Christmas in the Philippines 2012 - Part 2

A local version poinsettia

Elder Cropper chose and uploaded our pictures for the blog at 1 am Christmas morning because we had spent all day shopping for, preparing, and delivering baskets, then we went to the C family Christmas Eve Family Home Evening and stayed later than we should have, and the uploading takes hours.  I was finishing the captions at 2 am.  Yikes!! It was like we were up late wrapping presents for little ones with our Santa hats on.

BUT I woke this morning at 6 and realized I hadn’t really said what we had wanted to say about Christmas, so . . .

The pictures of all the lights, nativities, snowmen and trees in the different towns are a small representation of what we see for months here in the Philippines as we drive all up and down the province of Negros Oriental. People love to celebrate this holiday!! People start saying “advance Maayong Pasko” in September and then by December they are leaving off the “advance” And yes, they say “advance” in English, and Merry Christmas in Visaya or English, depending on . . .  I’m not sure what.

The others pictures are of some of the many families we took baskets to.  The Elders helped sort and make the baskets and then off we trekked, down a river bank and out to the beach and into the crab fields and today we will do some more in jungle and mountain.  What a joy it is to see the faces of especially mothers and fathers when they see that their children will have something they never in a lifetime expected. It could get addicting.

We didn’t add pictures of the two events that really felt like Christmas to us.  The first was the Christmas devotional for the missionaries on our island brought to us by the Schmutzes and the APs.  It was so great!! They showed the gorgeous Immanuel video from the church website, then President gave a beautiful Christmas message—he is an artful story teller, and can really bring even long-loved stories to another level of animation.  He weaves different passages of scripture together until you are able to discern patterns you had never seen.  Christmas celebrations could have stopped there and we would have been so happy. But of course we ate--a catered meal of Italian pastas and chicken.  And of course there was a talent show by the missionaries in which of course Elder Cropper and I had to do something goofy—chinikins—with the Zone leaders.  It was so fun to see all these missionaries come up with things that you would never have imagined.

Then at the C. family’s FHE, we felt again what they have been so great at extending to us—the love of family—that unconditional acceptance when you know that the differences don’t count and the language is not a barrier (‘cause of course their English is good, but it’s more than that) and you are truly loved.

We have also been to several church Christmas parties in different branches and one district, and there are more of those to come during this week.  They have been fun and certainly lively, and I had to shed a tear about this being our last Christmas here with these people we have come to feel so close to, while at the same time I was mourning not being with our own family.  Strange.

And the conclusion of all this:  it really is about Christ.  All the preparations, all the giving, all the receiving originates in our love of the Savior and our gratitude for his birth and life.  Even if, when the Bais town council, puts up a 40 foot Christmas tree, they have no real thoughts of the Christ child, still for those of us who worship him, the tree and all the rest remind us of that sacred, holy, eternal gift from our Eternal Father and his blessed, obedient, unspotted, majestic Son.

The message we have been sharing as we find ourselves called on to give a Christmas thought everywhere we go is twofold: First, the humble circumstances in which this King was born, speak to us of our Father’s lesson that our circumstances do not define us and that we too have divine natures.  We are children of God.  The miracle, majesty, and mystery of His birth all become a glorious portrayal of the divine heritage we too can claim.  So when we hear the song, “Away in a Manger” we can think of the song, “I am a Child of God”.  Though Christ was the Only Begotten, a God himself,  and we are not, we are His spiritual children, and we are sons and daughters of His Father.

Moon rise over Cebu from our house.

The second message we have been sharing is that of the light that emanates from the Savior and how that light is represented in the new star; the star was foretold in both hemispheres appeared at His birth.  That light animates each soul. It is what allows the sun to shine and our hearts to beat.  It is the source of the love we feel for each other and the love we feel from God. Wise men knew.  Samuel knew.  And we now know. 

May we recognize the source of the light in our lives--the babe, the King, the Son, our brother, Jesus Christ.  Merry Christmas to all.

