During the last few months of Teen Training, Grandpa was house hunting, looking for a house outside of Manila. In late February of '85, the "People Power" revolution took place. The Castle house was close enough to the center of things that from the roof of the tower, you could see the crowds of protesters converging between camp Crame and Marcos's tanks. Grandpa and Maria and their family moved out of Manila to another property, known as the "Hilltop." Kristy and Armendria went back to their Home, but I remained at the Castle house for about six weeks in order to help with shutting down the house. My dad remained at the Castle house during this period of time and my brother and sister came for a visit as well.

When the Castle house was pretty much shut down, Daddy joined Grandpa and Mama at the Hilltop Home, and my brother and I and a few others moved back to the Chinaman's house I mentioned earlier. I lived there for a full year.

My thirteenth year was my worst, in terms of rebellion and dislike of authority. Along with our schooling, we continued a different version of "training" in my Home, with my brother and sister and a few other young people also living there. I was of the opinion that I was ready to do something, and certainly my training was over. I was critical of the grown-ups in whose care we were, and internally resentful about the way they ran things. My joys in life during that year were anytime I was outside having exercise, and the few hours a day that I would help care for two babies. In any case, I weathered that year, and shortly after I turned 14, things turned around drastically for me.

Due to an internal reorganization, several of the people who lived in my Home and worked on publications were invited to move to the Hilltop, where Grandpa lived. Two of those people were the mothers of the babies I frequently helped to care for, and I was invited as well, so that I could continue to help with their care. I was overjoyed. I and a few others arrived at the Hilltop in May of 1986, three days after Mene had left.

The Hilltop was a wonderful place. Situated in the hills surrounding Manila, the property was on the top of a hill (hence its name), and contained two larger houses and three smaller ones. One side of the property overlooked a rock wall that was 40 or 50 feet high. There was the main house where the communal kitchen was situated, plus the dining room and several living quarters, including the kids' living quarters. Then there was a small one-and-a-half bedroom A-frame house that Grandpa and Mama lived in. Across from that was another small house that my dad occupied. Behind the main house was "the Brick house," which had a number of rooms, some of which had been especially constructed on the unfinished third floor of the house. On the property also was the "Nipa hut," which had undergone extensive renovation to turn it into a suitable place to live. If I remember correctly, between 30 and 40 people lived and worked on the property. The Hilltop had a large yard, a big pool, lots of fruit trees, and a big, horseshoe-shaped fishpond. Because it was well out of the city, we frequently went off the property for hikes and bike rides.

Animals

There were lots of animals on the property that the children helped care for. The Tilapia fishpond was my dad's project. He started out with small fry, and eventually the fish grew and multiplied till there were probably 600 fish in the pond—some very big. We would occasionally have fish for dinner, and we kids would help catch the bigger fish and clean and prepare them for dinner.

There were three separate enclosures for chickens—each with their own rooster. The chickens laid eggs that we collected and ate. One rooster, whose name was Samson, was a huge white rooster that was allowed the privilege of wandering freely around the property, and mating with whichever chickens he chose. My bedroom window was over one of the chicken enclosures, and the clucking of the chickens and crowing of the roosters became my daily wakeup call. Occasionally some of the chickens were allowed to sit on their eggs, and then we'd have new baby chicks—much to the delight of the toddlers. One black chick we called Twinky.

This particular chick was sick when newly hatched, so one of the grown-ups kept Twinky in his room for a week to nurse it back to health. After that, the chick followed this guy around non-stop and was friendly to all humans. We all thought Twinky was a chicken, but one morning while having devotions on the lanai-type porch, Twinky came by and uttered the most pitiful rooster croak you can imagine. It was funny and after having discovered Twinky was a rooster, we changed his name to Inky.

There were also many, many cats on the property. We'd started out with just two cats, but after a few litters, there ended up being over 20 of them. Thankfully, it was a big property. One day the other children and I made a Kitty Family Tree, to illustrate which cats were from which parents, and how they all linked back to the first two original cats. As new litters of cats were born, we would add to the Kitty Family Tree, till we had quite a genealogy going.

Flower was the name of one of the cats from the initial litter, and when she had five kittens we gave them all names of flowers: Pansy, Daisy, Tulip, etc. After a while, we realized that Tulip was in fact a tomcat, so we kids promptly changed his name to Tubal—which we thought was very clever. One day Grandpa was sitting in the yard watching the handyman work on a project, when one of the children ran by calling after Tubal. Grandpa hadn't heard this cat referred to as Tubal before and asked about the name change. One of the handymen replied, "Well, it's because they found out he's a tomcat." Grandpa nodded and then sat there for a moment taking it all in. A few minutes later, he burst out laughing as he got the play on words. Tubal turned out to be a hardy cat and was one of the only survivors of the unfortunate "kitty cat Jonestown" that occurred some months after Grandpa left the Hilltop—details of which I shall recount in a moment.

