Dreaming of a White Christmas

Where I spent Christmas 2014

 

 

Recently I have had quite a few conversations about what it is like to spend the Holidays overseas. I have come to realize many people do not fully understand the emotional aspect of being away for the Holidays. So I would like to shed some light on the subject, one that is quite personal for me.

I am one of those fortunate fellows who had an old fashion childhood. Both my grandparents lived within an hour of my childhood home. Each Holiday season we would gather together and spend our time under one roof. Christmas tree hunting, eggnog sipping, Christmas cookie baking, gift wrapping, all the bells and whistles. That was my childhood, of which I am incredibly grateful.

But at age 16 my life changed dramatically and I lost my picture perfect Holidays. I in no way blame my circumstances, nor do I wish to paint for you a sad story. However I do wish to show you what it is really like to live away during the Holidays.

My family moved to South East Asia, quite a far distance from anything familiar. Long gone were the snow days, Pumpkin pie and fire places. Though we were fortunate to move to a Nation that does indeed celebrate Christmas, we soon found that their way of celebrating the Holidays was not what we had grown to love as children.

My first Christmas away from the US my family went on a short vacation, to a near by city, to escape our tiny village and allow us some time as a family. It was a wonderful Christmas, honestly it was. But there was a bittersweet feeling in each of our hearts. We missed our home, our tree, our family. We missed the snow, the food and the familiarity. All seemed so strange, so foreign despite our best efforts to make it like it always had been. We couldn't have our family under one roof anymore, a thing I admit I took for granted. We loved our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Christmas didn't quite feel like Christmas without them. We did endure it, and don't be mistaken we shared plenty of smiles and laughter that day.

Fortune gifted me one last normal Christmas. The year after my first Christmas away my family returned to our home and we had a wonderful memorable Christmas together. One I shall treasure for all my days. However the new normal that is my life resumed the following year, that is this past year.

I ventured out on my own, as a 19 year old I faced the world alone and moved my life back to South East Asia, this time, without any family. I swore to spend my holidays celebrating with the locals. I am a strong believer in immersion being the best method of adaptation to a new world. I took upon myself the traditions of my local friends and enjoyed them very much. It was a wonderful holiday full of food and gifts and laughter. Again however the food was strange to me, the traditions as foreign as the language. Despite my best efforts to feel normal, this was the saddest Christmas I have ever had. The days leading up to the Big Day, I spend several hours on Skype with my parents and siblings. Each call ended in me weeping. It felt very much like I had no Christmas at all. I do not blame my wonderful friends, they tried so very hard to include me and invite me to teach them my own traditions, but without all the things I had grown to love, the familiar things, Christmas simply didn't feel the same. Tears stained my pillow each night as the Holiday season went by.

Now I am back in my home country. However my family will still not spend the holidays together. My parent and a majority of my siblings are in South East Asia again and we will spend these precious days apart. In all honesty, I feel a great deal of sadness that my once familiar Holidays seem to be gone forever. I am fortunate enough to be able to celebrate them as I always have, but a huge part of the preciousness of this season lives 9,000 miles away.

Now to the point I wish to make. This is not to gain pity or even to challenge you to be thankful. (however I do hope  you are thankful)

This is a call to pray! To encourage! All over the world today there are Christian brothers and sisters, spending this holiday season on foreign soil. Dreaming of white Christmas', missing family, and  shedding tears over traditions lost. Don't forget them. Say an extra prayer. Ask our Lord to send them a special allotment of joy this season! But you can do even more. Get on Facebook send them a message, email them. Make an effort tell them you are thinking of them, tell them you miss them, tell them they are loved. Don't let them spend this time feeling abandon or forgotten. Remind them of how proud you are of them for venturing so far to answer a call. Pray and encourage! That is what the Holidays should be about, coming closer to God and spreading joy!

Christmas 2013
(I realize my camera date stamp is incorrect)

Just a "Dalaga" finding an "Asawa"

Being a "dalaga" (a young unmarried woman) here in the Ati community opens me up a lot of scrutiny and unsolicited advice (which I enjoy every moment of)! Since returning I can't tell you how many times the question "How old are you?" has been followed up with the question "Do you have a boyfriend/husband?".

