Who is Fr. Joe?

Oh Father Joe. Or should I say: Padre Jose or Dre or Pods or Derps?
So many names for this very dynamic, fabulous Priest who's only fuel is coffee and a large freezing cold Coke-a-Cola. He loves crosswords and singing and driving and animals and children and his former parishes and Camiguin Island (which is where he grew up). He loves telling stories and he loves to keep busy and divining water.

One glory story of his, he took care of over 60 kids by raising them and putting them through elementary, high school and college and finding them a steady job...and he mystically got donations and always just got by. Everything he does is totally Holy Spirit and everything that seems like it will go tragically wrong always works out because he is Father Joe.

We are so so so so blessed and forever grateful and thankful to have the opportunity to be working with this Priest who actually could have retired a few years ago, but refuses because there is so much that still needs to be done!

He sometimes looks like a Priest.

He even shares his glasses.

He loves nuns....that give him free food and coke.

He sometimes has time to take a picture with some Friars.

He can find water and figure out the depth of the water in the ground.

He can do super large baptisms in record time

He gets really excited about ordinations!

more and more and more baptisms

He loves to sing and to give us 4AM surprises for our birthdays

He loves to play with kids and teach them about life in the Philippines

He will have 3 funerals and 3 weddings and over a dozen baptisms in one day... maybe even in one morning.

and he does everything in style

he only functions on 4 hours of sleep, but typically less

He loves his hard working office staff!

He loves kids and his 7 dogs and 2 monkeys and love birds and rabbits and pigeons and his very large church parish and his high school and all of his old church parishes and all of the livelihood projects he has started throughout the LARGE diocese of CDO.

Some of my teams favorite Pods (our nick name for him) quotes:

"It can be done"
"and somehow.. we made it"
"sometimes we have to suffer comfortably"
"everyone is equal, except the Parish Priest is just a little more equal"
"nothing a cold coke can't fix"
"you know, I just had to tell them, I think I am the boss here"
"my favorite food is 'sea food' any food that I see, I eat"