OK, my name's Perla Belo, and the moment I'm supposed to be interviewed by Alice Brassfield here, the Office of Synod office, Seattle, Washington, August 27, 1985, would you begin by talking a little bit about your background, where you were born and when, who your parents were and where you grew up and your brothers and sisters and you?

That's what I was born in Manila, Philippines, August 19, 1938. And my father's name is Gregorio Diri and my mother's name is Lauder's Velia.

And there are seven kids in the family. I'm the oldest of the family, six girls and one boy and all of us.

All of the children were born in the Philippines, but all of us now live in the U.S. We have my parents migrated to the United States over 10 years ago, including my sisters, younger sisters and brothers. Did you all kinds of family or did you come one at a time? We came one at a time. I came I came to the United States as a student to go to seminary at Fuller Seminary to work on their two year course, which was the master of religious education. That was my that was my main purpose in coming to the United States to study. And I was really planning to go back to the Philippines after my training, but I never did get back. I haven't been back to the Philippines since I left it in 1964. When you first met your family? Yes, I was the first one in my family to come. And then I was followed by my other sister and she studied there. Her purpose was to study. And then later my other sisters came as immigrants. And then after that, my parents followed all those immigrants.

So so all my family, my my immediate family are all here in the United States. Do you live close together?

No, my I have live here in Seattle since nineteen. Oh. And that sixty seven with my husband. But my parents and my sisters have lived in California so I have, I have been separated from them. I am the only one that has been separated from my family. But then the past three years my parents moved to Honolulu with my sister who is not married because there's always a Filipino culture that they followed the person, the girl who is not married. And so since that is there, next to me is the only one who is not married, my parents decided to follow her and decided to stay with her. So we got separated.

Would you talk about your religious upbringing? Were you in your family involved in the church? In which one?

In which denomination? Yes, my family.

Well, the Philippines being predominantly Roman Catholic country, my family is Protestant. And my family, my mother's family especially have the roots where they originally their families, Roman Catholic.

And then and then the Protestant missionaries had some ministry in the province where they were staying, which which is about a northern north northern part of Manila. And so it was through the work of missionaries that my my grandparents decided to become Protestants.

And my mother's family has very strong Protestant leanings.

In fact, I think all my mother's family have become Protestants. And my mother, my father's roots are Roman Catholic.

But when my father married my mother, he he followed my mother's religious leanings and have become proud of that. So I have been I have I have grown in the Protestant tradition in the Philippines and my family and I was very religious, my grandmother, my mother's mother.

I really kind I have been exposed to her, you know, concern for the church. I always worked with my grandmother to the church when we would spend our vacation time in the province because we lived in the city of Manila and province. And during summertime, all the kids went to the province and stayed with my grandmother, who had a very big house. So so I think my mother got her religious foundations from my grandmother. And I know from childhood I grew up in the Sunday school. There was no other place on Sundays that we have to go except to go to church. And I have Bretagne, that one that experience. And I thought it was very good. Your grandmother was very important to you. Who else were the important childhood? I think my mother was very important because she was the oldest among the girls and so she had a very close relationship with my mother and out of all, of course. And then when I was in high school and in college, I would spend my summers in the province and I would teach Sunday school when I was in my senior high and then in college. And so those people that I have met, there have been a lot of those women people. And usually the women are the ones who have been in charge of the vacations. So I think a lot of my influences have been women because they have assumed the leadership, the church education leadership in the Philippines.

And then when I was in college that was at the University of the Philippines, I was a student there. And it was I think it was while I was a student at the University of the Philippines, sophomore in college, I was a music student that I really had this deep religious experience that that God really, you know, was became so meaningful to me so much more than all those other experiences that I had when I was a child. And I think I think that was a turning point in my life in college. It really changed all my perspective in terms of my life and who I am and what I would like to do after that.

When I kind of I have I've thought I have related everything in relation to who God is and what he wants to do with my own life as well, probably because that's the religious experience was so meaningful that at that time everything was all focused on what God wanted to do in my own life.

I think what revelation says the experience of first love.

I think I fell in love with God for the first time in my life.

And so there was that that that that the Shah seven fervency of really wanting to please him at that point in my life that I began to think about ministry when this happened or soon after all that and much later it came.

Well, it was because I was very active on campus with that group.