Grandpa and the kids

I spent a lot of my time at the Hilltop helping to take care of the toddlers and learning more about the care of small children. Dora was directly responsible for me, and oversaw me and my care of the children. I enjoyed working with her. She made sure that I was safe and careful with the children, and was doing a good job of teaching them, but she also let me explore some of my own ideas—which I had plenty of. By this age, I had grown to love being with children, and I had decided that taking care of children was what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to become a professional teacher.

Dora was supportive of my dreams. She gave me a lot of instruction and taught me a lot. I had a lot to learn about consistency and faithfulness and hygiene. I spent my free time making readers and teaching aids for the children. I helped care for three two-year-olds: two boys and a girl. Sammy, Pauly, and Angel, one of Sara's daughters.

I would often run into Grandpa when I was outside with the children, and he was always happy to see the children. Grandpa spent a lot of time working with the handymen on improvements to the property. The property was big, and there were many things to maintain or build. There were three or four handymen he would usually work with. Pete joined them a lot when he wasn't doing his school.

Every time the toddlers and I ran into Grandpa, he would spend a few minutes playing with the kids. He would pray for me every time I saw him. He would pray for my care of the children—that I would learn to teach them well and keep them safe. The toddlers were always happy to see Grandpa. The toddler room was on the ground floor. To get back to his house from the pool each day, Grandpa would walk by the kids' window. Every time he walked by, he would wave to the children in their room. The toddlers would climb up on this little bench by the window and wave. They called Grandpa "papa." They'd wave and smile and jump up and down. Grandpa would wave back, jump around, or make silly faces, and blow them kisses.

Pauly was inseparable from a little hammer, which was his favorite toy. He would sit in his stroller, often with a serious little scowl on his face, and hold his little hammer, which looked like a judge's gavel. Grandpa called him the little judge, and would try to make him smile. Sometimes he was successful, but most of the time he wasn't.

The other little boy, Sammy, was cheerful, and a happy-go-lucky kid. He just loved to see Grandpa. Every time Grandpa would come down the path, Sammy would run to meet him. Grandpa would pick him up, twirl him around, and spend a few minutes with him. He affectionately called him Sammy the Sumo, because he was a large, chunky little kid. Sammy would frequently play with Grandpa on the small hill that was on the property. Sammy would run up to the top of the hill, and then shout down, "Ready?" And Grandpa would say, "Come on down!" Then Sammy would run down the hill into Grandpa's waiting arms. Grandpa would swing him around and Sammy would laugh and giggle. It was a lot of fun for me to watch Grandpa's interaction with the children. He was so loving and so natural with the children. It seemed to bring him a lot of joy to be with the little kids, and they sure liked to see him.

Witnessing ministries

There was a small and very poor village near the Hilltop property, and Grandpa set up what we termed a "gate ministry," to minister to the pretty constant stream of people who would come to the gate. The water supply in the area wasn't constant, so we had tanks on our property to store water. Grandpa decided to share this water with those in the village, so he set up a water spigot outside the gate. He had a sign put over the water spigot with the verse, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters" (Isaiah 55.1).

There were Home members who would be on call to minister and witness to those who came to the gate. Everyone in the village knew that if they came to the gate they would receive help. Grandpa also helped the villagers by giving or selling chickens to them, giving the seamstresses work to do, and so on. I wasn't personally involved in the gate ministration, but it was definitely a part of the Home's operations.

One thing that I was involved with, as far as witnessing, was ministering to the dentist, and his wife and children. Grandpa had gotten to know Ray, a dentist in Antipolo, and was happy with his work. Before long, Grandpa bought a small portable dental setup, using one of the massage chairs I talked about earlier as a dentist chair. This was set up in a walk-in closet in my dad's one-bedroom house. Once a week, the dentist and his wife would come and work on Grandpa's, Mama's, and other Home members' teeth. After a morning spent working on teeth, they were invited for lunch with Grandpa, who'd minister and witness to them by giving them classes.

They were a precious couple. When they brought their children over, which they were invited to do, Techi and I became involved in caring for and ministering to their children. They had a daughter who was about ten and a small boy of about four. One day, Mama called me over to her house, and showed me a pile of Bible flannelgraphs that she had purchased for the dentist and his wife, so they could use them for their children. She asked me if I would be willing to prepare classes to give to the dentist's children. So Techi and I would spend time with the dentist's children when they came over, giving them flannelgraphs, Bible classes, and playing with them, while Grandpa and Mama, or my dad, would give the dentist and his wife classes. Any opportunities that I had for witnessing or ministering to others, I always enjoyed. These were pretty infrequent, due to the circumstances, so they were all the more special when they did happen.

Personal interaction with Grandpa

The interaction that I had with Grandpa at the Hilltop property was much less than what I'd had when I was attending Teen Training, or when I had visited earlier. Grandpa lived in his own little house, and didn't come to dinner frequently as he had in the past, although he still did come and give talks occasionally. One time Grandpa became upset because a cockroach problem had developed on the property, and the number of cockroaches running around was getting out of control. So he came over and gave a long talk to the handymen and the rest of the Home, which turned into the Mo Letter, "Pray and Spray!" (ML #2330). That was one other time I saw Grandpa upset. He was quite upset by the fact that there were so many cockroaches and nothing was being done to aggressively get rid of them. After that talk, however, I don't think that we had many cockroaches anymore, because the handymen became aggressive in cockroach control and sprayed every month.