In the western world a 20 year old woman is expected to be in school getting a degree or working full time. Here in the local culture however it is expected at my age to be finding me a man and starting a family, YIKES!


The older generation of ladies has been doing their best to teach me to be a good wife. Many have told me that I should find a good boy in the US and come back next year with him and a baby (culturally it is expected that a married couple would have a baby right away)! My friend Emmalyn has been teaching me important wife skills such as shaving coconuts and making coconut milk, oh also gutting an octopus!

Other ladies have been giving advice on how to find the right man. Here is a short list of things that I must find in a man if I am to consider him to be a good husband (according to the Ati ladies)!

1.) Ukay-Ukay Shopper
A good husband doesn't buy expensive clothes. According to the ladies it is best to find a man who wears only clothes he purchased at an ukay-ukay (second hand store). This proves that he is thrifty and will therefore take good care of your money.

2.) Lakad Lang
A good husband walks...always! According to my sources a good husband will not waste your hard earned money on a trike to town. A good husband walks to town and saves the money to buy milk for your babies.

3.) Malakas
A good husband is strong. What defines strong? According to my dear friends he must be able to climb a coconut tree and carry heavy loads of bamboo down the mountain. A strong man will be able to provide better than a weak one (apparently).

4.) Matalino
A good husband is smart. It is best to find one that knows how to build a "bahay kubo" (nipa hut). If your husband can't build a house he will have to pay someone else to do it, and that goes back to the first one (that he is cheap and thrifty).


It never ceases to amaze me how very different our two worlds can be. Yet at the same time there is so much we share. I will never be done learning from these people, a lot of that has to do with my complete and utter lack of simple house hold skills like cooking sea urchins and coconut cutting (that skill still seems to elude me despite the fact I have been taught several times).
I love these people!
-Ati at Heart Forever-

OCTOPUS!!!!!

I thought it looked like a Hula skirt!



Excuse my face...I am not angry, just focusing on my task!

Psalms 34:1-3 

I will always thank the Lord;
 I will never stop praising him.
 I will praise him for what he has done;   
 may all who are oppressed listen and be glad! 
Proclaim with me the Lord's greatness;
    let us praise his name together

When you're not feeling it...

The truth of the matter is simply this. Missionaries, not super human. Not really even exceptional. We are indeed quite ordinary. Even the best of us have terrible days, we have days where we wish we could wake up back in our home countries, we get tired, sick and frustrated; because we are still human, therefore inherently flawed!

Yesterday my human was showing a little more than normal. I woke up in the morning and realized I was suffering from another pesky local illness. (the week before it as a strange skin problem) So I took the medicine to get rid of said illness, but the medicine caused a negative reaction that made me feel sicker! (thanks a lot sensitive stomach!) So I spent most of my morning resting and trying not to lose my breakfast! When afternoon rolled around my family prepared to head into the village.

Twice a week we go into the village armed with a Tagalog Bible, guitar and song sheets, for a time of prayer and praise with our Ati friends. But as we gathered everyone up this particular afternoon typical "Sunday Morning" attitudes appeared.
You know what I mean. Its Sunday morning, you are getting ready for church and one of the kids gets crabby and starts picking on the others. Before you can finish tying your shoes half the kids are crying the others stand with arms crossed and unpleasant looks on their faces! Then you think to yourself "I might as well stay home!"

That was me yesterday. Feeling ill already and hoping that it wouldn't grow into something horrible while in the village (not an ideal place to be ill) Then the kids starting picking at each other. I felt my stomach do a few cartwheels inside me and I thought for a good solid minute
"Nope this is just not my day. I am going to stay home this is not worth it."

But instead of giving up, despite the fact that I wasn't "feeling it" I went. As I sat on the trike holding my guitar that still small Holy Spirit voice came into my heart and said "Child, you decide how this goes. For my glory or for your own selfishness" I did a heart check, I asked for help and I forced myself to change my attitude. I didn't put on a mask and pretend I was in a good mood, I simply changed my mood.