Christmas in the Philippines 2012 - Part 1

At the District Christmas party--two little Christmas elves--J and C

Elder M Elder C, 2 more Christmas elves, and Elder C found a 3
headed pina to go in a gift basket

...if Sister M can get into this place, so can I--see the elders in the
background waiting for me to take a nose dive.

Our first caroling visit--to Sister M's ever expanding family.  The
 8 grandkids in the front have all been with her at church single-y
or in small groups--the grown ups never come

Sister M with her newest grandson--the abandoned one

Sister A's family

Our dear Sister C and her lovely daughter Sister K.  It feels like home at their house,
and has since we first arrived here--their big hearts loved us before they even
knew us.  They took us in the first week we arrived, and have included us ever
since. Tonight we spent Christmas Eve with them enjoying great food, FHE,
talents, games, singing and love. Brother and Sister C have 4 boys
and 2 girls,  all grown, all about the same ages as our kids, all musical and athletic
and brilliant.  No wonder we feel at home with them.  Thank you C family
 for making room for us in your hearts.

Christmas decor in San Jose

Pigs and produce being delivered by barge to Christmas feasts. 
Yes they are hanging up side down. And yes they are alive, but they are
resting on a shelf-like thingy

Christmas in Bindoy

Our contribution to the branch party--the pig, not the boys. 
Little A. and J. can't wait!

Another display in Bindoy

underwater theme for this year in Bindoy

the wise men in Bindoy

Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year from all of us, or from
us to all, or to all of you.  Ya, we still don't know much of this language

Elder Cropper has really kind of ballooned over here

don't remember which festive town this is

entrance to Bais City

The award winning tree in Bais They even have a train that runs
around the tree and you can actually ride in it.

the photo isn't great, but this is still our favorite Christmas setting

Elder M., me, and Elder C. doing a chipmunk chinikins with Elder C. directing

the Amlan Branch loved the chinikins

Merry Christmas on the cake for the Negros Island Christmas missionary devotional

Elves? Reindeer? We are not sure, but we had such fun caroling and
delivering baskets with these fine men of God

At Sisters L.'s house on the beach

The R. family

Sibulan nativity

Sister M, brother J and their son A. with their own festive light display. So this is what Christmas
 looks like here--lots of festivities--lots of caroling and partying--lots of love shared--lots
of decorations and imaginative displays in all the towns--lots of warm, delightful feelings of
 brotherhood. The only thing missing is you.  We love you all so much, 
Merry Christmas    

Typhoon Pablo

The R family heading home after the evacuation

 In light of the news I just saw about the tragedy in Connecticut, our trials here on Negros seem hardly serious.  We are so grateful that the people here on this island are all safe, the families we know lost no one to the typhoon, and the damage is all repairable. Although, those on the southeastern island of Mindanao , the large island just south of us did not fare so well.  Many hundreds lost their lives, and there was terrible destruction to property as well.  In the face of such devastation, we wish we could hold each of our children and grandchildren tight tonight, like Pres. Obama envisioned.  We count on you to do that for us and for each other.  We pray mightily for the families in those communities who have lost so much. May God fill their hearts with love and peace and the strength to reach out for help and support rather than allowing hatred or malice or despair to do further damage.  I hope they can picture a whole world of people helping them to hold and carry their grief, not just as a media event, but as mothers and fathers all over the world, who are stopping to mourn with them. Because that's what we are doing.

Two mango trees topple on the M's house

And still we will report on our island in the typhoon last week, though with renewed perspective. You might think that typhoons are normal here, and they are, but the big one last year with its crushing landslides and heavy rains and flooding and then this “super typhoon” last week, with its quick destruction and furious winds, are both way beyond normal.  The old folks in this area say there have never been winds this strong in their life time.  The high winds caused much death and destruction on the windward Island of Mindinao, and usually it stops there, but this one gathered its strength back up over the short ocean distance between, and did a lot of damage on our side of Negros as well.  Huge, ancient trees were torn out by the roots.  We drove past one behemoth spread prostrate across the road, and a woman in our car said, “I remember playing in that tree on my way to school.”  The next day we drove past again with her father, and the man said the same thing his daughter had said about this old friend that was now crushing a small store across the street.

