Happy non-Turkey Day!

It's Thanksgiving!!!!!!!! We are celebrating this American holiday tonight in the smoldering heat in a tiny house with dozens of people, while my family in Virginia will be spending their holiday in a tiny cabin in the freezing cold mountains. It is bittersweet not being there with them. My sister and I have a big menu of classic Thanksgiving dishes that we're preparing for dinner tonight for the family and boarders at my uncle's house. Which means the girls who usually cook will enjoy free entertainment (again) watching us sweat and scramble trying to figure out their tiny kitchen only equipped with the essentials- a couple gas burners, a sink, and a counter.

 

 

Anyway I haven't posted any pictures because I'm not a good blogger, but here are a few that I pulled from the handful of pictures we've uploaded to the computer.

 

Mangosteen- the new not-so-new super fruit that everyone is crazy about back home right now.

It is actually very yummy.

 

 

But it feels and kinda looks like a brain on the inside.... this picture makes it look less slimy than it really is. (And that's my beautiful mama holding it open)

This is Kristi-Faith. She's four. She's the daughter of a young pastor and his wife that live in a remote village -literally in the bush- about half an hour from Ozamis City. They are so excited because they are finally going to have a church building to meet in with their small congregation. Earlier this year, two of their original five children died inexplicably in the middle of the night. They are still committed to doing the work they feel called to- pastoring their people, giving Help and Hope in every way their sweet family can. Isn't she just the cutest, purdiest thing?

 

 

 And this is me inspecting another buko, coconut, outside of their house for bugs in the water.

 

And this is me conquering the coconut...

I'm a pro now

 

 

 

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Without the duty of work or other obligations here, I've had as much free time to spend reading and thinking and reflecting and dreaming as could ever satisfy my appetite, basically. I've also been getting a lot of pressure... from everyone... to dance at different events while here, and- I don't dance anymore. I don't know how many times I've said that sentence just in the time I've been here. And every time I say it, it feels like I'm driving the nails a little deeper into the boards covering that door in my life. I can't and won't go into all the details, because I'm sure it sounds silly when I say that this one issue has been a point of spiritual struggle and revelation in me since I arrived. I'm like having the biggest inward battle I've face in a really long time and it, on the surface, is about something I thought was totally irrelevant and no longer a part of who I am. Well, dozens of journal entries and conversations and countless prayers later,  I was dancing in the pouring rain on a tiny old basketball court on our street when I realized all the reasons why I gave up dancing in the first place. Silly reasons. Blind decisions. Lies that I believed. Buried dreams. And I just decided that day- I'm going to start dancing again.

 

I hope you all have wonderful, delicious Thanksgivings with the ones you love or whoever you may be lucky enough to be with today, and that you discover something new about yourself or them or the world you live in.



A Great Need

It's been almost two weeks now since typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) swept through the Philippines, wiping out entire towns- homes, businesses, churches, and schools- that fell into its path. Though these people knew well the warnings of natural disaster, nothing could have prepared them for what is being called the most powerful storm to make landfall in recorded history. From what I know of storm behavior, the brute force of a typical storm will pass over an area within a matter of minutes, an unusually slow-moving one may last twenty or thirty, as do the hurricanes that occasionally pass through my home town, Virginia Beach; but even a few minutes is enough to devastate an area. Typhoon Yolanda was relentless. She hovered over the tiny islands of the central Philippines in full terror for two hours, completely leveling the land.

4,011 lives were lost
18,557 people were significantly injured
and there are 1,602 people still missing and unaccounted for because of the storm.

The church that I am working with here in Ozamis, Philippines has just welcomed back their small, lion-hearted team from their mission of relief to the storm's victims. Their reports are difficult to receive. Maricar and Daris, two team members close to my age who returned this morning, told us that the people are becoming desperate, resorting to robbing from one another and pillaging what relief does come in. Rice sacks have become a common form of shelter in the stead of lost homes, sewn together and strung over branches or rope to serve as make-shift tents and protection from the rain. Children are sick with colds and diarrhea, and their uncovered feet are marked with wounds from stepping on nails and shattered glass that were scattered from the storm. Worse still, the corrupt government has been withholding some of the aid and food that has been sent to relieve the victims and replacing higher quality foreign goods like corned beef and meat with cheaper Filipino products such as canned sardines and tuna. The local government also has been slow to act, true to the nature of many ineffective local governments here in this scrambling nation.

Now the organization that I am working with here and that my mother, a native to Ozamis, started, has been asked by its partner organization ICM to go in to the province of Leyte to bring relief in whatever way we can to the overlooked and unreached victims of Yolanda. Right now we are relying on the possibility of military helicopters designated for lifting US citizens who offer relief into the areas of destruction to take us in. Some funds have been raised for us to bring with us, but as of this morning we have no resources or connections to purchase cheap tents (that the people might use as temporary housing), blankets, or medicine. I feel certain that we've been brought here at this time for the very purpose of contributing to the aid and relief of these people. We need ideas, resources, and funds to bring what we can to Leyte. If you're reading this and you feel led to contribute any of those things please contact me! You probably know how to reach me- facebook, an email, or a comment on this blog. You can also go to www.mindanaoblessings.org and donate there.

It has only been five days that I've been back here on the island of Mindanao since my last visit eight years ago, and already they have been some of the most meaningful days of my life. I have been reconnected to dear loved ones and reintroduced to a family that is far bigger than just those who share the same blood. I have been inspired by those who live so humbly but bear such big, generous hearts. I have seen the meaning of gratitude and sacrificial love expressed by the people I wake up to every morning here and that greet me with the offering of their time and friendship. I have seen the most beautiful sunrise I've ever witnessed over a scenery comparable only to things I've looked at in pictures- that felt like a supernatural experience in itself. I've walked dirt streets lined with chickens and pigs and carabou and laughed at the simplest jokes and looked into the most satisfied eyes in those same places. I've peeled clothes off my skin each night because of the sticky sweat that is inevitable after the hot days here. I've tried exotic fruits that I never knew existed and cracked open young coconuts bigger than my head with machetes to discover the treasure of cool water and the sweetness of its meat inside. I have never lived with less in my life and I have never felt more rich. Life is really an adventure. It never happens the way we expect it to and it never leaves us without something new for our minds and hearts to savor and explore if we take the time to chew slowly.

Thanks for reading and sharing in this experience with me. Again, if there is any way you can help, please, please do. The need is really great- these people are desperate. It's true that it's more fun to give than it is to receive, especially when you think of the real, tangible change that your gift will make in someone's life.