June 8th update (Leah's version)

June 8^th, 2008

I can think of few weeks in my life as interesting, thought-provoking or even challenging as the week we’ve completed here in the Philippines. The most interesting weeks that come to mind are often times people have asked me about the most; the week of the Caribbean cruise I took with my grandparents when I was 15 years old, the week of my wedding, the first weeks of college. Thought-provoking times include periods where I was coming to a more full understanding of my relationship with the Lord as a child and teenager, times when my dad would give me food for thought about certain areas I needed to think about in my life, times when Caleb and I would be wrestling with how our relationship would take form and what it would look like. The challenging weeks make me think of the week Caleb and I worked in Tijuana on the short-term mission trip we attended as interns, or the first week of having a new baby, or maybe even times when I’ve just been challenged to think more deeply, live more fully for my Lord and, live in full reliance upon Him. This week, though, has simultaneously been all three of those things.

It is not that this week has been more significant, necessarily, than the time periods when my relationship with the Lord grew drastically in a short period of time or the significant day of my marriage to Caleb or the birth of either of my children; but it is certainly a week I will look back on and see the Lord working in my life to teach lessons about how He works, the ways He want my family involved and even the ways He does not want us involved. This is also a week He has used to continue to teach us reliance on Him. So, you may ask, what was interesting about the past week?

The trek up to Bagabag (not pronounced bag-a-bag as we previously thought but bahg ah bahg with an accent on the middle syllable) itself was quite interesting. Matt Bugbee was so helpful. He truly is a teacher and as we drove he explained anything he thought we would need to understand and of course, I asked at least a hundred questions.

The majority of the trip was taken along small city roads, paved but narrow and with major repair needed. The directions we used to come here didn’t have street signs rather there would be a paragraph describing landmarks we would pass (ie you will pass 2 bridges one large, one small and then come to a school painted blue, turn left directly after the school). We passed through many small cities with schools, churches (Catholic, cult, and possibly some Christian), shops and some gas stations. There were all sorts of people all along the streets in the cities, especially little children playing right near the traffic. Also dogs, goats, chickens, and cows would just be hanging out grazing and doing as they pleased along the road. Between the cities there were many rice fields which the Filipinos keep flooded not because the rice has to have that much water but instead to kill other plants that might compete with the weeds. Interestingly, rice plants can survive and thrive under a lot of water. Often in the rice fields there would be an area with deep standing water where a cow, similar to the Indian Brahman cows would be soaking in the mud.

In many places along the road the rice farmers would have their rice spread out to dry along the side of the road or even on the road and the vehicles are just expected to go around the rice. Obviously, birds and insects cannot really be kept out of the rice at all. One of the things I find strange is that the rice along the side of the road is all golden brown in color and yet basically all of the rice that you can buy or that people here eat is white rice. The healthy bran has to be processed out of the rice for it to become white but the people would rather eat white rice. I guess they use the bran to feed their hogs so at least it isn’t completely wasted but it still seems strange that such poor people would process their food to strip it of nutrients and feed those nutrients to their animals instead of saving the money on the processing and feeding the hogs table scraps or something.

Uncle Matt is very interested in agriculture as well as Filipino culture so we also learned about how the government has just banned making of charcoal, different techniques of rice planting, problems with erosion and other issues that become much more interesting when you’re actually seeing the effect it has on lives than it would be if I just wrote about it. Similarly to the way farmers are looked at in the US, farmers in the Philippines are not really respected and so often inefficient techniques are used for centuries because the more innovative Filipinos are moving on to bigger and better things and the farmers are very suspicious of trying new things.

I brought a book to read on the trip but I didn’t read a word because the countryside was too compelling for me to take my eyes off. We did eventually get up and over many of the mountains up to Bagabag which is a center for missionaries to base their operations that was set up some fifty years ago during the post WWII era when Filipinos were almost completely uneducated, especially back here. We had a few minutes to get our bags out of the car before a torrent of rain poured down. The thunder and lightning were magnificent and when it rains here it feels like the land, bugs and people are all refreshed by it.

After the rain Joy Ballard stopped by to chat. I had been corresponding with her for the last month or two because she was the head of the preschool committee and I was asked to be on that committee. SIL has committees for everything! Anyway we had kind of an email aquaintanceship and had looked forward to meeting one another for awhile. She had already stocked the house we were staying at with homemade granola , pumpkin cheesecake muffins, and a kind note welcoming us and she was bringing over milk for the cereal for the next morning. We had a wonderful chat and she explained some of the other cultural things I needed to be brought up to speed about. The rest of that night was just spent unpacking and preparing for the first day of conference.

The little house we were assigned has been a huge blessing. The house is three bedrooms, a kitchen equipped with the basics, bathroom and living room. There are several laundry hanging lines in the backyard area which is great because wet towels, swim suits, and laundry really doesn’t dry indoors. It needs to be in the sun to dry. We also got a helper, a Filipina lady named Virgie, who is willing to make our food, do our laundry, and help with the girls or whatever we need. She is a hard working Christian lady whose children are grown and married and who is also a widow. She makes around $5 per day and works harder than most women I know but she’s grateful to be working for us this week because it means she doesn’t have to get a job picking rice. Virgie is freeing me up so much to help Caleb and be available to the girls I’ve really appreciated and thanked God for her.