The good news is that this storm was predicted better and the warning was communicated better, and the timing was not as difficult as last year— when the flooding hit violently and unannounced in the middle of the night.  This time, church leaders had time to get permission to open the buildings for people to evacuate to.  And so people came in the afternoon and spent the night-- members of the church and neighbors--all sheltering and being fed while the worst of it blew over that evening. Some went home the next day to no damage, some went home to roofs blown off or trees uprooted and crushing their homes, but no one was hurt.

Actual loss seems less than from the flooding last year.  Last time everything just literally washed away or covered in mud. This time it was mostly structural damage to buildings from wind or trees as well as some major crop damage to rice and bananas.  A banana farmer in Mindanao lost 90% of his crop. In our area it was more like 50%--still a big blow.

The road is now passable

Old trees just couldn't withstand the wind

Of course there were those who did not evacuate.  The missionaries were all told to get home and stay put. And they were all safe.  Some members, in hind sight, should have gone but didn’t, thinking it would be okay to stay home.  It turned out not to be our dear Branch Pres., who lives right across the highway from the open sea, texted us at about 6 pm to please come help, his roof was giving way.  He was there with his wife, mother-in-law, little nephew and new baby huddled in the house with the winds raging and the rain pelting face on.  We got in the truck and headed their way, but within a hundred yards for our gate, on the highway was a massive tree.  We drove round the top end of it and came across another within maybe 50 more yards.  This one had a power line tangled in its branches, but it looked like we might be able to get under the line and around the tree.  As we tried to assess it, people came out yelling to us to move, pointing to another tree that was very precariously creaking and swaying, right over the truck.  We high tailed it back and hunkered down in our house, but I had to cry as I texted President that we couldn’t get to him.  I pictured how they might be faring in the fierce wind and rain that was now beating horizontally on our window and forcing rainwater into the unsealed windows and doors of our comparatively tight house.  They eventually got an emergency vehicle to come get them to a shelter in the next town.  We saw the next day that limb that was over the truck did indeed come down. 

It is safe as long as the car in front of you doesn't spark.

Then at 9 pm, when I guess the eye was going quickly past, and things had eased a bit, we got another emergency text.  Please come help.  Brother A and his wife and 4 kids had lost much of their roof, were being battered by rain and wind, and were expecting the worst still to come.  They live way up hill from the sea, so they had not thought to evacuate. Since they lived in the opposite direction from our earlier failed attempt, Elder Cropper thought he might be able to get to them.  He went to the church and picked up brother E and brother J who he knew were there with their families and who he knew would help.  They couldn’t make it up the main road, so turned onto a side street and found that road with a tree blocking it.  With his trusty saw, they cut that tree apart and moved it off the road to find another bigger tree blocking the road. They back tracked and found a way back to the main road and a second detour to Bro. A’s turn off.  Trees and power lines were blocking that road but with a little muscle they progressed only to find banana trees across the road.  With a few hacks of the bolo knife (machete) and a bit more muscle they were moved.  It is a good thing Elder Cropper has a lot of muscle.  Coming to a place in the road that was flooded, they waded through knee deep water in the darkness with the wind blowing.  The A family had made it down quite a ways off their though their own detours-- mud, downed trees and swollen creek.  The men got them back to the church safely and Elder Cropper got home soaked and tired but safe and sound.

In the middle of the night we both woke with a start.  There was no sound.  It is NEVER silent here.  Trucks rumble all night down the highway near our house, roosters crow, lizards “tika” pigs squeal, and often the rain falls on our metal roof and can get really deafening, and the wind often howls.  But at about 3 am on the morning after the fiercest typhoon in memory, everything stopped.  Trucks could not pass, animals were silent, no wind, no rain.  It was eery, but we felt so grateful to be together safe and soundless.  It meant the worst was over.

