On our recent trip to Nasuli, Ben had a number of occasions to play with new found Filipino friends even though they did not share a common language with each other. These two boys are the children of "mother tongue" translators who are working on Bible translation here in the Philippines. Their first language is one of the local languages (I forget the name) and they speak some Cebuano, which is the language Beth and I are trying to learn. They do not know any English. Yet, the boys got along just fine and found a way to play basketball without too much difficulty.
I was playing with them for a while myself. I remember the odd looks on the two boys faces when I tried to say the word ball in Cebuano. That was because I said "balo" instead of "bola". Oh well, they tolerated my slaughtered attempt at Cebuano and we had fun anyway.
More basketball
Picture time
The daughter of the van driver and Ben
On our 6 hour trip home, Ben became acquainted with the daughter of the driver of the van. She spoke some English and we think that she might have had a few years on Ben, but they had fun playing together.
All this to say that we are pleased when we see our children getting to know other Filipino children. Sometimes we sense some reluctance on our children's part to get to know Filipinos. That is a natural tendency, of course, to draw back when we encounter a situation or a person who might be very different than ourselves. We all do it from time to time. Beth and I are trusting that God is shaping all of us into the people that he wants us to be.