Thursday morning started early as do most mornings here in the Philippines. Caleb went and met the middleschoolers and brought them over to our house for a devotional. Both Sophie and Aubrey had coughs which had developed on the airplane so I didn’t spend as much time helping Caleb during the first two days as I wanted but the Lord obviously had planned for me to be ministering to my girls and making their transition a little smoother. Thursday and Friday went really well with the middle schooler. They are an enthusiastic bunch and we have a diverse group of leaders that really do well meeting the different needs in the kids.

Friday morning Matt, who is an excellent teacher, shared the devotional at our house in the morning. He brought out a frog coin purse (it’s a real dried frog) and was talking about how Christians are amphibians they live here but their lives are hidden with Christ in the spiritual world and they can never go back to living only in the physical world just as frogs cannot go back to living purely in the water. He also had the kids practice sharing the salvation message using a salvation bracelet. He told them they could have one to give away and one to keep if they could share what each of the colors meant. Sophie, with a little bit of practice and a lot of eagerness was able to tell him what the colors meant and she quickly gave her extra bracelet to Aubrey. It is such a blessing to be in our own little house here because we get the opportunity to have the middle school kids here, they get to love on our kids, and our kids get to be a part of what we’re doing, too.

Friday I also needed to buy groceries for the week so I headed into town with Joy to Caringal’s. First I had to get a look at the market Monday, Wednesday, and Friday’s are market days where the vendors all set up to sell fruit, vegetables, meat, fish (ugh, Melinda, if you saw this section you would have a cow). When I walk through the market I can feel everyone staring because Joy and I are the only white people. It’s pretty easy to haggle with them I bought an umbrella for 100 pesos the equivalent of about $2.25. After the market we went to Caringal’s which reminds me a lot of Vallarta only the aisles are less than half the width or height (Filipinos don’t care much about personal space and they’re rather short), you cannot really buy anything premade (ie bread, tortillas, etc) and there are hardly any dairy products. Despite all the cows there’s no real milk, cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, etc. I was able to buy some basics there though and between the market and Caringal’s we had a week’s worth of groceries.

Saturday there was a trip to Banaue to see the rice terraces. Uncle Matt really wanted us to be able to go and we were a little hesitant about taking the girls so he hired two babysitters for them and we went on the trip. We rode in a Jeepney up to the terraces and took some pictures at vista points on our way up but then when we stopped for our long break a couple, Bennet and Janine, who are about our age asked if we would like to come walk down to the terraces and so we hiked down and walked along the curb-like part of the terrace. It was truly remarkable to see how efficient (remember my earlier comments about lack of efficiency) these people were a thousand years ago. I was also astounded to think that these terraces were all constructed with shovels. It was backbreaking labor and we saw evidence of that at the top of the stairs where there were a couple of older ladies who had worked there all of their lives they were bent in half when they walked and couldn’t straighten themselves. The other missionaries on the bus told us that if we wanted to take any pictures of the locals they would want us to pay them about 5 pesos, which is about 10 cents. So, I paid one of them to take her picture because I couldn’t help but think of the millions of models in the US get for having their pictures taken. When she opened her mouth to smile I was sad to see that her teeth were completely bloody. It gripped me to see them and wonder what sort of lives they had experienced. I also couldn’t help but wonder if they’ve ever heard the gospel. From what I understand one of the closest cities, Iong, was the hub of where a lot of the missionary work started in the Philippines. I hope she’s heard.

All the way up to Banaue and back on the Jeepney we had really great conversations with the other missionaries about their lives, work, thoughts about missions, and much more. Often the conversations mean that there’s a lot to think through and try to understand and then process. When we arrived home everyone joined in a “Fiesta” which was kind of like a missionary Olympics including rice picking, shoe throwing (none of the good jungle kids wear shoes anywhere), running, tug of war, etc. Caleb and I both competed in the running events. Cabe got third in the mile and I ran a 400 relay while Aubrey played with beetles and Sophie tried to climb trees with these little girls that can gracefully glide up the trees. It was a family event and it was great fun. Afterward was a huge meal on the basketball court with this young cocoanut salad (mmmmh, everyone in my family loved it), shish cabobs, chicken, all kinds of veggies, stir fried of course, pineapple (the best I’ve ever had) and much more.

Today was Sunday. It has been relaxing. We all went to a service this morning and then afterward we had a Middle school staff meeting here at our house. We had a barbeque with Joy and Rodney Ballard for lunch and then the girls napped while Caleb and I read. We went over to the pool this afternoon and swam with the girls while visiting with more missionaries and some of the middle schoolers. After dinner there was a service just to tell about all of the different publications missionaries have completed translations for in the last two years. One of the Middle School boys was in charge of presenting Pilgrim’s Progress in some other language which is so neat since that is the theme of the middle school program.

There are many questions floating around in my head as I process the drive these folks have for their work. Why is the mission field so dominated by women? What if these women would have initially stepped back and let men lead? What would have happened? How important is Bible translation for missions? How important is language? Why are Americans so lazy about learning more than one language? One of our middle school girls is fluent in 4. And the Bugbee’s Filipina neighbor told me she doesn’t believe someone can understand her culture unless they understand her language. The SIL translators refer to their work as translating the Bible into people’s “heart languages.” It’s tough because I can see why national pastors are an important link to global missions being done efficiently and effectively yet there are still isolated people groups with their own language and very few people going in or coming out.

I’m not sure I’ll ever understand the answers to my question completely but it sure is interesting to ponder what a big job God has and how He includes us in His work. We just want to be sure that we’re doing His work in His way and not our own. I seriously doubt that numbers, years or sums of money have very much to do with the way God considers His workload but I am confident that He has the grace to include people, even weak vessels like me.