Poverty

Every day we are confronted with extremes here in this country. Being in the city, we see a lot of financial extremes. There are the very, very rich people, and of course, there are the very poor. I have never in my life seen poverty like is here in Manila. I thought I saw poverty in PNG, but it was very different. Yes, the people had no money, but it seemed they could always survive off the land. Here, the land seems to swallow it's people.

I was driving downtown yesterday and saw a mother and three children. Because I have been processing this poverty a bit more than usual, I really watched them. The mother was probably late 20's. She had three kids with her, guessing ages 4, 2, and under 6 months. They were seeking shelter under the overpass. I was stopped at a stoplight preparing to turn left. The place they were seeking refuge was between the lane I would be driving on to merge into the street I was turning onto. They were resting on a cement divider that was in the shape of a triangle with the wide part of the triangle up against the cement pole supporting the overpass. The triangle of cement stretched out like a bed for them to rest on. The mother was fussing over the three. The eldest seemed to be fighting taking a nap. She had the other two lying very systematically next to him. Arranged from eldest (next to the post) out to youngest, at the edge of the cement. She was watching over them as they took their afternoon nap. I just looked at her and wondered what or where she dreamed she would be at this stage of her life. She was dutifully caring for her kids, even though in the States she would have been turned in for neglect. I couldn't understand why she had chosen that place to rest, but as I thought about it, I realized that it was raining. There they had a dry place to rest their heads.

I have recently been introduced (not in person) to a painter from the Philippines, Joey Velasco. He has painted a picture called "Jesus and the Street Children." It is a picture of Jesus and what appears to be the "Last Supper," but instead of the 12 apostles, it is 12 street children. I have given you a link http://www.metacafe.com/w/yt-bzYgSJCPEtYwhere you can see the picture and watch a video about the painting and how it came to be.

I hope you have a few minutes to go watch this video. It is broken into 13 segments...quick ones. These are the children that come knocking on my window when I am stopped at an intersection, asking me for food. These are the children who have grown up and come to my gate asking me for money. These are the kids that come into my back yard on Sunday afternoon for church. These are the little girls that come to my gate every Monday morning collecting plastic containers for recycling.

If you can't watch the entire video, it's OK.

My prayer is that God will just give me a heart like his and that I will always look at every possible encounter with another soul as a divine appointment, made by Jesus himself.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

The New Year is breathing down our neck! Whew!!! Where has this year gone? New Year's in Manila is quite a sight! The streets are lined with Fire Work Vendors that set up shop just for the festivities. Some people, like our kids (Luke specifically) are enjoying the ability to legally play with fireoworks. Tonight the city will begin to sound like war has broken out....the sky will become like a festival, and eventually, the fireworks will be obliterated by the smoke from all the display.

We will be having a year-end worship service in our back yard with our friends from the neighboring subdivision Sampalukan and our friends from the Cainta Church of the Nazarene. They will be combining groups and meeting in our backyard so those from Sampalukan won't have to pay for transportation to Cainta. They will be meeting between 6 and 8pm, then we will go up to the kids school where we have full view of Manila from the hills of Antipolo.

We have recently gone through some mission strategy training and it was just superb!!! We are excited to see what God has in store for the coming year. We focussed on the divine appointments that God arranges for us to connect with people who need Jesus in their lives. We focussed on the importance of intentionally connecting with people that God places in your path. It was a great time!

When we returned home, we were trying to make up for being gone and the need to ready for two Christmas parties back to back happening in our back yard, one on Sunday and one on Monday. As I was hanging up Christmas lights in our back yard, one of our neighbors whom we have never met, was at our back gate excitedly saying, "MA'AM, excuse me, I am your neighbor! MA'AM, excuse me, I am your neighbor!" I went to the gate to introduce myself, finding this rather funny, especially concerning the focus of our previous week. After we made proper introductions, he proceeded to tell me that the previous night/morning at about 1:30 AM, there was a big snake (probably a python) about 6-9 feet and the diameter of a mans forearm trying to get into his yard, from our yard. He had shooed it back into our yard and called the neighborhood security. They arrived at our gate and beat on our gate for some time, but were unsuccessful at waking us, so they left us to our sleep, and to our snake. Our neighbor had come to alert us to this new visitor in our yard. He was especially concerned because he knew we had kids in our yard every Sunday. He even asked if he could come sometime :) We decided we better call the security to have our yard searched. Four guys came with big sticks and big bags to hunt for our guest, but they were unsuccessful in finding him. We later learned that there have been four other pythons killed in the surrounding lots recently (I was not able to get the word "recently" defined).

The funny thing in all of this is that through our snake, we were able to meet 5 new people in our neighborhood, plus the four snake hunters :) We later took our new friends Christmas cookies. We are praying for our neighborhood, and are looking forward to knowing the "rest of the story" in regards to meeting people through the "snake" in our backyard.