We walked into the village and were greeted by the usual smiling faces of the Ati children. When we reached the top of the hill, we sat down in the little nipa shelter where we held our Praise and Prayer time, ladies began to wander in from around the village. We had a nice chat with some of them and then began singing. Today the ladies put extra effort into the songs, we have been introducing them to new music. There church experiences so far have been hymns only and all other types have been only in English. So we worked to gather a few Tagalog contemporary Christians worship songs. I loved hearing them trying so hard to sing along this time. Then we had our Bible reading time. Because this time is to  encourage the Ati to grow in their personal relationships with the Lord we like to read the Bible in Tagalog. I had prepared ahead of time a scripture from Proverbs with the plan to read it aloud. I decided on the spot to ask one of the ladies to volunteer to read it. One of our dear friends shyly agreed to it. I couldn't help but wonder if she had ever done anything like this before. After the scripture was read we asked for prayer requests which the ladies told me in Tagalog and I wrote them in the book in English so that my parents could pray for them as well. The lady who read out loud asked that we pray for the salvation of the Ati community, she expressed a burden for those in her tribe who still didn't trust in Jesus. It was a special moment for me as I was encouraged to hear an Ati believer express they too wished to see all the Ati come to love Jesus.

Then during prayer one of the ladies prayed out loud (this doesn't happen every time due to their shy personalities). Then after we said amen they asked to sing another song! This had never happened before. They requested we sing a song called "Walang Impossible Sa Atin Diyos" (Nothing is impossible for our God) Then after a few ladies asked to keep their lyric sheets until next time because they wanted to learn the lyrics. One lady said to me in Tagalog:

"I wish to sing these to my grandchildren when I rock them to sleep at night. These songs are so beautiful, I have never heard such pretty songs."
It warmed my heart to hear that!

As we walked out of the village my mood was quite the opposite of what it had been earlier. Encouraged, strengthened, joyful! It was probably one of the most fruitful Praise and Prayer times we had so far since we began doing it.

So on a day that I was just not feeling it God moved in a huge way!
My encouragement to you is to keep going! On days you are sure you don't have the energy to deal with life and it seems it would be better just to lay down and accept defeat, don't do it! Pick yourself up, keep your eyes fixed on Him and keep going! The greatest fruits come from the greatest effort!

The view from the top of the mountain behind the village.

 

The Scripture we read at Praise and Prayer yesterday.

Proverbs 3:19-26

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth,
By understanding He established the heavens.
 By His knowledge the deeps were broken up
And the skies drip with dew.
 My son, let them not vanish from your sight;
Keep sound wisdom and discretion,
 So they will be life to your soul
And adornment to your neck.
 Then you will walk in your way securely
And your foot will not stumble.
 When you lie down, you will not be afraid;
When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.
 Do not be afraid of sudden fear
Nor of the onslaught of the wicked when it comes;
 For the Lord will be your confidence
And will keep your foot from being caught

 

 

 

Nothing but hope

      I spent the last 4 days visiting a Ranch in the near by province. This Ranch is a home for abused, abandon and orphaned children. I went there in order to receive some training on how to manage the children that will soon be place under my care. Some of the children I met are in the process of being adopted. Those precious kids spent a lot of time talking to me about the day they would be adopted. One boy said this to me:
"When I get adopted I will get to pick a new name. They said I can pick my favorite name for when I have a family. I pick the name Steve." He said with a wide grin! "I pick Steve because that is Captain Americas name and he is my favorite hero."

Another boy said:
"When I get adopted I am going to Spain. I don't know Spanish but I am learning. Maybe my parents will speak English, I can speak English!"

I couldn't help but smile when I heard words like "when I get my family" or "when I am adopted". These sweet children are filled with so much joy, excitement and most of all HOPE!

