We've been home in the tribe now for two and a half weeks. Some have asked how I'm adjusting and what life is like for me here. What is the same and what is different from life in the U.S.? One word that comes to mind is... SWEAT. It's darn hot and humid here! Halfway through our first day home, Bill and I sat down for a minute, with sweat pouring down our faces, and Bill said, "What were we thinking?" Apparently many people thought we would never return, including the Palawanos and some of our missionary coworkers. We were gone over five years. We are five years older than when we left, and twenty-three years older than when we first moved in here. So, we have a lot of adjusting to do, and big adjustment number one seems to be to the climate. We keep reminding ourselves that people pay a lot of money to go to a spa and get a sauna and heat treatment. We get it for free every day. Our pores are so cleansed now that we squeak. There must not be a toxin left ANYWHERE in our bodies. We arrived here June 6th. And now we remember why June was always our least favorite month in the tribe. It is the time of year where Hot Season meets Rainy Season, so we have Steam Season. Some nights we lay moldering in our bed, two hot bodies under the mosquito net, still sweating. Yeah, it's great here. Wanna come visit us?
Another theme of these last two weeks is CRITTERS. When we moved in we discovered that we were sharing our home with unwelcome guests... a very active colony of termites. We thought we had gotten rid of them back in February, but they weren't gone, they are never gone. Living in between the two layers of our woven bamboo walls. In the millions. Pouring into the house up several house posts. Big battle ensues. Forces of right versus forces of evil. Man against beast. Skirmish one, man wins. Skirmish two to the insects. Man is hobbled by not wanting to use heavy poisons, because of man's asthma. Water mixed with rock salt is thrown at all the walls. Skirmish three to man. One day cease fire. Termites pour back in. Skirmish four to bugs. Chemical warfare ensues, with bug poison being used. Skirmish five to man. Meanwhile, wife is cleaning up damage from termites in the house... scrubbing mud they carried in out of drawers and off cabinet shelves. Back in February we discovered they had eaten into all of our books, so whole library, including all our kid's childhood books went into the trash pit behind the house. Termites finally down, but much war damage.
Carpenter bees have made homes around the eves of our house. They drill a perfectly round hole into the wood, then go inside and hollow it out to lay their larvae. They are huge flying insects, with an armor plating that is actually quite pretty... iridescent blue-black. They are really loud, so we call them "motorcycle bugs." A pair of badminton rackets is our weapon of choice for these guys. Hit them down out of the air, then go squash them with your shoe.
And we have geckos. Not just the cute little house lizards that eat mosquitoes... we have those too. But big foot-long guys that live in the rafters of our ceiling-less house. Geckos always go to the bathroom in the same place everyday, and if it happens to be in a bad place, that is a problem. When we moved in, a big one was doing his business over our bed. So every night, part of the routine was to get rid of the gecko droppings. But when he did it in the middle of the night while we were in bed, right between our pillows, we knew that gecko had to GO. That guy is now toast, but there is another one. The other day I found him when I opened our silverware drawer, sitting on top of all the forks and spoons. Surprised me. Surprised him. I don't think I want geckos in my silverware. He is a big, ugly guy but we haven't caught him yet.
Then there was the snake that made its slithery way into the house. Bill chased it around with his machete, dealt it a serious wound, but was unable to catch or kill it. Bleeding, it made its way behind our kitchen cabinets, where we can't get to it. As far as I know, it is still there. Dead by now, I'm sure. Bill, more optimistically, is sure that it made its way down a house post and out of the house before it died. We didn't mention the dead or dying snake behind our kitchen cabinets to our guests, the new pilot's parents, who flew in the next day to have lunch and a visit with us.
(Note- be assured that no critters were harmed in the writing of this blog)
Another big adjustment for me is getting back into cooking all our meals. There is no grocery store nearby, no fast food, no restaurants. We don't even have an AM/PM Minimart. If we want sandwiches for lunch today, I need to bake bread yesterday. Everything is from scratch. So I'm getting back into Susie Homemaker mode after a lot of years of being spoiled by all the great quick meals that are available back in the U.S. Small victories are won... the bread and tortillas turned out great. Small defeats... the yogurt didn't turn our right on try one or try two. I'll keep trying. But we miss the Rubio's fish tacos that were just down the hill from our house in San Diego.
But then, five days after we arrived I sat in our Palawano church service and found water pouring down my face again. This time it was tears. I couldn't hold them back and I couldn't sop them up fast enough. Up front, Abil was leading the singing. Abil had been a surly 15-year-old kid when we first arrived, and I thought back over all the ups and downs that had brought him to the place where he is now... a godly man, shepherd, evangelist. Wow. Next to me sat Iyok. When we first met her, her face was a black cloud. But she got saved, and is now a glowing, sweet Christian mother of six, and the wife of our other church leader, Susing. On my other side sat Iyong's mom. She became a believer through the witness of her kids and Nada, one of our former partners. The songs we were singing, Bill had translated into Palawano from English and Tagalog. The Palawanos love to sing praises to God and call out one song to sing after the other. The songs minister to their hearts. And Bill did that. They have those worship songs because we were here. They have some portions of scripture in their own language to read and to be encouraged by because we were here. God is so good to let us have a part in this ministry and in these precious people's lives. So that is why we are back. And we trust that by His grace and strength, God will allow us to finish the work He gave us to do here.