Bible study group that we had at the University of the Philippines that that when I was going to graduate, I thought I thought probably I wanted to go a Christian student work, especially work with students. And that was the main reason why I decided.

Well, I was I was thinking of working with students. I wasn't thinking primarily in terms of the ordained ministry at that time.

It was so far from my mind. We're talking about one of these students. Yes, that was in the 60s. It was I just wanted to do student work and work in the church, probably because you had Christian education.

But I never I never thought of the ordained minister at all.

I even when I went to school, I never thought of that, because even at that time at Fuller Seminary, women were not accepted in the regular MBA program.

Oh, my mind at that time was very traditional. That woman, a woman who wants to go into ministry, goes into question ad.

Right, because that was all that she knew. The shift came.

The shift came when after I finished seminary at Fuller and I, I, I finished a two year cause, massive religious education at Fuller.

So so I was qualified to work as a director of appreciate it.

But I got married after graduation. Married for graduate.

Yes. I married a fuller graduate, my husband. But he has never sought ordination. He has always worked in a secular position.

Well, he did work with International Students Inc. It was it's a Christian organization working primarily with internationals.

But he has never sought the ordained ministry. So when my husband and I guess when we got married, I.

I realized within my own self that I could not handle being a new wife and and being a mother and also working outside of the home at that time, probably because I was just in the United States two years, I felt was not enough to really adjust to the country. And so when my husband and I got married in California, we had to move to Indianapolis and I didn't know anybody there when we moved there.

So so far, I graduated.

I finished my M r e in 1966 and we got married in 1966.

But I didn't go into church ministry until nineteen nineteen seventy six.

That was when the children went. Ah that's when the children were in school full time. And so I had more time in my hands at that time.

So I said well, well maybe I could use my training in Christian at halftime.

So but the impetus into going back to church work was, well, since I was a music major, there was a Filipino church here in Seattle connected with the Methodist church. When I was in the Philippines, I was I grew up in a Methodist church because that was the biggest denomination in the southern the part of Manila. And in the province where I came from, most of the churches, they were Methodist.

So but then when I came up to Seattle, the Methodist pastor asked me if I could help in their music thing and become their choir director. So I did that, but I wasn't working yet. I was still in the home. But then at least I had something to do, come out once a week to do the choir with them and then on Sundays and then one day them minister, the superintendent of the Methodist Church, was speaking about a shortage in in churches, pick up people working the church.

And I remember that Sunday he said there are some of you that have training in seminary that have not been using it. Would you please come talk to me in my office? Did he know you did?

No, he did not have that.

Oh, no. Because not too many people knew that I finished seminary. I had this degree in seminary. They only knew I was a music graduate and I was a mother because I was really I really like you. Really all right.

Because I did one well, I didn't want people to know that I had this degree, because if I did, they would be asking me to do a lot of things. And I wasn't ready to participate in that because my kids were still very young. And then all of a sudden, my daughter, we discovered that she had a hearing impairment at the age of three. And so I had to spend my two years trying to help her adjust the hearing aids and everything.

So I just had to drop everything completely to help my daughter. So I talk to this district superintendent, told him the office. He was very surprised that I had this training, although he has known me and have met me before, and that that through him, I was able to get a position as director of Christian Aid for three years.

And that was that was a Methodist church in the South with Blaen United Methodist Church. It was a Japanese American Japanese congregation. So I work with them half time as DC for three years. And it was through that experience that I saw ordained ministry as it was, and the struggles that pastor goes through.

But then at the same time, I realized that I think being this, that was not for me that I thought that if I thought the ordained ministry that I could still do this Christian ad. But but in an ordained capacity that ordination does not prove.

Well, I think ordination would give me a greater leeway to be able to do ministry. I felt that the restrictions were less in doing ministry. And that was what that was what I had. That was what I thought about ordination that that I could do. Youthwork music were Christian and pastoral work, all those things with with ordination and so on.

And and so there was the card there was a conference for the first time that the but if the one in Berkeley, this office in Berkeley, that has to do with the Pacific Asian Center for Theology and Strategy. Are they they had a conference for the first time. I think I don't think any denomination has ever done that to bring all women, Asian women on different coming from different denominations that were in seminary. And we're thinking of going into ordained ministry or being Christian and directors. And so they had a conference for the first time. And I did share because I think I was the only woman at that time who was in and actually I was the only Asian woman at that time who was in an actual position, not necessarily ordained, but really but being, you know, so they asked me to share about my experiences in the church where I was. And I don't know whether that was good or not, but I was so honest about that, but.