The two-story A-frame house that Grandpa lived in on the property was small. The ground floor had an entryway with a spiral staircase that led upstairs. There was also a small living room and kitchen, and a closet that was wide enough to put a mattress in. One of the men would sleep there every night so that someone was on call in the house besides Grandpa, Mama, and the children. Upstairs was Grandpa and Maria's bedroom, a bathroom, and a narrow, rectangular-shaped room that the kids would sleep in. It had a bed the size of a double bed on the bottom, and a bunk bed that had been constructed on the top for Techi (see "In Quietness and Confidence," ML #2238).

My room in the main house doubled as the children's classroom. Besides daily Word time, I spent most of the day with Dora and the children, and I had my school in the evening. So I didn't spend as much time daily with Pete, Davida, and Techi as I had in the past.

I spent a lot of time at the Hilltop with my dad, and I enjoyed living with him for a much longer period of time than I had before. I would go over to his little house frequently, and help him clean, or tidy the room, and we would talk, or go for walks together.

Some months into my stay at the Hilltop, Grandpa asked if I would like to occasionally come over to their house and spend some time with him and the children. So twice a week, I would go over with the kids to watch a video and sleep in their little A-frame house. After dinner, we would go over to the A-frame and usually pile onto Grandpa's bed and watch a video—usually a weekly TV series that Grandpa would record and then watch with us. We often watched Highway to Heaven episodes. Sometimes we watched episodes of a series called Helltown, which was the story of a preacher in an inner city, working with the gangs, and ministering to them. We would usually watch an hour of video and then talk a bit with Grandpa. He would ask us questions and we'd tell him the interesting details of our day. Then he'd pray with us for the night and we'd go next door and go to bed. Whenever I slept over, Techi would sleep on a little bed she had in Grandpa and Maria's room, and I would sleep on the double bed with Davida, with Pete on the bunk above.

It was always fun to have sleepovers at Grandpa and Maria's house. I enjoyed being around Grandpa with the other children. He made me feel included and like part of his family. When we got up in the morning, sometimes Grandpa was already awake and downstairs in the living room having his breakfast drink. He'd say good morning, give me a hug, and say a prayer for me as I went off to be about my day.

One time that I slept at the A-frame, I woke up in the night to hear Grandpa in the next room talking and singing loudly. He came out of his room onto the landing of the stairs and was loudly calling for more wine. Maria was attempting to get him to go back to bed. He had clearly had more to drink than usual. I was somewhat startled initially, wondering what was going on and what would happen next. Then I remembered that he had explained to us that he had a weakness with drinking too much. He had explained this the time he came to ask for prayer when I was 12 and at Teen Training. That was the only time that I ever witnessed his problem with drinking. In all the times that I slept over there, that was the only time it happened, and I slept over there twice a week for several months, so it wasn't a regular occurrence. It also didn't make me feel any differently toward Grandpa.

Grandpa leaves for Japan

In November, 1987, Grandpa had the burden to go to Japan to check things out there. He was excited about it, as I recall, and he was planning to go to Japan for two months and then come back. He met with the members of our Home a few times to explain his plans. He was going to take a small team with him, including his children and my dad. The day they left, a number of us gathered in the driveway to see them off. As the suitcases were loaded into the car and van, I remember Grandpa standing there in his Barong (traditional Philippino shirt) with his hat and cane, encouraging us that he would be back, and reminding us that even if he wasn't, God would still keep us and provide for us and we would all be fine. We waved as they drove down the driveway and out the gate.

That was the last time that I saw him. Although I had a lot of further contact with his children in both Japan and Canada, I never saw Grandpa again.

As it turned out, he didn't come back after two months. During those two months, we kept his house vacant and had been preparing for his return, but at the last minute the Lord showed him to stay in Japan. I remember being quite sad about that, as I was looking forward to having him and his kids and my dad come back.

A number of people remained at the Hilltop property. Things were reorganized and more people and children who were previously living in town came to join us at the Hilltop. We remained there for several more months before shutting down the operation there and moving to Japan as well.

It was after Grandpa left that the incident occurred which has gone down in my memory as the "kitty cat Jonestown." It happened like this. Remember how I explained we had over 20 cats? It was one person's responsibility to de-flea them periodically, but for some reason one time someone new had to fill in who wasn't familiar with the procedure. He'd been told that in such-and-such a place he'd find the package of flea powder with which to dust the cats, but he picked up the wrong package, one that was flea powder all right, but so strong that it was meant to be emptied into a pool for cattle to walk through. The effect of the concentrated powder directly on the cats was way too much for them, and they all died—all except for Tubal. He somehow managed to survive, and remained as our only cat after that. The whole thing was rather traumatic for everyone, to say the least.