 days of love”. I wish there was an easier way that churches could incorporate their cultural context rather than replicate the one in the US.

Top Right: Esther (in the middle) is a volunteer at Samaritana. She let me tag along with her this weekend to church and “malling”. Esther’s friend, Allie (on the right), turned out to be a Cal alum who’s doing international research for grad school. It’s a small world. According to facebook, Allie and I have 27 friends in common. We could only think of 5 when we first met.

Bottom Right: My beloved remote church community from CCFC in Boston. They were all on their annual ski trip, but I had a chance to Skype with them. It’s Sooj, Warren, Ro, and Jung. (Err…sorry I didn’t warn you guys about taking a screenshot). When we were chatting, there was an 80 degree difference in temperature. I’ll take snow any day.

Tomorrow I head to Olongapo City, which is a few hours away from here. I'll be taking a look at the production process for the recycled paper used in the greeting cards.

Keeping in touch: Thanks to Michael and his computer-wizard ways, we figured out that I can call phones for free using Google voice. You can also call me, but I have to be sitting at the computer so it's not as easy to catch me. Don't know if I'll have internet the next few days, so I'll send an update when I get back.

Kumasta from the Philippines

After 24 hours of travel, I arrived in Manila on Wednesday morning with no problems. My first impression of the country is that it is hot and humid (and this is their coolest month with highs in the 80s).


Top Left: I am working for Good Paper (www.goodpaper.com), which distributes handmade greeting cards made by women who are survivors of prostitution. For the next 2 weeks, I'll be focusing on a few operations projects for starting new sites.

Top Right: During the Friday night program, several women shared their life stories about being a "bar girl" and their process of transformation.What's most striking about the women is how young they are when recruited.

Bottom Left: Besides making cards for an income, the trainees at Samaritana also go through other trainings, such as making jewelry, maintenance (cleaning, cooking), general education, and counseling.

Bottom Right: I am staying on site at Samaritana, which is also a retreat center. It's a very peaceful site with this lovely open garden in the center. It has wireless and AC.I couldn't ask for more


I remain ethnically/age ambiguous, which is always a fun conversation starter. In my first few days, people have all guessed between the ages of 17 to 24 and most assume I'm half Filipino. In fact, they say I look like this person Joyce Jiminez. No one ever says I look like someone so I was curious and I leave it for you to judge. Don't google images for that name as she is a "sexy" actress and you may accidentally run into sketchier pics as I did...haha.

Tale of Two Cities

Welcome back to our blog. Thanks to our friends and family - Jason, Jill, Jeanne, Albert, Michael, and Richelle - who have been hosting our vagabond life in the last few months.










Warren is currently in Boston for his defense scheduled at the end of the month! He's done a great job working diligently while the rest of us were tempting him with card games and movies over the holidays.








This was the storm that welcomed him back to the city. We've had 3 of our 4 most recent flights get cancelled. That's New England and I'll definitely miss even the unpredictability of travel.







In a very different city... I have been in Los Angeles enjoying the sun and visiting the happiest place on earth.

I am heading to the Philippines tomorrow night to work with Good Paper (www.goodpaper.com) for 2 weeks. Yes, I've double-checked my plane ticket this time.

Warren and I will meet up in Taiwan on February 2 to celebrate the new year in Asia!

Tentative Itinerary
Jan. 17 to Feb 2 - Philippines (Mel only)
Feb. 2 to early March - Taiwan
March - SE Asia: Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand
Mar 26 to Apr. 3 - China with the Yeh family
Apr 3 to Apr 12 - Taiwan
April 12 - back to real life in San Francisco

Seafood and Siestas!

During my trip to Spain, I was lucky enough to meet up with Linda and Kohei during their round-the-world travels. They’ve been in Europe for the last 3 months and are heading to South America next. This is at Parc Guell, which is filled with sculptures made by Gaudi. You can also visit their blog at travelingseeds.wordpress.com. We hope to meet up with them again in Asia next year.

Brian, Jung, and I had a great time traveling together. Among our more “travel worthy” stories is our attempt to fit 3 people on our King size bed. We weren’t actually planning to keep up the pillow barriers, but Jung and I fell asleep too quickly. Note: Brian’s “pod” is probably 1.5 times bigger than mine. Hilarious!

All of our time in Spain was spent either eating or walking. We had AMAZING food from pinoxtes (Basque tapas), seafood paella, and Spanish wines and beers (for them). This was at a cute restaurant called Quimet Y Quimet. The owner of the restaurant made his own creations in front of us and we enjoyed them right away at the bar.

My favorite dish is Spain is called “Arroz Negro”, which means black rice. I didn’t post a picture of it because it doesn’t look nearly as good as it tastes. It’s made with squid ink and is another version of paella. I also loved eating regular paella and tried many different types of tapas. We adapted to the Spanish schedule easily – lunch around 2, a siesta, and then dinner around 9.