It was from that conference that I realized that there was a place for Asian women ministry in the United in the life of the American church, that it wasn't only Caucasian women that should go into the ministry, but that there was also a place within the leadership of the Asian churches for Asian women going into ordained ministry. And that was in the summer of nineteen seventy nine. That was in Berkeley. And there were about 20 Asian women from different denominations, but I think seven, eight denominations coming from all different seminaries and all over the country. And so we met for three days and just shared about our journey and how God has brought us to seminary and all those things and what we were what were our goals for the future. And so it was it was in that meeting that I finally decided that I really considered going to ordained ministry after the conference.

And so I left I left my position at the last question at the rector on that year and then on and then worked and then went to Fuller Seminary for a whole quarter.

This is in Pasadena for a whole quarter to finish all the core courses that I needed that were not being offered here at the Seattle extension because they had a full year extension here in Seattle.

So you didn't have to go to Pennsylvania to do it? I had to go for one quarter, just one quarter. I needed the core courses that I needed to take, were not being were not offered here at the extension.

So I had to go there for a whole quarter and seventy nine September of seventy nine and that take 18 courses that quarter figures because I wanted to finish all of it and the registrar said we don't allow this kind of thing. We don't. Well I said you have to allow it to me because I love my husband and two kids, their husbands taking care of my two little children. And I said, well, that we're just doing this for one quarter. I said, well, thank goodness. I said, it's only one quarter that I needed anyway. I don't think I could handle another 18 credits for the next quarter. So and then I finished the active in 1980.

It sounds as though this is a good place to ask you about your family and how that all fit together. You're married to children, right?

Right. Are they girls or boys?

The boys older. He's 17 years old now and the girl is 13.

So and I love them. So they were not too bad.

Seventy nine. The boy was 10 years old.

The girl was seven, I guess, when I was gone for a whole quarter. Well, probably because I've been going back to seminary and and wanting to finish my MBA. You know, I said I have to do this and and I talk it over with my husband. And he said, well, I think it's going to work out all right because he said they're going to be in school the whole day anyway, you know, and then after that, well, he comes home around 5:00.

And so and so the children, they have their kid to get to that. And so they're by themselves for an hour and a half.

And my husband said I think it will work out because he said it's only ten weeks. That's two and a half months. Ten weeks? Yes, two and a half months. So I said it wouldn't be too difficult. So my husband said, go encourage me to go. And my children missed me. Also, they had to adjust to my husband doing that. But the thing is, I called we talked on the phone because it's just in California.

But I had a hard time myself when I was there many times I being away and leaving my kids and my husband.

In fact, I almost doubt that my well, I doubt that my decision to go there.

I said, Lord, did I decide to do this because of the that the whole DeShazo it and I really did cause the cost of living my family.

And then and then my parents were still there in Santa Monica and then driving every day from Santa Monica to Pasadena to attend those classes.

I stayed with my parents and I had to drive that every day from Santa Monica to Pasadena. And it's always kind of an hour to drive daily back and forth. And so I said, is it really worth it doing this? And I said, oh, every morning I had to pray, really ask for assurance that what I did was right. And so I was able to finish that quarter.

I flew right away. After that, I thought I'd take my exam early years. I want to fly this afternoon to go back to Seattle. What do you mean you didn't even know? I said my family lives in Seattle and I haven't seen them for ten weeks. Said, you have. And how could you do such a thing?

Well, I said some of it. I said I did it so. So I was able to finish and in nineteen eighty but then at that time and I finished it, I haven't really decided what denomination I was going to say ordination.

And that's why my ordination it was, it was after finished seminary, I decided to seek ordination through the Presbyterian Church.

That's why my process has been kind of long, because I had to go through my session and that process used the Presbyterian I I've always been ecumenical mind oriented. I was telling so early in life that I grew up in the Methodist Church in the Philippines, and then my family moved to an independent church in the Philippines.