We think of you all so often, especially during the holidays. As the Lord brings you to our minds, we hold you up in prayer. We are richer people because the Lord has given us the blessing of your friendship. We pray that during this new year, you will come to know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in a new way and that your relationship with Him will strengthen and deepen and you will hunger and thirst for more and more of Him.

Blessing to you all!

100 Years!!!

Just like in 1908, we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Church of the Nazarene by walking around our tent waving our hankies :) The day started with a celebratory service in our church in Taytay. We had a big choir singing the songs written specifically for this celebration. There was a big brass band (about 25 people), the children marched in with all the flags of the countries the church of the Nazarene is in, then we had a presentation by the Color Guard. We had the pleasure of taking in 100 new members in the morning service, 94 as profession of faith, and 6 as member transfers. What an exciting moment! Just the Saturday before, there were 103 people baptized. We were challenged by Dr. Silvernail to live a life of Holiness! And we were reminded that the old fashioned idea of waving the hankie was done in surrender to our Savior and Lord.

After the morning service, we took a lunch break and re-convened on the APNTS campus for a district wide celebration. Just as people were arriving, the rains also arrived. The four tents that had been carefully placed over the desired seating just wasn't enough. Quickly another two tents were raised in order to house all the sound equipment and the expected 1500 plus people. The rain plus all the people made quite an exciting walk through the slippery grass. Some folks just took off their shoes and quit fighting the mud.

There were several presentations by churches from the district. The youth group that meets in our back yard was one of the presenters. It was a real treat for us to watch as the teens did their presentation of "Shout to the Lord" with sign language and choreography. Rather than spending money on gloves for each person, they came up with the idea of taking water base paint and making their hands white. Genius! We also had a 100+ person choir that presented the "One" song created for the occasion, Battle Hymn of the Republic, and the Hallelujah chorus. We were again challenged by Dr. Silvernail. We ended the evening with a wonderful time of prayer for God to move among us and to empower us to be Holy! As we waved our hankies, we walked the muddy, slippery perimeter of one of the tents and sang together "It's a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle, washed in the blood of the Lamb..."

Got him!!!

Here is our house guest. All I can say is by having such a large rat, I feel a bit assured that there isn't a large snake out there eating the rats. However, I hope there aren't little rats attracting the cobras.

(Notice the mouse trap beside him....I just don't think that would have even threatened him)

Floods and Pests

I though I would put up some pictures from our flood last week...we did actually start moving stuff upstairs in case the water actually came in the house. Our home, for those of you who don't know this, is in an old rice patty. Hmmm. Our whole subdivision is. There is a stream that goes by our house...a bit away, but when the sky let's loose, the stream comes for a visit. There is a history of our home (which is owned by the Nazarene Philippine Field) being flooded with three feet of water as the record, but with many times coming inside the house, just not that high. Therefore, surrounding the house is a sealed, cement block wall. There are gates that we can open during dry season, but they are able to be sealed off during rainy season. Our driveway is also equipped with a ramp...somewhat like an oil changing ramp, for our car to rest on dry land when it does flood. There have been some very prudent missionaries living in this house who have gone to a lot of effort to keep the inside of the house dry. We are grateful to them!

(This is the driveway on a normal day...)

(The back yard floods after the front)

(The picture below is inside the wall...starting to get concerned!)

(This is the following day. The water was over the top of this bridge)

(There is a new building being excavated for here and the wall along the street fell due to the flood.)

The morning after the flood, I went to grab a "box" of milk out of the pantry and my finger went right into the milk. Scared me half to death...yes, I'm a little jumpy at times. I looked down at the box and this is what I found. Fortunately, the hole was chewed on the top of the box and not the bottom....

Then the next day I was watering my plants and noticed that one had some strange "dust" on it. I looked closer and noticed on the ledge beside it was a bunch of wood shavings...

I looked up (which was the only direction there was any wood and this is what I found...

(The hole is the size of a golf ball)

It appears that we have a stow-away in our home. Hopefully soon I can tell you the end of the story. In the mean time, I will probably be walking the house with a rather large stick!

I took the dog outside on the lawn to bathe him and discovered he was being the carrier of a family of ticks. I had even put the medicine on the back of his neck so he won't get them. Hmm possibly the medicine didn't work?

As he was out on the cement drying (after I had carefully sprayed all the dirt off the patio) I noticed that there were these slug-like, worm-like things heading toward him and he was having a fit! I called my helper to the back yard and asked her what they were. She got a little panicky and stomped on them and say "these are bad, bad! They will suck your blood!" Ewww! They were leeches!

Some days here I am blissfully ignorant to the wild-life that takes place all around me. I think I prefer to not know there are rat's trying to bunk with us. I would prefer to not have my dog providing nourishment for the local tick family, and, I CERTAINLY didn't want to know that the back yard that I let Mari play in, barefooted, is the home of leeches.

