Last night in Cebu

Going back to read the first blog entry that I wrote 19 months ago when we first arrived in Cebu, it seems like not much that I felt then has changed. It is just as hot and humid, the poverty still is on display every corner we turn. The music is still loud, the traffic is still like a big confusing net.
However, something happened inside us. We are not the same person anymore. We have understood the Filipino culture much deeper than just the heat, the poverty and the loud music, and in turn, the Lord has taught us how, though all these, to understand ourselves.

Tomorrow we are flying to Hong Kong, we will stay there for two months. Dan will fly to China in two different periods of time to teach.

I have already started to miss Cebu, not for the heat and the poverty, but I miss the people I know here. I miss Maris, our faithful and loyal helper, who has saw us through thick and thin while we were dealing with cultural difficulties. I feel sorry for Kioni that she is feels sad for the first time because of having to have to say goodbye to people she knows. She does not remember America, all her memory is in Cebu.

I just hope that I won't cry too much at the airport. Maris and her best friend, Dolor will come and see us off. Saying goodbye is so hard, but we have to do is all the time. Wish that Jesus will come back soon, so there won't be anymore goodbyes.

Typhoon #3 signal is hoisted in Hong Kong, there are strong winds and rain in Hong Kong. I hope the plane will not delay, sleeping in Cebu airport with 5 large suitcases and 6 carry-on bags with a 4 year old in tow is not exactly an adventure.

Feeling blue

15 days from today, we will be in Hong Kong. I start to feel a bit sad. While we struggle a lot in the Filipino culture, I am starting to miss our friends whom we might not see for an extremely long time. Particularly, I miss Maris, our faithful helper. Without her, I will not be able to homeschool Kioni and handle the stress that the environment presents. If it is not Maris but another helper, she might actually add to our stress. I will miss her so much, she is the only woman whom I can talk to everyday.

I am feeling blue that this phase of our life will be over soon, we have a difficult time here, however, we have learned so much about ourselves, about interacting with people from other culture and about how diverse cultures can be. We will forever bring with us this experience, and will always look back and draw on the discoveries in Cebu.

Will I miss the heat?

Only 23 days to go before we will leave Cebu and go into the next phase of ministry, that is teaching in China. I have been looking forward to the cooler weather in Hong Kong since it has been roasting hot here in Cebu. We don't deal with heat very well, the humidity and heat combination often send me into a very bad mood.

It is snowing today in Aberdeen, Scotland, where we will spend the next 3-4 years, I am just wondering, just wondering, if I would actually miss the heat in Cebu when I sit in front of the heated room looking out to the constant cold rain in Aberdeen.

Are we all like that? Women, when we have long hair, we want short hair. After we cut it short, we immediately want to grow it out. Men, the to grow beard or not to grow beard question is always lurking, even though you think you are pretty clear about the answer. Wondering, just wondering, what would I look like, or other's response will be, if I grow a beard....

Jesus is powerless for two days

A display inside the Basilica de Santo Nino in Cebu.
Mary, the one of the left, was touched so much that the paint is peeled and the wood from underneath turns black. She is the one people wanted to touch and be blessed.

We have been seeing a lot of interesting Filipino Catholicism phenomena in the Philippines, e.g., we always see huge statues of Mary, but not of Jesus. Jesus, if we see him, is either a helpless little baby in the tender arms of Mary, or he is hanging on the cross, head bowed down and is also helpless. Mary is powerful, and of course, she is the mother of God. Jesus, on the other hand, according to a historian on Mary, had to receive permission before he went on the cross.

The phenomenon also shows up on the Filipino calendars, you almost cannot find one calender that is printed in the Philippines that has Easter Sunday marked, though Good Friday MIGHT be. The only calendars that have these days marked are imported calenders.

We went to a local church this morning (Easter Sunday), for 90 minutes, we heard something along the line of suffering and death of Jesus, towards the last two sentences, the preacher mentioned the resurrection of Jesus and how we should be happy that Jesus lives today.

A missionary who has been serving in the Philippines for 25 years wrote the following email to explain to us an essential part of how Filipino Catholics view Jesus and Easter.

