With Love, From Iloilo, Part 4

Picking up where we left off in Calajunan: The missions team from Grace Church was trying to avoid a downpour at the city dump/squatter village, while I was secretly thanking God for the rain. It meant we didn’t have to go any further on our tour and endure the flies and unbearable stench of the trash.

Abigael, our guide, was ushering us quickly toward the road. It was a long walk, so she hailed a couple of taxi trikes to get us further out where a Jeepney could take us all the way home. Our trike driver was a woman about my age and size. We climbed aboard and sped off so quickly  that even the rain drops felt cold and stinging in that hot climate. I noticed that some of the other trikes had plastic coverings for the driver, but ours did not. Although we passengers were mostly covered by the awning over us, our driver was exposed to all the elements -- the large, and increasingly heavier, raindrops splattering on her bare arms.

I thought about the lightweight rain jacket that I had brought for the trip. It was one of my favorite jackets and was fairly new, at least for me. (I don’t buy clothes that often.) Since it was the rainy season in the Philippines, we had been told to bring our umbrellas and rain jackets with us. It was balled up at the bottom of my backpack, which traveled with me everywhere I went, along with a small roll of toilet paper, a tube of hand sanitizer, and a constantly used water bottle.

I recognized the gentle tug of the Holy Spirit inside, encouraging me to help someone in need. “Not my favorite jacket, Lord!” I protested. By this time, the driver had delivered us to the main road and we were clambering out. I knew if I waited longer, I would miss my opportunity. While everyone else was looking for oncoming jeepneys, I lingered at the trike, pulled out the jacket and handed it to her. She looked confused. Then she slowly held out her hand, “For me?” she said in her careful English.

I nodded and hurried over to the others. When I looked back at her, another client had climbed aboard, ready to leave. I watched her slide the jacket over her arms, rev up her bike, then raise her eyes, locking her gaze with mine. I will never forget the wonder in her look as she nodded her head in my direction before she sped off.

I don’t know what happened to that jacket. I like to think of my driver friend wearing it in the rain and remembering that somebody saw her need and cared about her. It’s more likely that she sold the jacket soon afterward to buy something her family needed more urgently. It doesn’t matter, though. The look in her eyes of surprise and appreciation at an unexpected gift was worth it all to me. 

With Love, From Iloilo, Part 3

Thoughts from culture shock:

When I thought about missions work (prior to ever stepping foot off of U.S. soil), I thought it would be about helping people. I thought it would be about how noble I would feel about myself. I thought it would be about altruistic sentiments and alleviating guilt about having so much while the rest of the world has so little.

I didn't think very much about how hard it would be on my pampered flesh and how much I would dislike feeling sweaty all of the time, eating unfamiliar food, not having hot water to bathe in, or the smells of poverty assaulting my senses.

It’s very easy to be a Christian in America.

After I had been in Iloilo for a few days, I began to see how much my “uncomfortable-ness” was making me depend on God. And that was a good thing! How funny that I worked so hard so much of my life to be comfortable! I would fight you to stay in my comfort zone. And all the while those efforts could be thwarting God's purposes for my life.

I am pretty sure after what I have experienced that always trying to keep my flesh comfortable will take me out of the will of God. God’s will is not always easy on our flesh. Change is not comfortable, so if we are always comfortable it means we are not changing, which means we are not growing.

Ouch.

I know we should have the comfort of the Holy Spirit, but that’s different than having everything on the outside always feeling great and to my liking. What this means to me is that I am going to have to purposely take myself out of my comfort zone when I am back in my middle-class home of comfort and relative ease, where most of my fleshly desires are pretty easily satisfied. I will have to stretch myself on purpose so that I can remember how dependent I am on God. I will have to put my flesh under and make it my slave, like Paul said, in order to not be disqualified for the prize.

It’s very hard to be a Christian in America.

With Love, From Iloilo, part 2

Day one and two in Iloilo: The Faith Center is a church plant in the relocation site of San Isidro, a congregation of about 30 people, which began at the first of the year. They meet in what looks to be a lean-to building added to the side of one of the houses.

San Isidro inhabitants were placed at the site several years ago due to typhoon Frank in 2008 when they lost everything they had. Since then, little progress has been made by the government in moving the families out; instead more families have been added due to other natural disasters. Currently about 2,000 people live there with more to be added soon.

The Thursday afternoon prayer meeting drew about 10 people (including our missions team) and assorted children. Another missionary, who had been filling in as guitar player for the worship team while Natalie was in the States, led us in some songs. Natalie was greeted by many happy faces and hugs, especially from the children. She conversed with them fluently in Ilongo, although she kept apologizing that her accent was rusty from being in the States for two months. I was told many times while on my trip by those that she ministered to that Natalie was especially beloved because she spoke to them in their mother tongue.

Everyone at the prayer meeting made us feel welcome, but we were so tired, it was hard to focus. Pastora Rose spoke English fairly well, and we went to dinner with her afterward, but the heat combined with the jet lag was getting to me. I am sure I was incoherent in trying to talk to her, and I was thankful when Natalie said it was time to leave.

When we got home, Natalie told me that she heard disturbing news that one of the women she had been discipling in San Isidro was no longer coming to church. The unsaved husbands of these women often think the Center is a cult, so they persecute their wives, sometimes even beating them.

On Friday morning, I woke up knowing that we were going to go to one of the toughest destinations on our itinerary: Calajunan. I had heard the stories from my daughter and son who had been on previous trips about the people who live as squatters at the huge city dump in Iloilo, and how a visit there rocks your world.

I was not to be disappointed.

