Jean Andrews has her own American Dream it's a country, pop, blues, oldies, classic rock band, and she is the lead singer. Quite a change for the 30 year old who grew up on a remote Philippine mountaintop village.

The Philippines is a nation of 97 million people, living on 7,107 islands. Jean lived on the island of Cebu, outside the Marmol, a town of about 1,000.Marmol is at the base of the mountain; Jean's village is at the top of the mountain and was so remote that they had neither plumbing nor electricity. Following along and wading through the stream that provided water to the village, it took Jean an hour and a half to climb down the rocky forested mountain to go to school.Her mother loved to sing, and at the age of six when Jean wanted to go to the fiesta in Marmol, her mother said that Jean could go only if she competed in the singing contest.There she was, six years old, in front of a crowd of 3,000 people, Singing for the first time in public, accompanied by her uncle who played guitar. "I was nervous with butterflies all over my stomach," Jean said. "I started to sing the song and I was so nervous that I started with the chorus instead of the beginning. My uncle told me not to be nervous, to finish the chorus, then go back to the beginning, and finish the song. I did and I took second place."Each year, Jean returned and competed in this singing contest, until at age 14, she moved to the city where she worked from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., and then went to high school from 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. She worked in a clean room assembling computer parts to pay her tuition through high school, and for her first year of college, which she couldn't afford to continue.Jean and her husband, Alan Andrews, met in 2006. Alan was looking to develop an old-fashioned type relationship, and was troubled finding it amongst the independent women he met both in Carbon County and on the Internet."My grandfather and grandmother were married for life. They saw marriage as a serious lifetime commitment." Alan said. "I had a friend who had a Filipino wife. They had the type of relationship that I was looking for."Alan logged on to the Internet dating site filipinaheart.com and began meeting Filipino women. "You had to set up at 1 o'clock in the morning because they are 12 hours ahead of us," Alan noted.Soon, Alan made friends with 60 Filipino women. He logged their names in his Yahoo account with one exception he had the phone number of one woman, but had neglected to ask her name. Without a name, he couldn't put her into his Yahoo log, so he scribbled "pretty girl" and her phone number on a piece of paper, folded it, and put it in his wallet.In November 2006, Alan set out for his dream trip to the Philippines with a plan of spending 10 weeks meeting as many of the 60 Filipino women that he had met online. He flew from JFK to Japan, then to Manila, finally arriving on the island of Cebu. After settling into a motel, Alan went online and to his chagrin, none of his 60 Filipino women friends were online at the time."After failing to contact anyone on my list, I chanced upon a phone number in my wallet," Alan said. "It read 'pretty girl' and it had a phone number on it. It looked like it was in my wallet for three months."Even though he did not know who he was calling, Alan dialed, and when a woman answered he said, "This is Alan. I saved your cell phone number." Then he explained that they had met over the Internet, was now in Cebu, and would like to meet her. "She wasn't interested," Alan said."I didn't believe him," Jean said. "Who was this stranger that was calling me? I didn't remember talking to him on the Internet. I wanted to verify his story. I don't really want to meet him."To gain credibility, he asked the motel receptionist to talk to Jean and assure her that this was not a crank call. Alan's motel was a 45-minute taxi ride away. He offered to pay the taxi fare and sweetened the deal by promising her Hershey chocolate.Jean's mind raced with worry during the 45-minute taxi ride. When she arrived, Alan saw her as she got out from the far side of the taxi, amazed that her head was above the roof, unusual in a country where the women are often only 5 feet tall. Then she turned to him, and the word "beautiful" ran through his mind.Jean was not so impressed and about all she could muster in describing Alan was, "Oh, okay." They had dinner at an American restaurant. Jean was unfamiliar with the menu, winding up with a pizza stick. She didn't get her Hershey chocolate.Alan continued to ask Jean out, and by the end of his 10 week Philippine adventure, they decided to marry. Alan started paperwork to apply for a fiancée visa and then returned home.With the paperwork and chocolate in hand, a year later Alan returned to Cebu where he met Jean and toured for 10 weeks including three weeks in the mountains with her family. They returned to the US and were married in Lebanon, Pennsylvania in June 2007.On a lark Alan asked her to sing along with a coin-operated karaoke machine. She sang You Light Up My Life which got everyone to stop what they were doing, listen and applaud.Jean loved to sing but was still troubled by the butterflies in her stomach. Alan encouraged her to sing in public. She's joined the band American Dream and they performed in numerous fundraisers throughout Carbon County. Jean has an amazing singing range and can cover songs anywhere from Elvis Presley to Whitney Houston. Alan likes the techie stuff and has videoed several of her performances aAnd posted them on YouTube.To learn more about American Dream, see:

www.americandream.pro.To view Jean's music videos, see:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kly9yCP4G6M.