Some Observations

Davao is one of the largest cities in the world in terms of land area.

The Philippines does more text-messaging than any other country. Nokia comes here to do their research when developing new phones for text-messaging.

Whenever I told people that I was going to Davao, there would be an expression of concern because Mindanao, the island on which the city of Davao is located, is known for their Muslim population. But the current mayor has really put a lid on Muslim extremist activities. Essentially, each of the 14 different Muslim tribes has a representative that reports to the mayor and if it’s found out that any tribes have gotten out of line, that representative gets taken up in a helicopter for a view of the city and that’s one of the last things he ever sees.

There are a number of churches in the city, many of them Baptist.

There are variances to how they do church here:
-Their worship songs are sung just once. They don’t go back to the beginning of the song and sing it again.
- They do announcements at the end of the message and the announcements are unplanned. Coordinators came up to talk about their ministry’s event coming up or they hand slips of paper to the worship leader.
-And when they take offering, they don’t pass around baskets/bowls. They have people standing up in front holding bags and people come up and put their offering inside. And sometimes, someone will hold a box that says “missions” or “music” and take those special offerings.

However, the city is quite modernized and the people are very similar to the people in Hawaii – very loving, very accommodating. Everywhere I go, they are saying, “Thank you, Sir” or “Good Morning, Sir.” Very respectful.