     If only you heard some of the horrible stories these kids have as their life story! Some had been rescued from human trafficking just days before they were to be sold as slaves in Central Asia. Some had been literally bound by ropes to their mentally insane mother for their entire lives! Some had been raped and molested by family members since they were just 2 and 3 years old. Kids that were left to fend for themselves when their mother left town and never returned. Beaten by fathers, neglected by mothers, never loved, never wanted. But now, they live at the Ranch and they are filled with so much life and joy and HOPE!

     Where does this shinning beacon of hope come from? JESUS. That's what is so beautiful about the Ranch. There the kids are safe from the abuse, given food, love and they feel wanted, important and beautiful! Because the staff loves Jesus, they teach the children of Christ and His love for them and His ability to heal their wounds and make them like new! This message of HOPE shines through in every smile, every laugh...its beautiful.

Our hope, our joy and our love comes through the only one who ever loved us unconditionally, JESUS!

Hebrews 6:19-20
This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Blessed Beyond Belief

 

One year ago I remember feeling like the most nervous human being in the world! I stood at the bottom of a stair case looking up and feeling like my life had just taken a dramatic turn. I knew that this unfamiliar place was now my home. I knew that soon a group of guys and girls would take these stairs and I would meet the people I was to live with for the next 10 months. I knew a few of their names but I didn't have any clue what they were like. As I lugged my things up the stairs my brother guided me through the glass door that I open about a million times in the next few months. The halls were bare but something about this old building felt friendly! Soon I was introduced to people and moved into my room and my family left. As I unpacked and talked to my RA and Sight Coordinators I felt my nerves building. I spent that first night alone in my room. Over the next two days I was introduced to an assortment of young people from various states, family backgrounds and races. It was pretty obvious to me that we were a very strange group. Not much in common.  Yet I don't really remember much of an awkward stage. We soon blended into the crazy wacky family we are today!

 

But now looking back I cant help but smile to myself! I can hardly believe that a year ago these wonderful people were strangers to me! Now I am pretty sure I can identify each of their laughs, I can even know who is coming down the hall by the sounds of their steps! I remember times that we stayed up way too late talking about nothing!

I remember laying on the floor in the common room curled up in pain from laughing too hard! I remember crying my eyes out to about 99% of my class mates at least once in the year!

That little smelly hall that friendships were forged!

Long walks around the circle!

Long chats on the bench!

Sunsets at the pier! Four Wheeler rides at the Watson's. Camping in the frigid FL woods. Long hours in class that didn't feel long at all! Playing an assortment of games together simply because we wanted to be together. All of us crammed in the hall watching Frozen! Being surprised with coffee mugs from the boys on Valentines day! Going to Brewster's.

Flying half way across the world together!

All of these are sweet memories I will cherish forever! I thank God profusely for all of these people! I love you guys so much! Each of you have taught me something, made me laugh and built me up to be a better person! There is nothing I would trade for the year I had with you guys!

I was not only molded by my time in the Word and by the teachings of our wonderful teacher and friend Dr. Randy Smith. I was also trained up by the challenges of living in communion with these people, the joys of living with such a wonderful group who really truly accepted me for who I was, and the life lessons that each one of you taught me as I learned what it truly looks like to love and live in a God honoring way! There is no experience in the world that matches this one and I will never ever forget any of you. Not a day goes by that I don't miss you but I know one thing for sure. GOD IS GOING TO DO GREAT THINGS WITH US!

Growing up Russell

My family is controversial to say the least. We have been called Mormon, Mennonite, The Duggars, a zoo, a baseball team....pretty much anything people could think of to compare to my abnormally large family size!

Growing up there was always a child in the house under the age of 3, my mother often got asked if she was pregnant and more often than not the answer was yes. To some people my parents decision to have a whole brood of children was "foolish", "irresponsible" and just plain "crazy"! I don't know if it was that people doubted we could make it financially or they just thought that 10 kids would be too much for anyone to handle.

I am number 2 of the "sprouts" (as we were fondly called by many) and the only girl, which just makes things a little more interesting. Growing up with boys was no picnic but I don't exactly think it was awful either. At one point in my childhood I could run faster, climb higher, fight better, swim better than most of my friends and siblings all while wearing a dress! I was a regular Laura Ingles (or at least I aspired to be)!