We generally walked a few hours each day to the sites in Spain (museums, parks, churches). In Barcelona, Jung was our elected navigator. We always arrived at the expected destination and the rest of us followed. In Madrid, Brian was promoted to navigator as most know that I am direction-challenged. We had a nice “wandering” experience when it was just the two of us. No matter how hard we tried to stay on course, we seemed to go in circles…literally. On the upside, it was a good way to experience the small streets. This is El Retiro, which is a nice park in Madrid.

I am finally back in the US. I have an overnight visit in Dallas with the parents and then head to Alex/Kristin’s wedding in Hawaii. Jung is picking me up from the airport in our 12 hour time zone difference from Spain! It's been a whirlwind tour and will finish up in Cali before heading home.

Hola ¿Habla Inglés?

Warren and I parted ways in London, so that he could “dissertate” with minimal distractions from me. I flew to Malaga, the southern tip of Spain, and took a bus to Granada. I now start all conversations with hola...habla ingles and expect the answer to be no.













I took a segway tour my first day in Granada. We rode up to the top, which was a picturesque view of the entire city and passed through the Sacramonte gypsy area.










At the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the city of Granada has lots of streetside restaurants and cafes. It is a very quaint town with beautiful scenery and part of an area in Spain called Andalusia.














This is one of the street performers who provided some entertainment during my late lunch. (I seem to eat around 2 or 3 pm here to match the schedule).

Alhambra Palace is the main attraction in the area. It is an ancient fortress of the Moorish monarchs. The area is beautiful minus the numerous tourists. There are 7800 visitors per day.

Tomorrow I head to Barcelona to meet up with Jung and Brian!

British Bookends

We began our five week journey with a stop-over in Heathrow, and now conclude our trip with three nights in Central London!














Arriving on a Sunday afternoon, we quickly made haste to get to the 6:30pm service at All Soul’s Church – the pulpit of which was occupied for many years by John Stott. It was a simple, solid, Evangelical service with a broad range of racial diversity in the pews.

We took a ride on the “London Eye” which is a newer tourist spot that looks essentially like an oversized ferris wheel granting breathtaking views of the city from thousands of feet in the sky. Below us in this picture are the famous “Big Ben”, Westminster Hall, and Parliament.

Coincidentally, we stayed at the Hilton Metropole, the site of the 2010 European Poker Tour (EPT) – London, which was held during the same time as our stay. I (Warren) was pretty excited to see famous poker superstars wandering around the hotel premises – Chris Moneymaker, Eric Seidel, John Juanda – I even had a short conversation with Greg Raymer in the elevator over his early exit!

Our last day was spent journeying 80 miles north of London to the site of Stonehenge. These large stones were mysteriously put into their places over 5000 years ago for purposes which are still unclear to scientists and archeologists. There’s literally nothing around this site – one wonders who decided to carry these stones from several hundred miles away to this random, grassy field in the middle of England.

Our journey comes to a close. We have so many memories that we are so grateful to have made and shared with each other – and with our friends and family. Looking back, we really have done so much! During the five weeks we took ten flights, en route to visiting five countries, used six different currencies, and bought seven different SIM cards for our iPhone. 

Melissa now continues on to Spain and Hawaii while Warren returns to Boston to get back to “dissertating”. Hope to see y’all really soon and talk to you about our travels in person! (Stay tuned for more updates from Melissa!)

wrapping up East Africa

Nairobi, Kenya (layover)










We took advantage of a 4 hour layover in Kenya – we ate a huge meal at the famous “Carnivore” restaurant and spent a few moments at this scenic spot overlooking downtown Nairobi…

Kigali, Rwanda (which is actually pronounced: Cha-Gali)









We devoted ourselves to a week of volunteering at Cards for Africa – a socially responsible company co-owned by one of our closest friends, Jimmy Quach. (http://www.cardsfromafrica.com/)

Over 75 employees work in this incredible company devoted to making handmade cards from recyclable materials. The card-making staff (63 folks) comprise largely of orphans who have lost parents due to the Rwandan genocide or HIV. Watching these folks labor over the details of rather intricate cards was a thing of beauty (especially as American hip-hop blasts in the background).

Melissa spent some significant time with Athanasie (pictured) and Aimee, who are in charge of inventory, stock, and materials. Mel spent time with both women, teaching them how to use Excel to manage data. I (Warren) spent the better part of the week troubleshooting blue-screening computers and solving technical issues like a good Asian boy.

We definitely grew in appreciation for the difficulties of running a small business – especially in East Africa where things considered routine in the States (e.g., ordering supplies, reliable internet connection, unbroken electricity).

We have a short stay in Uganda before we head to London for three days. We bid a sad goodbye to East Africa, where we have learned so much and come to appreciate so much of the language, the culture, and the people!