Kneecaps, Oh how I love you!

We are currently living on the island of Bohol, Philippines in the city of Tagbilaran.  We are serving with a ministry called International Care Ministry (ICM) here in the city.  First of all, let me just tell you a couple of interesting things about Bohol.

 

1.  When you ride on the side of a tricycle for 20 minutes down really narrow roads, watch your kneecaps, they could be decapitated at any moment…makes you realize just how much you love those little guys!

2.  Bohol is home to Samantha…she’s a hoss of a python.

3.  If you sit at the McDonald’s by the window you will be stared at as if you are the newest window display at Barney’s.

4.  You will eat rice here every day…but the best kind of rice so far comes in the form of calamay (sticky rice, coconut milk, peanuts)  mmmmmmmmm!

5.  We are definitely the minority here and I am completely humbled every day.

6.  Check out how we get to church on Sundays…not your typical trip, but it works here!! 

 

 

 

 

Hopefully I’ll make up for my lack of pictures on the last blog with several on this one.  How do I explain my feelings about the Philippines?  Honestly, when we first got here my thought was “Finally, we’ve gotten to a place of desperate need.”  Working with ICM has opened my eyes to an all new kind of need.  Here is what we do each day in a nutshell.  We arrive at the ICM base at 8:00 am and do worship and a devotional with the entire staff (35 of them).  We are then split into the teams that will go out all over the island for the day.  Our teams are with Transform, Uplift, Pre-school and Medical.  I’ve been working with Eryn (World Racer) and Christine and Willie all week with Transform.  We all pile into one of the vans and usually travel about an hour to two hours down some good roads and some not so good roads (it is not smart to hold off on the potty break before we leave).  Once we get to the town/province we usually do some home visits with the recipients of the program.  In each town there are 25 recipients who are in the program because of their income level.  At our home visits we ask them a long list of questions about their health and if they are following through on several of the things they have been taught through the program.  I have been able to handle these surveys (with some translating help from Christine).  We do 3-5 home visits and then go back to the church or the home of the pastor and have lunch…real, authentic Philippino quisine…some days are amazing, some days are really scary…Christine gives us the heads up on what is safe and what we should politely decline.  🙂  After lunch we have some time to rest before the teaching begins.  Christine and Willie teach the recipients health and livelihood skills such as what are signs and symptoms of malnourishment and vitamin deficiency, and how to grow crops and start vermicomposting (compost piles from African nightcrawler poo).  After the teaching either Eryn or myself have given a brief testimony or word of encouragement (also with the help of Christine translating).  We then fill their small plastic bags with two kilos of rice and give them seeds to begin planting a garden to harvest.  Then the pastor/a will give a sermon to the people and their children.  Just a side note, it is not uncommon for a woman to bust out and breast feed her baby in the middle of the teaching or testimony…gives all new meaning to picturing everyone in the crowd naked.  🙂

 

 

 

 

This is Willie, best driver ever!

I “help” him get the rice to everyone every day.  We’re working on teaching him English and he’s working on teaching us whichever dialect of the language he speaks (there are quite a few here)

 

 

 

With all this being explained, I figure I should give you an idea of how I’m actually FEELING here, not just what I’m doing.  Each day I get to wake up to the most beautiful scenery and every night I get to see some amazing sunsets (quite possibly my favorite thing in the world!)  But within all this beauty there is a lot of pain, there is a lot of hurt, there is a lot of brokenness, there is very little hope.  The smiles of these people show that so many of their hearts are full of the Lord and I am filled with so much joy when I see them…but then my mind really starts to spin.  Would I really be willing to completely die to myself and my desires and live in this environment for longer than one month?  Have I really let go of all my materialism?  I don’t know.  What I see of these people is mostly what they want me to see.  They put on a smiling face and welcome me into their homes that are literally built out of bamboo…the whole house.  I play with their kids and give them encouragement and then what do I do…I leave and go back to my nice little apartelle (which is shared with 6 other girls, but it’s still really nice).  I don’t feel like I see the realness of what these people go through if I’m only with them for two hours a day.  How do I know how to pray for them?  How do I know what they really need?  I can’t understand most of them without a translator.  So really, what am I doing here?  How am I helping these people?  Is it enough to just give a word of encouragement and a prayer?  If God called me to be in a place like this long-term, would I joyfully accept?  If I got to see people like Sally every day, a 29 year old mother of three who has been sick and bed-ridden since August, would I be able to handle it?  How long would I last?