getting to the airport and flying through a typhoon

Today was a crazy day. We have a typhoon barelling down on the Philippines – typhoon Pedring. It is supposed to be one of the most massive storms to hit the Philippines in years. They closed all the schools in Manila for the afternoon.

I flew to Palawan today, right across the southeast edge of the typhoon and through the rain bands that have been drawn up due to the low pressure area at the center of the storm. It was a bit of a scary flight. The plane made a hard heavy noise on takeoff, and then we had a lot of turbulence the whole flight down. The pilot announced that we were at 36,000 feet, but looking out the window we were inside clouds the whole time. There was no blue sky visible even at that height, so you can see how big this storm must be.

To get to the airport from our place, I had called for a taxi to come pick me up the night before. I gave the taxi company my cell phone number and they said that they would text me at 9 am to let me know the status of the vehicle. 9 am came and went, and no word from the taxi company. I figured, ok, sometimes they forget and don't call. So I waited. And waited. At 5 minutes to ten I called them, and they said sorry, they didn't have any taxi that could come here because of the rain (whatever!). So I asked why they didn't call and let me know, and they said they sent a text message. They read out the number they sent it to, and it was the wrong number! They had mixed up the last digit of my cell phone number, so I didn't know that I had no taxi.

Fortunately I had planned for this sort of contingency by planning to leave early. I headed out the door with my small backpack stuffed inside my large hiker's backpack and started walking down the road towards the place where I could catch a taxi. It is about a half hour walk along that road, and sometimes there are pubic jeeps that come there, but only about once every hour. I didn't really feel like walking because it was raining, but I did anyway. As I left the house, I whispered a prayer which was half thanks for knowing that He would grant my request and half “Lord please get me to the airport.”

Last month when I took a taxi to the airport, it took about 4 hours to get there because of heavy traffic. So I was expecting it to take about that long also today. After walking for only about 15 minutes, a utility vehicle came by, which I thought was the public transportation service, so I flagged it down. They stopped, but when I got there, it turned out they were just private citizens driving the same kind of vehicle that the multi-cabs often are made from! I think they felt bad for me, a white guy carrying a large heavy pack, walking alone on the road in the middle of a rainstorm. So they picked me up and gave me a ride down to Ortigas where I was able to get in a public multi-party taxi called an FX.

From there I told the guy that I needed to go to the airport. He said he wasn't going to the airport, but he would take me somewhere where I would be able to pick up a regular taxi more easily. So we headed down the road and picked up the passengers he needed to pick up, and kept on going. When we got to the semi-highway, he saw an empty taxi and started honking at him and flashing his lights at him. The taxi pulled over and we pulled over, and I got out and got in the taxi. Then that taxi took me to the rest of the way to the airport. A very creative way to get there, no doubt! God is good!

I was a little wet and very early, so I waited in the waiting area for about an hour and a half before they opened the line to process the tickets going to Palawan.

I started off this blog entry by talking about the plane, so I will finish it there also. As I mentioned, we were 36,000 feet, with tons of turbulence, and no blue sky. When we landed at the airport, I didn't feel the usual feel of the tires hitting the runway. I realized after-wards that was because the tires were hydro-planing. I also noticed that we just weren't hardly slowing down at all as we skidded along the runway. I prayed, Lord, please let this plane stop and let us not go sliding off the end of the runway! Finally after a long time, we came to a stop. It seems the other end of the runway had better drainage than the end we landed on. There were heavy rains and a fairly decent wind going across the tarmac as we got out of the plane. My compliments to the Zest Air pilots who made sure that we landed safely.

And all praise to the Lord, who has preserved my life once again for the completion of His work.

And one bit of cultural insight. On the way to the airport, we passed a very large Catholic church. My taxi driver made the sign of the cross as we went by. I asked him what you call that, and he said “sign of the cross.” So I asked him what they said in Tagalog, and he said “Antangan” ( I think – can't remember for sure). But he said that is a deep Tagalog word. I asked him what he would say if he was instructing his children to do the sign of the cross and he said he would say “sign of the cross ka” or something like that. He indicated he would not use the word “Antangan” because it is a deep Tagalog word.

Then I asked him why he makes the sign of the cross, and he said “Para sa pagpuri kay Cristo.” That was an answer that I did not expect! For the praise of Jesus! I thought that was cool.

When examining sociological constructs from a Christian point of view, it is always encouraging to see elements of Biblical Christianity coming out unexpectedly like this in the beliefs of the common people. This led to a short conversation on how you please God and on how the scriptures say that we please God by faith, by trusting in Him. Unfortunately, my taxi driver wasn't really interested in pursuing the conversation any further than that.

Now it is time to get ready to head into the tribe once again! It will be supply buying for the next few days before heading down.

George