I think I changed more diapers in my 18 years at home than most parents do ever! I learned very young the facts of life, I watched my mother tenderly care for about 6 of my younger siblings. I learned how to bath a baby, how to sooth a fussy baby, how to burp a baby, change diapers, dress, teach them how to walk...all those things many new mothers take classes to learn! Now this is not me bragging on me, if it weren't for my family being so "foolish" I would not have had this opportunity! I also learned how to bandage  booboos on little boys who thought it was a good idea to ride their bike down very steep hills! I could cook simple things (mostly breakfast foods) before I was 10.

Because I was homeschooled and was in the room for my mother teaching many of my siblings to read I also learned how to teach children. My parents way of raising my family is the reason why I was able to become a teacher when I lived in South East Asia.

My parents raised us in a primarily farming community. We participated in F-H and for that I can proudly say I have seen a cow, horse, dog, sheep and chicken be born! I also bottle fed and raised lambs, calves, kittens, puppies and a rabbit!

My childhood was abnormal to say the least. But I am 19 years old now and I would like to proudly say nothing about my childhood would I like to change! In my opinion there is nothing "foolish" about it!

My parents did something  uncommon, but honestly most of your great grand parents were raised the same way! Back in the day couples had lots of kids, and they had to learn things at a young age!

I want to finish this off with a piece of advice for any new Moms and Dads out there. I have not personally raised a family! I am no parenting expert. But I was raised in a "crazy" family and as a child having grown up fully. DO NOT listen to those people who call your parenting choices "foolish". If you are seeking God with your whole life and you are desiring to raise a family the way He would want you to, those other voices are just white noise! Even if your choices are unconventional that doesn't make you foolish or irresponsible or crazy! Follow Gods will and all the rest will fall into place because He is sovereign.

The Story of a Mother

Once upon a time there was born into the world a girl. She was born into an ordinary life.  She grew up surrounded by nature, raised on a small farm in a small town. As the girl grew she found herself being draw to something special. When she was still quite young she married a man and together they embarked on a great journey. They decided to follow Jesus.

Soon the two began to grow their family. They added a baby boy and soon after a baby girl. The next pregnancy was twins making their little family double in size! At age 23 this brave woman was the mother of 4 kids under the age of 5. The Lord set on her heart to add more, and soon their little brood grew until they had a total of 10 children, 9 boys and only one girl. This woman was a warrior, she chose to homeschool all of her kids. Together this man and woman raised their children, teaching them academics and also to love the Lord.

This woman was more than just a mother. When her oldest moved away she and her family moved to a distant land. There this woman opened up her heart and served a beautiful people. She loved them deeply and sought to serve God with everything she did! She took care of their wounds, she lifted their spirits with her love. Though she couldn't speak to them in words that they understood she was able to show them the love of God in ways that changed their hearts forever.

This woman, this warrior is my mother. Her love for the Lord, her passion to serve and her heart for the needy has made her not only a fantastic mother but a marvelous inspiration as well. She not only raised us children and taught us everything we would need to know she also dedicated her life to the cause of Christ. I have watched her take in the lost ones, the ones that slip between the cracks. When I was still very small and we lived still in the US I remember so many times when she would reach out to the hurting people around us. One time we even let a family of 6 move into our house for a time...and we didn't even know them. I can not ever express how much my mothers kind heart has taught me. Her love for the Lord has been passed down to me and her sensitivity to others as well.

Thank you Mom. Thank you for all those little moments that you did the right thing. All those small things you did that you thought went unnoticed, because my little eyes saw and they remembered. Thank you for those gentle words when my world seemed to be falling apart and for showing me your heart. To you they may have been moments of weakness but when you were being "weak" that was when I saw your strength. Thank you for all the kisses, hugs, smiles, and tiny things you did without even realizing that reminded me that you loved me. Not only for raising me and being my teacher but for being the jewel that you are! You truly are an inspiration and a hero!

My mother with one of the precious children we served while on the mission field.