 Mango trees didn't fare so well. Not enough root structure.

Everyone lost electricity for a time, many lost water.  It all came back slowly, small area by area, until about 10 days later we could see that all the communities had lights back on.  The clean-up was immediate.  Trucks came from other towns (Bais, Manjuyod) that were not as badly hit with chain saws to help the towns with the most damage (Dumuguete, San Jose, Amlan, Tanjay), and by the early morning hours—still dark— the main roads were passable.  But people are still repairing, shoring up toppled bamboo walls, replacing neepa roofing, applying tarps for temporarily keeping dry.  For some it will take months to come up with the funds and the man power.  But Filipinos can do more with a broom and a bolo (machete) than you can believe.  As we would drive up and down the highway in the next few days, hundred foot tall trees, which had crashed and spread over several yards and buildings would disappear into tidy stacks of firewood in a few hours.  We hardly got any pictures of the destruction cause it got cleaned up so fast to let ambulances and buses through.  People are still sweeping, and back to daily routines.

Missionaries pitched in to help folks, the local leaders sent in reports for assistance from the area authorities, relief goods got distributed, but all this sets people back, yet again, in a place where there is little slack to take up.  But no one complains, the sisters resume practices for the dance they will perform at the Christmas party, the 40 foot Christmas tree in the Plaza at Bais was put back to rights, the shops in Dumuguete were packed today, 2 Saturdays before Christmas.  As always, life goes on.

~Time Warp~

Gecko Time

Zone activity at the Cropper's just before BBQ'd hamburgers

Sister Schmutz, our mission president's wife, made the observation that our lives here feel like the movie, Groundhog Day. It’s true!

There is no pattern to the days of our weeks.  Since we are not held to the strict schedule of the young missionaries, we do P-day stuff (P stands for preparation—it’s the day missionaries get “off” to do all their household and personal stuff, and to play, sight see or explore if they can fit it in) on days other than P-day if we are in town (change the oil, buy groceries, buy a printer cartridge).  Then on P-day we usually fill at least some of  it with our regular work.  Plus our Sundays are workdays, our p-days are mid-week, and we are likely to be in long, gospel-related meetings on any given day, not just Sunday, so normal weekly patterns, even those that young missionaries come to cycle into are not dependable to us for telling time.  The word “rest” has a different meaning in scripture than in common usage, and has nothing to do with sitting around, so we “rest” all the time, and we throw in a tiny bit of sitting around on occasion too (reading a few pages of a novel, watching the news, watching a movie, emailing, writing a blog) but not on any particular day. 

Mmmmmm, tuod mangos

Ten Tons of sugar cane all hand cut and hand loaded

Second factor in our time warp: there are no seasons that we can recognize.  The slight differences in temperature and rainfall are unpredictable and indiscernible to us.  I’m sure if you are a sugar cane farmer you can tell variations in rainfall and temperature, but to us it’s all just hot and wet. We have clued in to some of the harvest patterns, but they are so different from home.  Mangos can be forced (by spraying a hormone on the tree we are told) to produce two or even three times a year, but if left untreated, they produce in a yearly pattern, but with a long season, since different varieties come on at different times.  Basically there has never been a time of year when we could not get a lovely mango, but March through June they are truly astonishing.  As for sugar cane; it is yearly, but the harvest takes months—November till April. SO cane trucks, loaded with their minimum of 10 ton of cane, are rumbling by and holding us up on the road all day and all night for fully half the year.   

Rice paddies with coconut and mango trees

And rice; I think they get 3 harvests a year, but that’s hard to tell because they rotate the paddies and they are always in a state of harvest, fallow, planting or growing, all in fields next to each other.   

Bananas have no season that we can detect.  They are always growing, always getting harvested, each variety is always available.  It just seems to have to do with when you plant the tree—you plant it and in 11 months you harvest. Then of course coconut—also no season we have seen, though they tend to harvest 3or 4 times a year.   So, all those things that feel like seasons to local people, are not part of our seasonal cues—no fall, no winter, no spring, no pear farm harvest.   

