So I am summarizing 6 life changing weeks of intense study, local ministry, growing in the Lord and sweet Christian fellowship into a few paragraphs.
There is no way I’ll be able to put into words everything that has happened; for one I can’t remember every detail, and two God has made certain feelings, thoughts, and emotions inexpressible. We’ll just sum it up as very informing, inspiring, and something I would recommend for every young person.
I went with basic medical knowledge in mind and that was pretty much it. I never took thought of people, culture, experience or really anything. I’m kind of glad I didn’t form any ideas in my head though, because half way through I began to see the picture God was painting and now that it is finished I can stand back in awe with jaw dropped, wondering at the greatness, love, and beauty of Jesus Christ. Not one of us has doubted that He hand picked each attendant from various parts of the world and gathered us at Mercy Link base in Mindoro, Philippines for the school. It would not have been complete had even one been absent. The staff was absolutely incredible and I am so thankful for each one, especially for all the prayer that was going into this event many months before hand. They prayed for the right people for this course, for God to give them discernment as they accepted applicants, and wow! I call this a prayer answered!
Bethany, a dear friend of mine; Naomi, a favorite cousin; and I flew out of Chicago on October the 19th all headed for one of the many Philippine islands. Something like 3 days and 14 hours later we arrived in Manila. Ok. So maybe it wasn’t quite that long, but it sure seemed like it! A lot of it probably had to do with sitting in O’Hare for 6 hours before leaving and then a 13 hour flight to Seoul, South Korea, where we had a small bit of movement walking back and forth for miles from floor 1 to floor 3 to floor 2 to floor 1 to floor 2 to floor 3 to floor 1 and so on, in every pursuit of my brother Caleb, but alas to no avail. Honestly, we were the most prim and intelligent representatives of the United States of America that have ever set foot in South Korea! As we get off of the plane, all grimy and stinky we immediately head for the restrooms: almost always stop number one. Can’t spend too much time there because I’m supposed to have a brother waiting for me somewhere in this massive place and we only have a limited amount of time to find and spend time with each other before he has to head back to base or we have to fly out.
So here we go marching along with heads held high and feet stomping - we’re on a mission! We head down the very long corridor to the only light in sight, my camera bag on my back, my purse on one shoulder; Bethany burdened down with two tremendously heavy backpacks; and Naomi with her carry-on carefully strapped on trying our best to understand the lady over the intercom as she speaks all instructions in her native tongue or else we in despair attempted to read the signs written only in Korean. Somehow we made it up to our gate where we pulled our computers out and tried to make contact with Caleb. It worked! So over google chat he says he can’t get through security so we’re going to have to come back outside of it. Back down the stairs or escalators or ladders or whatever they were we go, only to be met head on by grouchy security who don’t want to write the two lines in the record book to let us through and who for their life can’t figure out by their screening what the spiral on Bethany’s notebook is. She politely unpacks her rather bloated and crammed backpack while I impatiently tap my toe and hold my watch in front of my face. Finally, we get through and so now we’re back down on the first floor where everything is as dead as ever, nothing is written in English, and no one speaks English. After walking that very same long corridor again we pull out our computers and start chatting again. No, he’s not on the 1st floor, he’s on the third! Ok, so I’m not going to provide you with a mental picture of me because any of you who know me know exactly how I looked by this time and at that moment. There was only one eency weency problem with this deal: we have to go through security in order to get to the 3rd floor and he’s on the 3rd floor somehow outside of security. I was about ready to cry, either that or scream. The Koreans had the knack to put up beach ball size clocks every 20 ft. along each corridor where the numbers jumped out in front of you as you walked by and the seconds rang like gunshots in your ears. Time was wasting. We went back up to the 3rd floor - that was back up through security, and back to our gate. I immediately took off, walking every square inch of that floor that I could cover, in desperation trying somehow, someway, to see my brother. Even if it were two minutes, I knew the whole thing would have been worth it. God said “No”. His time was up he had to head back to Camp Casey. The tears started flowing; I felt like I could flood the entire place.