We traveled with Abegail, a Filipina, who works alongside her husband, Nate, a missionary from the U.S. They serve the people of Calajunan through a children’s ministry, a church and livelihood projects to show people alternative ways to make a living and provide food for their families.  Abigael was 7 months pregnant with her second child; they have been working at the dump site for several years.

You can see Calajunan a long way off – a huge mountain of trash, baking in the heat while also saturated by the recent rains. You can smell it almost as soon as you can see it. I never thought much about the smells of poverty before. The pictures I see in the World Vision magazine that arrive in my mailbox every month spare me the realities of the sickening stench that accompanies intense poverty.

Imagine the trash in your outdoor garbage can sitting in the hot sun for weeks on end, the flies multiplying and swarming around it, the rotting smell that makes you gag. Now multiply that about one thousand times. I tried to keep my face from screwing up in distaste as we went on the tour with Abegail. She explained how the people lived as we walked on the narrow path between the trash dump and the “homes” of the squatters along the perimeter. The people there who lived in ramshackle lean-to’s seemed oblivious to the smell as well as to the flies that swarmed around them everywhere, in their food, in their faces, buzzing relentlessly. They smiled politely at us and greeted us with friendliness. As for me, I was afraid to talk, thinking that if I opened my mouth I would swallow several flies.

We saw a number of children and adults sorting through the trash on various locations on the dump. Abegail explained that the garbage collectors already had sifted through and taken anything “valuable,” so what the squatters mined through was trash indeed. Once a human leg had been found in the dump; syringes also had been found. The children often do not wear shoes.

Just when I thought I couldn’t stand the sights and smells any longer, we came to an area where the recent heavy rains had caused a portion of the dividing wall to fall in, so that the trash was now strewn across the path and practically touching the homes located there. Here the flies appeared almost as a black blanket in front of us, thick and noisy. The stench was terrific. I wanted so badly for our “tour” to be over and return to the relative comfort of Natalie’s house.

I searched on the inside for some strength so I wouldn’t turn and start off in the other direction. I heard the Holy Spirit say, “Do you like being here?”

“No!” I shouted on the inside, almost before He could get the question out. “I want to leave!”

Without hesitating a second, Jesus said, “I love it here.” That shook me to the core. I knew it was because He loved the people here, people that He had died for. I wondered how I would respond if God asked me to serve these people every day, like he had asked of Nate and Abegail. Just then, we heard thunder and a hint of the smell of rain in the air. Natalie and Abegail both knew it was time to make our exit, or we could be caught in a deluge. I was thankful when we turned around and headed for the road.

I knew my heart had such a long way to go to be totally His.

With Love, From Iloilo

The short-term missions team from Grace Church (me, Jessika Martin and Zak Phillips) started our two-week adventure Monday, June 24, with a less than stellar beginning. Our flight from St. Louis to Los Angeles was delayed for three hours, causing us to miss our international connection to Korea on Monday night. My oldest daughter Natalie Mattes, missionary to Iloilo, who was coming from Dallas to meet us in LA and accompany us to the Philippines, purposely missed her flight so she could travel with us. That turned out to be a lifesaver as I had never traveled internationally before and had not been briefed on a lot of the things I would need to know to navigate the international airports.

The three days of travel were a blur of cramped seating on airplanes, waiting in terminals, snatching sleep with our backpacks as pillows, security checks, baggage checks, customs, Asian food in small portions, changing flight reservations, making unexpected hotel reservations, and the sing-song voices of the Korean flight attendants trying to make the 12-hour flight from Incheon Airport to Manila more bearable. The extra funds we had raised over our budget turned out to be essential as we incurred a number of expenses we hadn't planned for because of the delay.

We finally arrived in Iloilo after another two-hour delay in the Manila airport. We were able to make some good use of the time, though, by visiting the Cinnabon there and a fruit smoothie kiosk. I felt proud that I turned down cinnamon rolls for the fresh fruit smoothie, until Natalie told me how much sugar syrup they put in them to make them taste so good. For the record, Zak ate both high-calorie items!

At 6'4", Zak had his first encounter with an awestruck Filipino when the security officer at the Manila Airport kept shaking his head in wonder. "How old are you?" he asked. "How tall are you? What do you eat to make you grow so tall?" Zak handled it all in good humor. It was the first of numerous stares and jaw-dropping looks that he got, as he towered above all of the Filipinos we met.

Our first experience on the roads in the Philippines was in the taxi-van we used to get us and all of our stuff from the Iloilo airport to Natalie's house. It was now Thursday, June 27, a full four days after our journey had begun; (we "lost" a day crossing the international date line.)

Apparently there are no traffic signs or lights in Iloilo. There are no yield signs either. There were no speed limit signs that I could see. There were no signs at all! The van driver probably passed five cars at once, driving on the wrong side of the road, merrily beeping his horn as he went by everyone. Whoever got to the intersection first, or muscled their way in, had the right of way. Drivers made U-turns whenever and wherever they wanted. They also turned in either direction no matter what lane they were in. It was bewildering and harrowing to say the least, as they all appeared to be vying for spots in the Indy 500. I tried to watch out of the side window instead of looking ahead as we sped along the bumpy road. I was hoping Zak and Jessika, both new to driving at ages 16 and 15 respectively, weren't internalizing all of the bad habits they were witnessing.

As we arrived at her house, Natalie gave us the option of "jumping in" immediately or taking it easy. We could stay at her house and relax a little while, or we could go to the San Isidro relocation site, to the church plant she was involved with, and join them for their weekly prayer meeting on Thursday afternoon.

We decided to jump in. Why not?

More to come!!