Filipinos tend to restrict their activities during the Holy Week because they are afraid that something might happen to them.

I’ve personally experienced Filipino negative reaction to things during Holy Week. A number of years ago, I needed to have elective surgery done. It was scheduled during Holy Week because that was the first available time that the doctor could do surgery. The doctor was a follower of Christ, so she didn’t have any problem with my having surgery and I didn’t either. But when the nurse was gathering the information for pre-surgery, she was shocked that I would have elective surgery during Holy Week.

Another time, the Vista Verde church in Manila had a retreat during Holy Week. On the way home, there was an accident and several people were injured and one lady died from internal hemorrhaging. The lady was a strong believer, but her mom and family were strong Catholics. The body was put at the church for viewing. The next morning (Easter Sunday) the mom came into the church and yell at her son-in-law, and at the church people. Her daughter was going to be condemned to purgatory. She was inconsolable that day. The church held services every night during the week. The next Sunday was the funeral. Coming out of the church after the service, my friend heard the brother say to his sister, “Don’t be sad, we know where Cynthia is, she’s in heaven, but what about us? What will happen to us when we die." So during the week, their belief about eternal life changed.

The reason I share this is that maybe the issue with the Filipinos isn’t that they don’t believe in Jesus being both human and divine, but the issue is trying to correct the misconception here in this country that God dies every Good Friday. They may have gone too far the other way.

We are still struggling to understand how their theology has become what it is. It is difficult for us to grasp why Jesus is so small.

Strange sight

We were bombarded by loud music again this pass weekend again. Ernie Manges, a missionary friend who is staying with us for two months, said the music was rarely that loud when he was a resident in the mission home for some years.

We were told by Maris and other missionaries that some people would move speakers as big as refrigerators on a flat bed truck, set them up in an open field somewhere, crank up the volume and charge people who would come and party.

It was Friday night, the music started at around 6:30pm, it went on until past midnight, though none of us, except, was able to sleep, we still managed to fall asleep around 4:00am. Ernie stayed up until the day broke, he said the music was still going at that time. Saturday night, the music started around the same time at night, same as the night before, it went on way in the wee hours of the night. By 2:30am, Dan was too curious to stay in bed, he decided to investigate where exactly the music came from.

I was worried about him going by himself, I am worried that he would confront the people, if he did, I am worried for his safety. I got out of bed to go with him, just to make sure he would not get out of the car.

We drove down the dimly lit streets, only a few cars was running, strangely, there were groups of young people walking down the street, even more people hanging around in front of closed stores.

We drove down a street where we heard the music coming, not far down this side street, we saw a bright disco ball, loud rap and disco type music was booming, under the street light, we saw three pigs, seemed like they were just slaughtered, someone was putting some sort of sauce on one of them, another preparing a fire over a big heap of charcoal, obviously, they are going to do a "lechon baboy" (grilled whole pig).

About 20 people were present, either sitting or standing, they were relatively motionless. There was no one dancing, no one partying at all!

We were starting to draw attention, even though we never stopped the car, we were just driving a bit slower than normal. We started to feel quite uneasy, we were definitely watched. We slowly turned around and went home. The music went on all night, it faded the Sunday morning at around 6:30am.

We of course asked Maris when she came to work Monday morning. She was not surprised by the lack of dancing and the slaughtered pigs. She said probably someone is going to have a baptismal ceremony on Sunday, that's why they are preparing the food the night before. "This is part of the fiesta." Maris said calmly.

Very interesting experience. Ernie said for the years he has been in the Philippines, he has always heard loud music, but never went investigate. "You have seen what I have not."

How should I pray?

It is 1:13am, Dan and I are still up researching on various things on the internet, which is quite rare, I usually go to bed around 11:00pm. But we still hear the music booming and banging from the neighbourhood through our closed windows and door. Should I pray that their stereo will get broken soon?

Bombarded

We have been bombarded by loud pop music day and night for months now. It is not just the karaoke that I mentioned in my previous post, there is also someone who plays his music with a loud strong bass all day long. Last night the music was still going at midnight when we went to bed, this morning, I was awaken by the same music at 7:00am sharp.