Soon thereafter we headed out again, this time for a shorter ride. Three hours later we arrived in Manila. Everything went smoothly and hotel service transported us to the Kabayan, where Mercy Link staff had already made reservation. After a short but intense fight for the shower in which we all almost perished, we got peck order arranged, showered, and then all crashed. The next morning we took our time to settle in and then headed out for San Pedro to visit Christian Bible Baptist College. The people there (we even met one of my cousin’s friends who had arrived the evening before!) were very friendly and hospitable, making it a very enjoyable day. Friday we spent on the streets of Manila exploring and having a look at the inner city. By Friday night most of our other team members had arrived, along with our dean, so we met all of them and the Saturday morning we all headed out for the island of Mindoro. It was a several hour drive down to the coast, and we missed the ferry by about 3 minutes, honestly, so all that allowed for was more sitting! However, we got a game of Mennonite Manners going so at that point I didn’t even notice. After an hour’s wait we got to sit another hour on the ferry. Maybe there is a reason Indians squat! I came very close to perching up on top of my seat a few times, but for the sake of my comrades I refrained. [I think people would be nicer to me if they knew exactly how nice I am to them. Even if it is just saving them embarrassment! I’m kidding!] Anyway, so by the time we got to Mercy Link my stomach was making more noise than a dog does at strangers, I mean to the point that the worms were about to go searching! But what do you know, Lizzy had a huge dish of spaghetti all prepared which readily satisfied all cravings!
I’d better move on a little faster or else I’m going to have 182 pages written here pretty soon!
So we went to church Sunday, had class for 6 weeks and came home. I guess there was a little more to it, than that. :)
Sunday we did go to church and then on Monday we started IMCI, Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses, which is for treating 2 weeks to 12 month old babies and 12 month to 5 year old children. Although normally a three month course we flew through it in a week’s time.
We had a different doctor each week and each one was incredible. They were all Christians most of them Filipinos too, and many had a burden for their own people. (With the exception of one who taught for only one day.)
The one exception in the previous paragraph was the chief of police who also arranged a jungle challenge for us. They held classes for us during the morning concerning first aid, knot tying and land navigation and then had us eat lunch, jungle style. They spread banana leaves on the table (usually done on the ground) poured the rice down the middle, with the stew-like topping on top and then pineapple on the outer edges. Everyone gathered around and dug in! It was cool though, because the way they eat with their hands, you push the food off of your fingers into your mouth without ever touching your mouth with your hands. In the afternoon Dr. Salvadora gave us case scenarios and knot tying tests and then we went out into the jungle and had to gather every edible thing possible in 5 minutes. One team came up with 17! From there we were given different land points that we had to calculate and find which eventually brought us back to camp where we were given an overview of our work and the winning teams awarded. This was the first time the Jungle Challenge had been incorporated into the school, but I was know it was a big hit! That was one of my favorite days out of the whole time there!
Everyone asks what the worst and best part was out of the whole time there, and I give “outreach” as answer for both. It was the best because you could be in among the tribal groups working on real people, practicing what you had learned, but the whole while giving them what they can’t get anywhere else. The worst was everything you had to see and encountered while on outreach. Malnutrition was rampant among the Mangyans, the tribals, to the point that 40-50% of infants die before reaching 1 year old! You would see 4 year olds looking like 2 year olds and a two year old’s ankles a little bit bigger than your thumb. Children running around naked with bellies like soccer balls because of worm infestation and goiters on women the size of a swollen soft ball. A baby with half of her body, head to foot, burned from boiling water, and the mother refusing to take her to the hospital. Mostly we just ran into eye and ear infections, worms, diarrhea, a few kidney/bladder infections, and other like things. The vast majority of the cases were not as severe as you would encounter in a clinic, seeing as we were going to the people compared to when the people are brought to you, but still, for first exposure it was eye opening. We brought several nurses on each outreach as interpreters and then several police doctors usually accompanied us as well.