Endless supply of coconuts and coconut water

Bananas grow to maturity in 11 months!

Rambutans...very sweet once you are inside

West side of the island: sunset over the ocean

East side: incredible sunset over the mountains

Wow! what a sunset

Then there is the equator effect.  We live only 8 degrees north of it, so every day is virtually the same length. If you wake at 4:15 am it is pitch dark; by 4:45, there is light appearing over Cebu Island across the strait; and the sun is up and hot by 6:00 am.  In the evening, sun set is about 5:30, and it’s fully dark by 6:30. The total change in length of days for the year is only 1 hour and 45 minutes— that’s on average about 20 seconds difference in a day—not a perceivable change on a daily basis. No cues there as to what month it might be. And if we are on the other side of the island, the sun comes up and goes down opposite from what we normally see!

Plus the school year here is different from ours.  School kids, including colleges get out in March and start in June.  So there are tons of kids and young adults in uniforms at certain parts of the day during certain parts of the year, but if you are unconsciously linking the back-to-school sign you saw in the store to Aug, then you are a whole quarter off.

Musn’t forget the six-week pattern of mission life that keeps us unaware of months and locked into the six-week  “transfer.”  The missionary planners and most (but not all) the missionary-related meetings are on this transfer schedule—zone conferences, zone interviews, transfer days, etc.  The result is that a transfer, a month and a half, seems mentally comparable to a month, so months are gobbled up half again as fast as normal

Lecheon Baboy--the skin is the delicacy

And of course holidays and fiestas—so key to keeping track of time—are all different.  Christmas décor goes up in September, Thanksgiving and Halloween are non-existant, and there is always a fiesta going on somewhere—full on celebrations on the magnitude of Christmas— that are different days in every barangay and every municipal and every city. Amlan fiesta is on November 29 and 30, so today pigs by the hundreds are getting slaughtered.  Think of turkeys at Thanksgiving, only these are killed in the back yard where they were raised in prep for today.  Every household serves a spit-roasted pig or sometimes many.  And the killing begins days ahead.  The music throbs all night for days from houses and venues all around us, and the pigs squeal high and loud also all day and night. Last year this was disturbing, but this year we know it is only for a few days and all will be peaceful again.  We are invited to several homes to celebrate Amlan fiesta, so it must be the end of November of course.

Anyway, on any given day, I can tell you exactly what time it is based on the sun, but I have no idea what day of the week, what week of the month, or what month of the year.  Some days seem long, others hardly happen, weeks don’t really exist, months are careening by without our really knowing they came and went, and the 6-week transfers are obscenely short. Whether you reckon time by Chronos—chronologically—or by Kyros—through patterns, cycles and seasons—we are ALL messed up.

 A great ZL. We miss them all when they leave, but time is up.

Happy Birthday Marcus/balloons/OFW

Tell us when your birthday balloons arrive

Dear Marcus, Happy Birthday!! We miss you.  We miss singing with you—especially caroling.  We miss seeing you with your kids—man they love you in a beautiful way; enjoying your many projects—uh, who has a self-made zip line in their back yard?; watching your goofy antics at celebratory events—bottle whistling, role playing and such.  We miss challenging conversations that stretch us. We miss laughing with you.  Okay, that’s enough of that before we all get maudlin.  The main thing is that while we are billions of meters away from you, we think about you and pray for you every day—and just plain miss you. 

Here in our current neck of the woods people are very accustomed to being far from home, as we are now. There are so few jobs here, and so little hope of advancement or education for your children, that people leave home by the droves to work overseas and send money home.  There is even an acronym OFW (overseas Filipino worker), and a department in the national government to oversee all the oversea-going! In2010 it was estimated that 11% of all Filipinos are not living in the Philippines!  Crazy.  They are often skilled workers—nurses, PTs— but are working as house help or in nanny positions.  And they leave home for years at a time, leaving kids behind with others. They are all over the world, in Japan, Lebanon, Switzerland, but most are in the US and the numbers are almost as high in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, UAE, and Canada. Foreign countries love Filipino house helpers because their English is far better and their accents more understandable than those who learn English in other countries; this is due to the long connection with the US that the Philippines has—generations of English speakers and English as a second official language.