We feel oppressed by this music, I actually prefer the karaoke to this constant booming in my head, it occupies my head every waking minute of the day. The worse part is that there is nothing we can do about it, calling the police is not going to help.

In the video below, you can hear the music going, but the bass sound is lost because the microphone of the camera does not pick up the booming very well. In reality it is at least three times louder. I took this video standing in our kitchen door. The music does not come out from our next door neighbour's house, which you see in the video, rather, it is from somewhere beyond.

Please pray for us, we have been bombarded by this music and the karaoke since we moved in, it has been very difficult and it is grinding on our spirits. Some types of music lift our spirits and nurture our souls, my choice will be Bach, Mozart and the like, but the booming music break us down, grind us into pulp, it has been very hard.

Dan is 34!

Dan is 34! We went out for a great dinner in a nearby Spanish/Mexican restaurant. We bought a wonderful chocolate cake from 10 Dove Street, one of our favourite restaurants. Kioni is always excited around candles. It is a simple celebration, but a warm and happy one.

Aftermath

When the typhoon passed through, the sky turned almost completely dark.

The tree in the front of our house was blown down by the wind, we heard it came down in the middle of the night, but didn't know what it was. Thankfully, it didn't bring down any wires that were hanging just over the fence.

Another type of sharing

A lot of people find Filipinos are happy go lucky people, that they are always smiling and not caring too much about the misery around them.

In a sense it is right, however, we also found that the seemingly happy disposition stems from the fact that there might not be much for them to hope for, therefore, they just deal with it in a "happy" way. It is a defense mechanism. They refuse to be melancholy, rather they spice up their lives with little things that makes them feel better.

One of the examples will be music. Anyone who has been to the Philippines will notice that Filipinos love music. They particularly like music from the 80s, or any type of feel-good music with heavy beats, like rave or rap type music. They play them loudly in restaurants, in fiestas, at home, at church and anywhere they can get a hold of a stereo system and a pair of speakers. Often when we walk into a restaurant, the employees would quickly walk over to the stereo system and crank up the volume, and they crank it up so high that many times, we couldn't hear each other talking, we even had a hard time ordering food! After a while, we decided that if we are the only customers in a restaurant, we would ask them to turn it down, or sometimes even turning it off.

Old-timer missionaries explained to us that Filipinos have big hearts and they love to share. Not everyone can afford to play music in their homes, so those who can, share their music. While there is some truth in it, I still find that the loudness of the music hurts my ears. Or take today as an example, we went to a "high-class" coffee shop for breakfast, after a while, Dan had to go and ask them to turn off their music because they were playing rave music with swearing words in it, Kioni was right there moving her little body along with the strong beats, even though she doesn't understand the swearing words, that did it for Dan and I, we couldn't handle those words.

Someone outside of our subdivision has a karaoke machine. Our helper said for 5 pesos (10 cents US), you can go sing a song. Our house is directly in the path of the super loud speakers, so whenever someone sings, we hear it loud and clear. Recently, a male voice has come through our door and windows often. He is known as the "bad-singing" guy to Kioni. He has quite a bit of money, because he sings the same songs over and over and over, and he sings very badly.

So for months now, we are forced to listen to quite a number of people singing in that karaoke joint, sometimes, it has gotten to me quite badly that I have to tell Dan we need to go out to eat, I need a break from listening to that music. (The joint opens at around 8:00am and closes at around 10:30pm, weekends they will extend the time to around midnight.) At least in a restaurant, if we are the only customers, we could ask them to turn it down!

Earthquake

After having left Taiwan 20 years ago, I have not experienced another earthquake until today in Cebu.

It was 12:12pm, Kioni and I were in her school room just finishing up her Kumon Reading. Suddenly, our chairs moved, and when I looked at the fan, which was turned off, it was moving also. I was pretty sure it was an earthquake by then. I pointed the fan out to Kioni, and she said, "It is an earthquake, mommy, we have to run outside."

At that time, Dan came into our room asking if that was an earthquake. That was his first experience with earthquake, and it was also Kioni's first.