O yeah, and before I leave the topic of Outreaches, I must tell of our last one. So here all 13 of us students, one student’s wife and son, Mr. Warren, Miss Narell, Ru and Angel, Doc Mispa and two nurses are all bellowing out “Ito Ang Araw” (“This is the Day”) as we bump along in the bus headed to a far off Mangyan village where we’ll hold outreach.’ Gray skies were a slight dampening to spirits, but this was our last outreach so they were still slightly boosted. No sooner did we arrive and one of the front tires on the bus went flat. No big worry. We’ve arrived safely and thus have all day to accomplish our purposes. We unloaded the bus, set up quickly, and began diagnosing and treating. The two women and three children that were in sight when we first arrived had all of a sudden multiplied into droves of men, women and children, old, young, and infants, all swarming around crowding the little space we originally had and getting lines and orders all mixed up. This was by far our largest outreach and we were encountering problems and conditions much worse than we had seen at any of the others. We had only been there for a couple of hours and it was nearing noon when rumor started going around that we were going to have to leave very soon because of problems with the police. It didn’t make any sense, but we did see Ru holding a quiet conversation with the MPA which both Warren and Miss Narelle joined in on after a few minutes. Upon their return a few of us were filled in on the facts, but still others were confused and ignorant so we held a joint counsel. Apparently the police spotted something unusual in a young man intermingling in the group of patients waiting outside the building, and so they asked him to identify himself. At the command, he ran...along with four or five others who joined him. The police could now identify these as members of the largest rebel group there in the Philippines. A few of the police followed in pursuit while the rest, which was also a very small number, stayed with us. They recommended that we go ahead and leave because they couldn’t determine reasons for this sudden appearance of the rebels, but we had better play it safe. There was just one slight problem. The tire was off of the bus! Moreover, the tire had been taken into town less than 45 minutes before which meant that maybe, just maybe, it had arrived into town by now, but then it must be fixed, and then another long travel back to the village where we sat stranded! In other words it would be a very, very, long time before we could ever gather hope of seeing it’s return! As we were gathered together we prayed (especially for the tire’s safe return :) ) and then went about our business as usual. We tied things up in order to eat lunch, but hadn’t gotten more than half the meal consumed when news came that the police who were combing the woods looking for the rebels had happened upon a much larger group. Something was surely up. We were to leave immediately. So we packed our bags, locked everything else in the bus, and headed out on foot. A few police led the way, a few others took up the rear, and then obviously others had been posted on the roadside along the way. We exited the village, forded two creeks, and arrived at the police truck that would take us all back to base. One or two of our crew rode in the other vehicle, but other than that we fit everyone else onto the truck! Some on the seats, some in between the seats, some under the seats, (not really) some on the floor, some hanging off of the back, five of us in the back seat of the cab, and three police in the front. We got close. :P Ahhhh, adventure! I love it!
Speaking of close quarters, the previous outreach was too far back in the mountains for our little bus to be able to make it, so we hijacked a dump truck which carried all of us students, our supplies, a whole slew of health care workers, and our interpreter nurses, in the back, to our destination. We thought it was full going there - it was crammed coming back! We had all of the above, plus coconuts given as gifts by the tribals, plus almost all of the police! That put myself and a few others up on top, sitting on the edge of the bucket with our feet on the roof of the cab. Over and under the mountains on a one way road, honking as we rounded the corners in order to warn oncoming traffic, dodging the branches that threatened to sweep us off and send us flying into the crew below, and holding on with one hand while taking pictures of the behind landscape. I have never had such a fun ride in my entire life, and I’m afraid I won’t get to experience another. Transportation is so boring here in the states!
Trying to think of what else y’all want to know.
O yeah, all good Americans ask about the food! The food was good; ya know, the fish eyeballs staring up at you from your plate where the non-salted rice is piled high beside it and the chopped pig fat cooked to a stew with a piece of potato every squared 3 inches straddles the top, a glass of fresh coconut water to wash it down and some sweet, frothy fruit salad to top it all off. O yeah! No, I’m serious, the food was good. We just had toast or instant oatmeal for breakfast, but Koya Jun would come and cook us lunch and dinner every day which was usually consisted of a noodle or rice soup for lunch and then either rice with meat for dinner or rice with a meat and vegetable stew. I didn’t so much care for the soups, but the rice with stew or meat was always really, really good! Koya Jun would kindly take the heads off some of the fish, but of course others still had to have their heads left on. I did eat a fish eyeball on outreach one time, just to be able to say that I did it, and it wasn’t bad...just hard and fishy.
One day of class, Mr. Warren’s wife - Miss Pauline who runs a shelter/orphanage, taught us on malnutrition and then took us over there to spend time with the children. It was incredible. Because the main religion in the Philippines is Catholicism, the people don’t believe in birth control which means that in the tribes you have families of 10 - 12 and of course there is no way they can feed provide for that many so the vast majority, of the children especially, are extremely malnourished and as I already mentioned a high percentage of the babies die. So whenever Miss Pauline comes across a case she thinks she help in she offers to take the child. Most families will just give her the baby because they can’t provide for it anyway, but those who want to keep it, she offers to take for 6 months, get them up to par, and return them; then of course, she follows up. Anyway, it was such a fun afternoon! A couple weeks prior we had attended their open house for a new building and the governor even came out and cut the ribbon. We had a good introduction at that time so it was even easier to settle in the second.
