NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

This past weekend we crammed A TON in. Monday came and I needed another weekend to recover! But it was good. All fun things. Saturday was a Christmas decorating day.

Every year growing up we would decorate the day after Thanksgiving. We would make caramel corn and some Christmas cookies and always have apple cider and some fancy appetizer all thanks to my mom! It was so fun, every year I looked forward to that almost more than Thanksgiving!

Well, this year I experienced more of my mom’s side of things! I basically was in the kitchen all day and only got caramel corn and sugar cookies made. No fancy appetizer, no special home made apple cider. How did she do it? I decorated like 2 sugar cookies. Watched Matt & his dad put the lights on the tree…All of this very fun mind you! Just different.

I used to be the one putting the lights on the tree, in the middle of the decorating….I guess my mom was in the kitchen!?

It’s a different perspective on the other side. I enjoyed watching Matt & his dad ‘discuss’ which way the lights should go, and were the lights even? All this from my perch in the kitchen….Alaena & lola (grandma Peggy) decorated sugar cookies mostly and it was nice to watch, to not be the one in the middle of it all.

Granted I needed my decorating fix but really it was nice providing everything, making sure all the decor was out and ready to put on the tree. Make sure the cookies were made and ready to be frosted…I’m glad I’m the one who gets to do all that

More to come about Sunday later….

So when we first got here we went on two weeks if culture excursions. I don’t think I ever wrote anything about it! It was such a busy time. We would go out for 4-5 hours in the morning to different places in the Manila area. We would take different kinds of transportation, jeepneys, the MRT, an fx (a step above jeep’s but below a taxi….) It was a really interesting time and so fun to get to know our new city a little better.

One of the first days we went to Quipo, an area with a mosque, a Catholic church and a Buddhist temple all within almost walking distance from each other. Each church had a shopping area right next to it, produce, fortune tellers, trinkets, whatever you might need….It was interesting observing the different practices and people. I almost made a HUGE cultural blunder…we were told to dress nicely so I wore a skirt and a nice shirt….trying to be respectful in my attire and didn’t really think anything about the jewelry I was wearing.  I had on this necklace that I wear almost all the time and thankfully we noticed it before we got to the mosque! It was the star of David with a cross in the middle, my parents brought it back for me from Jerusalem! I don’t think that would have gone over very well as we tried to get into the mosque!  Thank the Lord we noticed it!

I guess it was convenient?

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This guy was shaving using the mirror of the car....the truth is he probably doesn't have a mirror at his house.

*Check out this note about the former archbishop of Manila…His house is close to our apartment actually!

We’ve been here  a good two months now…(Ito po ang ikalwang buan ko rito. Yesssss! Actually almost 3. At first it’s just exciting, and a little nervewracking. Wondering about all the unknowns. Then comes the state of being overwhelmed. SO much new. SO different. But the exciting feelings are still lingering, so it’s not a devastating feeling of being overwhelmed. Then all that fades and things slowly come into a routine. It hits that this is home. This is where I live. Feels strange at first, but good. In the last week the shock has come.

Culture shock. Having your normal cultural cues totally taken away, and replaced with completely different ones. Different food, different money, different language, different attention. We don’t exactly stick out in Fargo! But even that, it’s manageable. It’s different but it’s expected. We moved to a different country, of course there’s going to be an adjustment time.  I think the things that have been most difficult to adjust to, and I don’t think will ever become normal, are things that are bigger than just the Philippines. Poverty. Prostution. Lack of education. Starvation. Corruption.

Things we all know about in the states. We see it on the news. We see it in magazines, see movies about it. The thing it shut off in the States, for me anyway. Poverty wasn’t staring me down every morning. I found it easy to forget, get distracted. It was easy to find people who had more things than me. You can’t turn it off here. The need is ever prevalent. Yes there are those with more, LOTS more! But the vast majority of people have LOTS less.

It’s hard to wrap my brain around it all.

When you see kids, little kids, sleeping on the side of the road, lucky if they have a cardboard box to rest there head on with hardly any clothes on. They are the same age as Alaena, same age as Logan. Learning their first steps on the polluted streets of Manila. I wonder how much they eat in a day. I wonder what happens if they get sick.

Matt made a friend the other day. Astrud. He has a good job. He lives in a house behind the apartment complex we live in. Well, more of a concrete shelter, his house is one of many inside walled off by plywood. One little room for him, his wife, 3 year old daughter and 1 year old son (sounds familiar). They are blessed. They have a tv and a little tub washer, with a spinner for a dryer. He was telling Matt how grateful he is to God for everything he has. For everything HE has! I remember when I was worried how we would make it, thinking “I wish God would provide more support.” Even in our times of “need,” we probably made 4 times as much as Astrud makes. And he has a “good” job here. Now I wish we had more so we could do more good here, help more people.