I was about to agree with her, but then it all stopped, it lasted only for about 4-5 seconds. I told her we didn't have to run outside, because the earthquake was small, "See, the ostriches are still sitting on the shelf, they haven't fallen down."

After my reassurance that it was OK, she finished up with the last page of Kumon, and ran out to talk about the earthquake with daddy. It was quite fun.

One year in Cebu

Exactly one year ago, we landed in Cebu. I still remember the heat and humidity that hit us right after we stepped off the plane, the taxi that took us to our first home and the night spent wondering what all the strange noises were.

After one year, the heat and humidity, though still oppressive sometimes, is expected. Taxi rides is still 'thrilling' to say the least, and we have left the first home we first arrived in and moved into the second home. And I can identify all the seemingly strange noises now.

I understand a lot more about missions than a year ago, I will never look at mission the same way, I will never look at missionaries the same way after being one for one year.

Dan and I are still combating cultural fatigue, day to day living still grind on us, especially when we have to go outside into traffic. We found out after a year that the heat is still the largest factor that affects our everyday mood.

Today, at our one year anniversary of arrival to Cebu, the weather turns cool. It is ONLY 77F (25C)! The rain has been coming down for over a week pretty hard, and we are loving it. It doesn't help the traffic, but at least, it helps us to have more patience while sitting in traffic.

It ate too much...

I was in the kitchen making dinner, Kioni was in the living room playing with Starfall reading game. She suddenly ran into the kitchen and said with great excitement, "Mommy, there is a BIG FAT tiki on the window." Since we see tikis (flat-tailed geckos) all the time hanging out in the windows, I am not surprised to hear what Kioni was reporting, in fact, I was surprised by her excitement. I said to her, "Kioni, we see tikis all the time, thank you for telling me, go back and play, mommy has to cook."

"Mommy, this one is really BIG and FAT! Come take a look."

Since she insisted, I went into the living room and took a look, just to make her happy. I was a bit shocked at what I saw, it was a BIG FAT one alright, it is not just one of those flat-tailed gecko (about 5 inches/14 cm long) that we see all the time, it was quite unlike the one that drank coffee from my coffee pot. This one is indeed huge, about 11-15 inches/30-40cm long! With claw pads as big as a US quarter. I opened the window to try to see its markings, but it jumped to another window. I grabbed my camera and ran outside, and found it still hanging onto the window, seemingly uncertain what I was going to do to it. I quickly snap the photo below. It is a beautiful spotted gecko. Upon researching on the internet, I found out it is called a Tokay gecko, native to Southeast Asia.

Kioni is amazed by its size and said, "Mommy, that gecko is so huge because it ate too much. It must have just eaten a big mosquito."

Guess what's in my coffee pot?

Cebu has a high population of bugs, insects and little animals that eat these things. We like geckos because they take care of the mosquitoes, there are also a family of toads living outside in our yard, and because of these animals' presence, the helpers of our neighbours' reported seeing two black snakes about a month ago climbing up our tall palm bush, they obviously come because of the favourable habitat. There is quite a food chain going on. Who is at the bottom of the food chain? It would be Kioni and I, since we are the ones who got bitten by mosquitoes.

Anyway, we enjoy watching house geckos (tiki in Cebuano) catching moths and mosquitoes right on the window screens where we eat dinner every night. Kioni is particularly thrilled to see what she called "Animal Planet" right in our living room every night. We will also see them run away from various surfaces as soon as we turn on the lights in the kitchen. In the past week, a baby gecko came to live in our living room, it is no more than 1.5 inches long from head to tail. It is fun to see it grow.

This morning, however, the most unexpected happened. What I lifted the coffee pot up, I felt some movements inside. Yep! A gecko was swimming in the 1/4 inch coffee that was left overnight. I almost threw the pot on the floor, but I was calm enough to set in down on the countertop. The gecko obviously loves coffee and seemed unwilling to leave the pot, though its whole body turned brown already. I eventually took the coffee pot outside to the yard and dump everything out, coffee and all.

Needless to say, for a city girl like me, that was quite an encounter. I hope I will never see those two black snakes.