The hardest part was leaving. Over the course of time I had gotten to know the local children very well, they wanted to play every afternoon so often whether hot or cold, rain or shine, dry or wet I ended up playing tag, kick the can, or soccer in the cow pasture, and ended up completely drenched each time whether from sweat or from rain! Towards the end I actually got to know one family very well, first by simply walking a couple of siblings home and getting to know their parents. Over the next few days, which were our last days, we really bonded. The Lazoros took us on a canoe ride on a huge lake/swamp area; we were over at their home several evenings; and then a couple of us attended church with them the last Sunday. The last day, I kid you not, I had Mrs. Lazoro crying on my shoulder, 20 kids wanting half a dozen hugs each, and still others begging for me to come play “just one more time”. I am so, so, thankful for the friendships I formed though, especially with Jessica Lazoro and her family.
Several of us had to fly out Saturday noon, so in order to ensure a ride on the ferry we had to leave on Friday. It was only probably a half hour ride from Base to the ferry, but then an hour’s sit on the ferry, and a several hour drive up to Manila. Eun Si was flying out very close to the time we were so we all said more tearful goodbyes (how I hate those!) And then headed out. Our trip back, was pretty uneventful *until* an hour or two onto our flight from Incheon, Seoul, S. Korea, to O’Hare. I had been watching the little screen in front of me and marking off each minute that passed with my pen on a notepad. I hate sitting! I mean...I hate sitting! And if you don’t believe me, I’ll say it again, I hate sitting!!! So here I am - sitting - beginning to comprehend the fact that I’ve been - sitting - for 5 hours and have about 10 hours left of - sitting - to go! Out of the blue, a thought came flying into my head broadside, destroying everything in it’s path. If we left Tuesday and got there Wednesday, jumping 12 hours in time, on the way home we would be going back 12 hours landing us Saturday evening even though we left Sat. afternoon. My cause of concern - we had told Daddy and Mama that we would be arriving back Sunday evening; Daddy was going to drive to Chicago to pick us up. Worse yet, Naomi’s mother had gotten her a separate flight from Chicago to Pittsburgh - it was scheduled for Sunday evening as well! As I’m remembering all these things I keep thinking, “No, I’m just confused. I’ve calculated wrong. I’m too tired, to be trying to figure this out. Someone else would have caught on by now if this were true.” Suddenly I turned to Bethany and with the voice of “confirm that I’m wrong”, stated the fact, “We’re going to be arriving Saturday evening not Sunday.” At first she just gave the automatic “No”, but then as I began to explain, she got a confused look on her face. I got scared. She dug up the itinerary and upon close examination my fears were confirmed when I saw that our flight had no marking *next day. Well, here we are miles up in the air, unable to have any contact with earth. Following landing, I called Daddy laughing, but with a hint of hopefulness in my voice, “You don’t happen to be in Chicago, do you?” All I got was a dead response of, “Don’t tell me you’re there.” I then explained and he headed out. We got Naomi sent off a day early for a small (haha) fee, and then it was just Bethany and I to wait the five hours. We got to hand out money to two different people in desperate traveling straits, and witness to the one girl. She claimed to be a Christian, but was definitely living a life with no fruit. We had a really good conversation though, and she asked a lot of questions. The other lady was so flustered and in such a hurry, she didn’t even offer to pay it back. Lol. I shouldn’t laugh, but it was kind of funny! So yeah, then Daddy arrived just in the nick of time, (like there’s any comprehension of time at 11:00 at night in O’Hare airport, where everything’s as dead as a haunted ghost town) and we traveled home. We got in at 5:30 Sunday morning, and by that time Bethany and I were so wound up we couldn’t sleep, so we talked some as we laid in bed and then occasionally tried to fall asleep, but couldn’t. Eventually we just got up, showered and got ready for church. No one was expecting us back yet, so we got out of the van a block down the street and waited ‘till the service started and then walked in. Jaws dropped and we got glares from the young people who would have to sit through an hour of church before being able to speak to us.
I still sit back and wonder at how the Lord arranged this trip altogether. Jay and Ruthie Liebee, my boss’ daughter and son-in-law, had attended the year before and recommended it to me. That very summer I had began working which provided the funds. Traveling companions were a huge blessing, and then all the friendships that were made, and even just the opportunity. I stand in awe at the power of an Almighty God who sees fit to order our lives in such a beautiful fashion!