Well, despite yucky flood waters and pests, we still are still very grateful to be here. Fortunately, the good things outweigh the bad :)

At least it has been over a year since I have been awarded this orientation to our new home :)

Interceding

Recently, Eric found a great story in The Prayer Shield written by C. Peter Wagner. It has really given me a lot to think about. I want you to experience it as written by Peter Wagner ......

"In the days soon after the Iron Curtain had come down, John Maisel had made another of his frequent trips to the Eastern bloc. This time he lectured on "Is Jesus God?" at Moscow State University, then to a crowd of 20,000 to 30,000 in Bucharest, then home to their base in Vienna. Jane[a personal prayer partner of the author and his wife], in Dallas, was much in prayer for him. The lecture turned out to be excellent and many were saved. Obviously the forces of darkness were greatly upset, not only by Maisel's lecture in Moscow, but by the power channeled through Jane's intercession in Dallas.

On One of those nights at 2:00 A.M., Jane was awakened by the presence of an incredible force of darkness there in her room. She says, "I battled in prayer and still it was more than I could handle. It drained my whole energy and life support system. I couldn't move--I was totally paralyzed." As she communed with the Holy Spirit she was assured that John himself was in no particular danger at that time. She sensed that "this powerful force of darkness had been sent to destroy John, but it had attacked me because I was standing in the gap." At the peak of the battle, Jane cried out for reinforcements, both angels and intercessors. God sent then both.

In the twinkling of an eye, Jane sensed an angel come into the room and usher out the spirit of darkness. The battle was over but Jane felt limp and drained. Then a fever and laryngitis came. But she rejoiced that the victory had been the Lord's.

The next morning the answering machine in Jane's office recorded a call from Cindy Jacobs who, like Jane, is one of my 19 personal prayer partners. Jane returned her call and routinely asked Cindy how she felt. Cindy's response was unforgettable. "I'm fine, Jane," she said, "but the question is how are you? What was that incredible force of darkness in your room at 2:00 A.M.? That was one of the most powerful principalities I have encountered! I was doing battle with you in intercession until its power was broken!"

We really want you to know how grateful we are to those of you who hold us up in prayer!

I hope this is encouraging to those of you who are fiercely doing battle for loved ones, friends or co-workers.

The best part about all of this is that Jesus is interceding to God on behalf of my requests and your requests! He is so great!!!

Our prayers are not in vain!

Umbrella Part 2

Wednesday...It had been pouring since about 11:00 that morning and after the rains the other night, I knew it was going to flood quite easily again. It was about 1:00 pm and I got the message from the school that there would be no after school activities because of flooding in Manila. The kids would all be sent home at 2:00, and if they rode the school service vans (aka school busses), then those would still be running.

Our boys usually arrive at about 2:25 when they ride the service vans, so at about that time I went outside to open the gate to make the delivery easier in the heavy rain. I was greeted with the creek yet again at the gate. Now, having just been driving in the flood waters the day before, I knew how deep the waters had to be between here and the school for it to be at my gate.

There were several men working on the house next door, and had decided to quit working in the deluge. That made me feel a little better since they were standing on some scaffolding. They were seeking shelter next to our gate, and just watching the creek rise. I finally discovered that they were actually waiting for a truck to come pick them up, and not just hanging out.

I moved the car up on the "ramp" to keep it out of the flood waters and went inside to wait for some word from the kids. I knew that they were with the bus driver, but what I didn't know was what exactly he was going to do with them. I knew that there was a significant chance that he would be sitting out on the main road, just waiting for the rains first to quit, then to run off. I knew that it was highly possible that he was just going to tell them to walk (or swim) home. I was not particularly excited about this idea. I phoned Andy (because of the different transportation styles we have, it is not good for kids to be without cell phones here), and discovered that he wasn't with his brothers, but that he was going to a friends house. Hmmm.

3:00 came and went and I hadn't heard anything from the kids. By this time, our driveway was covered in 8 inches of water, at the shallowest point. The other night is wasn't even covering the entire driveway. I know the service vans are taller than my car, so I knew that they could get through deeper water than I could.

I decided that I probably could text the bus driver (send him a note on his cell phone) and at least tell him he won't be able to get to the front gate. We do have a back gate that doesn't flood quite so rapidly. I suggested that he drop the boys at the back gate.

I kept going outside to see the water level and it just kept rising.

3:15 I heard whistling at the back gate...the whistles of two boys :)

I can't even imagine driving through what the driver had to in order to get me my kids.

I am very thankful for the school service vans!

The water receeded by about 5:00 :) It really runs away fast.

The first picture is out our back gate looking toward our street...if you went on down the "river," and turned right, the next right is the front entrance to our house.