What happened today

What happened today in history?
1945 - World Word II - Victory over Japan, Japan surrenders.
1947 - India gains independence from the United Kingdom and becomes an independent nation within the Commenwealth.

Also Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of the French was born today in 1769, so was one of my favourite American cook, Julia Child, she was born in 1912.

I was also born today, 44 years ago. If I lived up to 88 years old, I have already lived half of my life, if not, than over half of my life was lived. So, there is no doubt that I am a "middle-aged" woman, which is a bit strange when I hear that term describing myself.

Looking back, the single most important thing that has happened to me was knowing Jesus Christ as my saviour, my life took a sharp turn "upwards" when it happened in the 26th year of my life.

We celebrated my birthday today in Cebu with a Starbucks' Coffee breakfast, a good homecooked dinner, (prepared by me), and a night-time family prayer. No birthday cake, no candle, but just as memorable.

We are back! With ants in my computer

It took us 19 days to get the internet service connected in the Mission Home! But it is done, we are connected! We surely survived without the internet, but we have very concerned family members ready to call our mission organization to see if we are OK, despite the fact that I have already warn of a long absence. I guess it is just a bit unusual, as far as our U.S. and Hong Kong families aree concerned, to take 19 days to receive internet service.

I am grateful that I am reading the news again, I am grateful to be able to reply email and do research on the internet again. However, I have a new problem, after we moved to this house, my computer start to have tiny ants crawling out from the ventilation slots. MacBook is known to have a heat problem, this must be what is forcing them to come out. I am eager to go back to Hong Kong and have the Apple people take it apart, they might actually find an ant community in there.

I love living in this "new" house, it is spaceous, even with 15 people in the house, we still have lots of space for kids to run around, what a great house for ministry.


The great room


Another view of the great room


The kitchen


Kioni's bedroom - she is sleeping in the tent, which she loves, and it also prevent mosquito bites.


The Spare Oom (see Narnia) - Kioni's homeschool and playroom

Giving the Mission Home a face-lift

We will be moving into the "Mission Home" within a week or so. There four painters working on the walls and cabinets, two ladies working on the floors, and an electrican came in earlier this week to put up some lights. The house was purchased by our mission organization almost 30 years ago, and it has not had a major face-lift since. Dan has a background in civil engineering, and he also has 10 years of experience with the Air Force in managing similar projects, working on this project is somewhat "right down his alley". However, we found out very quickly that the Filipino way of working is, of course, very different from what we are used to. From buying paint, or I should say, be able to find paint, to the concept of "work" are all quite different.

Dan's student in seminary, a wealthy Chinese businessman Teddy Uy, waived the contractor fees, while finding the best workers for us. We are thankful for Teddy. We still have to pay for all the material costs and the workers, but any penny saved is good.

Since we want to cut down on the cost and make the money go as far as possible, we are not asking the stores to mix the paint in a machine for us, which is common practise in the U.S. to ensure that you get the right colour. Doing so here is extremely expensive. Therefore, we use the Cebuano way, the painter drizzles the needed colours into a gallon of white and eye-balls it to the colour that we want. So far they have done a good job. Though that means every batch of colour is different, so they will have to mix enough to finish the paint job.

We anticipate a pause in our internet accessibility and home phone usage for a short while because of the move, therefore, don't panic if you have not heard from us for a few weeks.


Doors lined up for a second coat of paint


A lady sanding the floor in one of the bedrooms


Saw dust covering the furniture


The study having a major make-over


Sanding dust everywhere


The wooden panels from the study (chic in the 70s) from one of the rooms laying in the front yard.


Our helper, Maris, supervising the painters while Kioni watch, she is fascinated by the roller with the long pole.


The painter mixing the paint colours by drizzling the needed colours into a bucket of white paint, no measuring is needed, quite skillful, eh?

A tire

We dropped our car off at the airport with a mechanic when we left for our month long Hong Kong-Xiamen-Hong Kong trip. Dan's student, Teddy Uy, who owns several used car resale and mechanic shop business offered to fix our car free of charge, we only have to pay for the parts. He sent his top mechanic, Mr. Poppy, to pick the car up at the airport on the day we flew away.