In spite of all the poverty here I have seen the most generosity here that I have ever seen. And not necessarily from the wealthy. Those who have little, who actually see the hardships every day, they are the ones with the huge heart to help. They are the ones who sacrifice it all to give everyone they know a nice Christmas present (typically a basket of food and some money).  They are the ones who when we ignorantly ask “is it okay to give beggars something? what’s too much?” said, “well, if you can help, do what you can.” I was like, duh! But we get so wrapped up in thinking like we would in the States….hearing about all the scandals of people dressing up as beggars to make money, or people preferring to beg to actually getting a job. Taking advantage of the system, that really grates on us as Americans. Causes us to hold onto our money all the more tightly and miss opportunities to give. Yes there are those that aren’t the real deal, aren’t really in need. But for most people it’s not an act. It’s the real deal. And if we can help, why not. Why let those who are frauds hinder us from giving to the needy. If we let the bad cause us not to do good we are loosing even more. Let’s not give them any more victories and become cynical but have giving hearts! We see them every day outside our building, they have little, we have lots. Why not share.

I think I am learning the most valuable lessons about money from those who have almost nothing.

It’s interesting how the Lord brings things to your attention. Not only was I seeing these issues all around me in my daily life but facebook was bringing all of this to my attention in the past week as well! This link was posted…Wow. What a shock huh? Yeah, then a video called “Tears of the Saints” (on my facebook wall – sorry can’t figure out how to get videos on here!!!). I’m so thankful for people bringing light to these important issues for us today! Something to think about….

Thanks for listening…hoping to get more regular on here!

Things are going well for us here and we are excited about where God has us.  We are learning more and more each day about the culture here and the language.  Just the other day I was able to go with a friend to a near by squatter area and play some basketball.  I am sure the people were very surprised to see a two random white guys just show up on their court.  It was a lot of fun to play with them and laugh with them.  They wouldn’t play defense on us at all and just wanted me to dunk.  I was happy that I still was able to dunk for them! There was about 100 people there, and they all went crazy!  I don’t think they have ever seen someone dunk before on that old concrete court.  I am grateful that God has allowed me to still be able to do that because I know I won’t be able to dunk for much longer!  All of that to say we are enjoying meeting new people every day, with an underlying goal to be able to build friendships and Lord willing to be able to tell them what Christ has done for them.  Please pray that we will continue to get the language here.  It is a slow process but really exciting when we get something!

As a part of our language learning course we try and get out and experience “culture events”. Basically it’s being intentional about being an active participant in the community then using those events we participate in to learn new words. So say we go to a wedding, we take a bunch of pictures and then sit down with a language helper and all our pictures (which we still need to find someone! Pray we can find the right people!) and ask them what different nouns or verbs are in the pictures.

One culture event we are a part of can last for several days with our language helper. A culture event doesn’t have to be some big event like a wedding or funeral. It can be as simple as taking a taxi, cooking a meal, or going to the market. We will try and meet with a language helper 3-5 days a week for two hours at a time and try and learn 75-120 new words per week.

Last week we participated in a big culture event here in the Philippines, November 1, All Saints Day. It’s a national holiday here, a VERY big deal for most Filipinos. Maybe you know, maybe you don’t…but I have a sister who is buried here in the Philippines. Emily Ann Nordick. She died at just 14 months, I was about 4 years old. Since we’ve been back I’ve been meaning to get over to the cemetery and get the grave all cleaned up and just go back again. All our teachers were encouraging us to go to a cemetery on All Saints Day and experience this big part of Filipino culture so it just worked out.

Last time I went was four years ago and that was the first time in 10 years. I was a basket case, cried the entire way there in the taxi and the entire way back, took a lot of pictures only to accidently delete them later that night. It was a mess. I think that since I don’t remember the actual funeral or anything about when she died I really did my grieving then! It was always this open ended event that didn’t have any closure. I finally got closure. This year I held it together much better! I did have a lot of distractions, we brought both kids and a few other people in our class, plus it was SO SO busy there! I have never seen anything like it. People were camped out. Almost every grave had a tent over it, some complete with air mattresses and a buffet line of food. Families come and spend the day with their deceased loved one. There are lots of lit candles and food and praying and singing going on. We don’t really understand much about what was happening yet, it was just a lot of observing. Hopefully once we find a language helper we can ask some more questions about what happens and the meaning of it all.

My whole life I’ve felt like I have this hole in my life….my sister. The sister I was supposed to grow up with, supposed to laugh and cry with, supposed to have sisterly tiff’s with, the one I could tell everything. I have this whole relationship built up in my mind that was taken away from me. I will always be sad about Emily. I will always miss her, even though I don’t remember her. I will always miss what could have been. Some people have asked why I would have wanted to come back to the Philippines when such a horrible thing happened here in my family’s life. Well, having her here makes the Philippines feel even more like home. A part of my family is here, the Philippines will always have a special place in my life because of that. It doesn’t make me resent being here, it doesn’t scare me with my kids – the things that happened to Emily were unknown, probably would have been unknown even if we were in the States. It could happen anywhere. Life is just fragile, I’m glad I know the one who holds it all together….

Flowers

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There were lots of flower vendors all outside the cemetery. Everyone buys flowers to put on their loved one's grave.