So it was not it didn't belong. It was interdenominational. Then when I went to Fooler, I help with a Filipino church that was connected with the full gospel church. And I never had any background. I never had any. That was my first time to enter an assemblies full gospel church and my whole life. And I told them, I'm not Assemblies of God. I'm not I don't have the gospel background leanings or whatever. They said, we need you. You're Filipino, you're in a seminary. We need somebody like you and whether we will accept you even though you didn't have the background that we have.

So I did some years at Fuller where spent with this little tiny Assemblies of God church, which I needed also because I needed my Filipino ness when I was at Fuller, because I was completely thrown with Caucasians. And so I think it that little Filipino church helped me a lot. Then when we came to Seattle, we were all the minister at university for. But their insurance at that time was Doctor Longer Rob Robert Mongar, and he wrote this little pamphlet called My Church, My Heart, Christ's Home. And that little pamphlet is very was very popular when I was in the Philippines. And in fact, we use that as a conference theme with some high school students. And I was a co-director for that.

So when we moved to Seattle, who what church should we go to and see how we didn't know? I didn't know anyone in Seattle at all.

When I moved with my husband from Indianapolis to here, he left his position with International Students Inc. and he said, I would like he said to go and establish my family in Seattle. That's why we from Indianapolis to Seattle, I didn't know anyone in Seattle. The reason why my husband came here was that he thought he he lived here before for a year before going to Fuller, and he felt that Seattle was a good place to raise a family. And he has an uncle here. So when we moved here, that was the basis for us going to, oh, Robert Munger's at the Presbyterian Church.

So that was the reason why we went to your prayers at that time. And since then we have we have not gone to any other church since we came six to seven. Is he still there?

No, no. Five years after he left, he went to Fuller Seminary to become a professor. Evangelism?

Yes. And then another minister came forward.

And then now this is the third minister, a senior pastor, Bruce Larson. In Seattle, so it was almost like some kid hears this, even though I said not to use my name, they would know who I am.

That's my voice. So but it was a. Well, I got ordained in 1983. Well, it's because the process took quite a while.

So you started to Presbyterian Presbyterian in.

Yes, it was delayed in the middle of 80s, late eighties, right, because I finished, you know, June of 80 and then I started the process right after then.

But then my papers got lost somewhere along the files and so Presbyterian Econet till nineteen eighty one. And then I had to, I had to take the exams, the written exams, the Bible and all the other ones. And then there was this one year that General Assembly has ordained or decree that all, all those under care Presbyterian has to have a one year changing one year care and their Presbyterian they said that has no exception at all. So I had to fulfill that.

And then and then in terms of the call, I was serving as an intern at University Presbyterian Church from July 1980. I started my internship there working with international students through admissions department, and I had a hard time of getting the ordination because of my my situation is a way of talking about that.

Would you talk a little bit about coming into care and how was the Presbyterian supported? Did it help you? The.

Sort of how the process works in coming under care. It was such a hit and miss experience for me because nobody really told me the process of coming under care.

I just did it on my own.

I hear that I am supposed to do this application so far that, you know, I worked on it and I submitted it to the person that was concerned.

And then after that, I it was about eight months after that, I heard from them.

I finally checked. And the reason why they couldn't find my file. And so when they followed it, they finally found it. And so I was assigned this lay person that was supposed to follow me up by advocate. I was assigned an advocate.

This person was the one who who helped me, told me what I'm supposed to do.

And he was really he was really very encouraging.

But once I think about that was when I was going to get my final oral exams.

My advocate changed because his his term Presbyterian has ended. And so they gave me another person that I hardly knew.

And I said, how could this person be my advocate during the oral interview when this person had never worked with me. So but but that was how it happened. And the only thing I really remembered in terms of the care was when I was interviewed by the committee, a Presbyterian candidate for the candidates committee. I met with two people first, and then after that I met with, I think six or eight people after that one. And I shared to them my concern why I thought that being a nation woman, my vision concerning the church here in America, that that Asian women had a place in the church in in the minister of the church here in the United States. And since I was going to stay here, I thought that I had some contribution to make as a nation women in ordained ministry.

So so they listened to me because I was in tears. And I was I think I I told them my story. And then after that they said, well, there was one woman there.

I forgot her name. She's now seeking ordination herself. And she said, well, she said, we affirm, you know, your your desire to be in ordained ministry. You're calling your bishop and said it was for me, was very encouraging.

But I think it all saying we're crying. We're probably I was the first candidate that they see cry.