When we came back, Mr. Poppy drove our car back to the airport to pick us up. It was so nice to have our own car with so much luggage. After we loaded our car, we started out driving, planning to drop him off at his work place before we head back home. Mr. Poppy was driving the car.

10 minutes later, a popping sound alerted all of us, Mr. Poppy went out of the car to check the tire and discovered that the one of the tires was totally blown off! We had to have it replaced before we can drive our long way home. He assured us right away that the car mechanic shop that he works in is just a few blocks away. He then drove slowly with the tire clonking beneath us. A few minutes later, we were at the mechanic shop.

Dan's student, the owner of the shop, Teddy Uy, came out to welcome us. He then directed several of his mechanics to immediately replace the tire. It took about half an hour because they couldn't find the right tools from our car. Thankfully, because that is a used car shop, they have lots of different kinds of tools on hand. Everything was fixed as soon as the right tools were found. Teddy even sent one of his guys to ride with us back home, so that after we unload the car, his guy could take the car to have all of the old tires replaced in one of shops he owns.

We went home, unloaded all the luggage and the sleeping Kioni. The car was gone for a few hours, then it came back with brand new tires!

Can you imagine how God has attended to all the details? He let the tire popped when we have a mechanic in our car! If it went bad a day later, it would cost us at least double the time to figure out what to do.

This is again a witness to how good God is.

Home sweet home

After being away for a month, we are finally home. Though it is good to be away and visit families, it is especially good to be home. Though we still felt like we were "attacked" by the heat in Cebu, it is good to go back home.

Kioni shows us clearly how much she loves home. She was not eating well for the whole time we were in China and Hong Kong, but as soon as she comes home, she starts to eat again. Tonight, she had a big meal, simple food, but she clean out her plate.

We will be moving soon, to another house, but we will miss this house, which has been our "home" since we arrived 8 months ago.

Moving again!

We are going to move again in July or August to another house in Cebu. This is the life of missionaries, I guess, be flexible and constantly on the go.

We knew before we came to Cebu that we will have to find another house to rent by the second part of year 2007. The missionaries who were staying in this house are going to come back from their furlough.

We started looking a few months ago, but it is hard to find a house that is fully furnished, in a safe area and within our price range. (We have raised $600 US for rent.)

Then God starts to work on our behalf, a chain of events happened.

Our mission organization owns a house in Cebu, it has been occupied by a missionary family until they went back to the U.S. about a year and a half ago on furlough. They were planning on coming back this June. While they were gone, the house was rented out to another missionary family from England, and we were friends with both families, in fact, the U.S. missionary family were our main contact in the U.S. before we came here.

Last week, we found out the U.S. missionary family is going to delay their time for coming back, however, the missionary family from England has already made plans to rent another house. Therefore, the missions' house will be vacant, which they don't really want to see happen, they would want to have someone live there, even just for keeping watch on the house.

We jumped on the opportunity and asked if we can move in. Sure enough, they are glad to have us live there. Not only that, since the U.S. missionary family still have most of their household items stored in their house, the house comes furnished, the U.S. missionary family is willing to let us use some of their household items also.

Because the house was owned by our mission organization, we will only need to pay a much lower amount of rent on the house. This house is HUGE. It is a three bedrooms and a kitchen that is bigger than the whole living area in our townhouse in Mundelein, Illionis. It also has a seperate maid's quarter, which most missionaries who stayed there used as their office. It also have a very open living room and a huge playroom. The outside has a fenced in yard also. It will surely be more space than we need, but we love the space, though we will work on updating the house a bit, which the missions also welcomes.

Interestingly, when we were in that house last time visiting the missionary family from England, Kioni asked if we can live in that house. (That was three weeks before all these events happened.) When I asked Kioni why she liked that house, she said because it was big and there were a lot of space to run around. At that time, I told her we couldn't move into that house, because our friends were living in there. One month later, I told her we are going to move there, you should see the look in her eyes! She then started to ask me what furniture items and which toy animals are going. We then spent the next half hour making sure that every toy animal she likes is on the list.

We are again surprised by God's greatness and provision. It was just beyond what we anticipated.