Marcus, Rebecca, Jack and Eliza

Elder Ardern of the 70, and in the area presidency over Philippines, counts this overseas drain as the most serious cultural problem facing the family in this country.  And we see its effects on so many families.  One effect of course is the lack of parental love and supervision.  By far most of these overseas workers are female, their kids are being raised by aunties or grandmas who may or may not be really engaged, and their father is often not involved.  The second effect is almost as problematic.  If there is an oversea worker in the family, then that person sends home support for their kids and those raising them, which gets stretched to extended family.  And hence comes this dependent culture between workers and non-workers where so many people here literally forget how or why one would work.  A third effect is on the worker.  Sometime their working conditions are horrible, their wages still low, they are practically enslaved since they don’t earn enough for plane fare home, their employers  often confiscate their passports, and they only come home every second or even up to fifth year. They might live in a closet under a stair way their lips and skin cracking from the desert dryness they are unaccustomed to, with no chance for improvement, no chance of going home, and little ability to communicate with family other than sending money by wire.  If that worker is married, you can imagine how many of those marriages survive.  It is very common for people to have families in both countries—the family they left behind, and the family they have now in Singapore or wherever—another tragic effect of OFW.

But all is not tragic.  A few make it work.  Children are resilient.  Church and community step in.

Happy Birthday from our front yard.

Here is our most recent encounter with it.  We met a family where the mom, has been gone in Dubai for 8 years.  Her daughters are 16 and 17.  She comes home every 2 years for a month or so. The dad is at home with the girls and has a small business.  Even though their dad has moved away from the church and acquired a few vices, these girls have actually fared amazingly well without their mom.  They were both baptized just before she left, and the branch has held them close since. They are always at the church, engaged in whatever is going on—seminary, YW activities, service projects, firesides, b-ball games, choir practice.  They are now both in first year college (remember high school only goes to grade 10 here, though that is soon changing).  They are not pregnant (soooo common here) they are not doing drugs, alcohol or tobacco, they are doing well in school, they are out- going and love to practice their English, giggling and egging each other on. 

Just in case the first batch doesn't make it we sent more

We met their mom, Sister G., last week.  She was home on leave.  It was supposed to be 2 months, but her employer has called her every day demanding that she come back early because the 4 children miss her so much.  Sister G. reminds the woman that her daughters have been missing her too, but the woman says, yes, but they are grown and so they are fine without you.  She says her 2 year old won’t stop saying “Nita”, “Nita” and crying. So Sister G. is giving in and cutting her leave short.  She is hoping her boss can get her husband a job too, so she doesn’t want to rock that boat.   I just wonder how often her girls cried for her while she was tending those other babies.  And now Sister G. goes back so that (according to her) the mother can ignore them and sleep till 11 am.  She doesn’t dare refuse or she will lose her job, her husband might not get the job the employer is holding out as a carrot, and her daughters won’t finish their education.  When they graduate, she will come home for good. In the mean time she cannot take with her any scripture—not allowed in the house--she must cover her head always, she cannot attend church, nor leave the house on Sunday. But her daughters will have and education, and they are strong, so the investment paid off.

Marcus we are so grateful our family members don’t have to make such difficult choices. We are now far away, but not till after our kids were grown and self-reliant.  You have had to be away from your family for relatively short periods here and there for training and such, but you have always made time for your family, the time away has been relatively short, and your relationship and influence has never diminished. You give them what they need in all aspects of their life, and you put them first in your decisions and priority.  Your relationship with them is so sweet and so powerful.  We think you are a great Dad and husband and we are grateful for how you serve them and your country, and teach them by example of love and compassion and service. We love you Marcus, and on your birthday we pay tribute to you, to your service in the army, and to your continued love and influence on your family.  And, we miss you.