Soft Heart Thick Skin

Our River at Sunset

I have a favorite quote written in the back of one of my Bibles. "Maturity is moving from a thin skin and a hard heart, to a thick skin and a soft heart." I remember who said it -- Vince Burke, in a message at CCF back when the church still met at the Valle Verde Country Club, I think. Fifteen years ago. I was 40. This quote so expresses who I want to be, it became a prayer of mine.

I could be called "mature" now. I hit 55 this year. I qualify for the Senior Discounts at Denny's, if indeed, I ever get to a Denny's. I can join the AARP. According to Psalms 90:10, I've got another 15 years left on this earth to age 70, or maybe 25 years, up to age 80, the verse says, "if we have the strength." On the other hand, two classmates from my high school graduating class died in the past few months -- one of cancer, one of a heart attack. Only God knows how much longer any of us will really be here. Our lives are truly in His hands.

As long as I am here, though, I want to live purposefully. I have a horror of becoming old without being mature. You know people like that, grumpy old ladies and grumpy old men. Always complaining, always carping, never content, forever offended by someone or something. Those people have thin skin. I am asking the Lord to help me grow up, to make me more like Christ, to give me a soft heart and thick skin. I want to be tough, when the situation demands toughness. I want to be not easily offended. I want to speak up when I need to speak up. But, then again, I don't ever want to be known as a Tough Old Broad. That would be a person with thick skin, but a hard heart.

A soft heart and thick skin is what Christ had. He was moved by the needs of the people around Him. He cried for his friends. He cried for the multitude who were "like sheep without a shepherd." He touched. He loved. He healed. Yet He boldly stood up to people when the situation demanded it. He took a whip and chased the money changers out of the temple. He knew when to speak up and when to remain silent. He toughly bore all the abuse hurled at him -- He was whipped, He was spat upon, He was insulted. He silently bore it all. He lived a powerful life.

Every so often I sense my heart growing hard. And so I'll ask the Lord to soften my heart. I want Him to speak to me. I want to hear His voice. One of the ways He speaks to me is by touching my heart. So if my heart is hardened, I have difficulty sensing His work in my life. Recently I've been in a couple of situations where I needed to be tough, to speak up, to confront. It wasn't "fun" for me. One way I know my heart isn't hard, is that I don't enjoy those kinds of confrontations. But because God gave me the strength to go ahead and do it, I realized God is answering my prayer to give me a thick skin.

As I continue to mature in years, Lord, please allow me to mature in spirit. Lord, grow my heart softer and my skin thicker.

More Goats, But In Manila

Manila

Posted a blog not too long ago about having to slow down in my driveway, so as not to hit the neighbor's goats. Something about living in a provincial city where the rural and urban sides of life intertwine.

So fast-forward a week. Bill and I are in Manila for a series of meetings. Manila is the 8th largest agglomerate city, with 19,200,000 people. It comes between New York at number 6, and LA at number 9. To give you an idea, my hometown of San Diego is number 134. Manila is also one of the most densely populated cities in the world, with all those people packed into a relatively small land-space. But there are still bits of undeveloped land tucked here and there, within the city limits. After all our meetings were over, Bill and I zoomed around the city picking up a few items we can't buy down in Puerto Princesa. IMPORTANT items, like pinto beans and La Victoria salsa, in case you wanted to know. As our taxi cut through to one of the ubiquitous shopping centers, the driver had to slow down for -- you guessed it -- goats in the road! We were passing by one of those bits of still-undeveloped land, where an enterprising soul grazed a small herd of goats in the weeds. One got loose from his tether and wandered out into the street. As we veered around Mr. Urban Billygoat, I scanned the horizon. I could see high-rises in every direction.

Had to chuckle at the irony of that. Are goats becoming a thematic item in my writing? I think not. But perhaps incongruence is.

A Question for Mr. Darwin

A big event in our lives right now is that we are going to be grandparents in January! Elisa and Chris are expecting. The due date is January 22, and we are planning to go to San Diego for that joyful event, Lord willing, of course. This is our first grandbaby and we are super excited about it. We don't know yet if it is a him or her, but we do know that this little one, the size of a plum, already had a unique set of fingerprints. In fact, this little baby has had his or her unique fingerprints for a couple of weeks already, as they appear at Week 13, and tomorrow starts Week 15 for Elisa.

I need you to explain this to me, Mr. Darwin. What is the
evolutionary purpose of unique fingerprints? Maybe millions of years
ago, those human-like creatures who all had fingerprints the same got
confused going through the bio-metric readers to get into their
skyscrapers, so people with unique fingerprints had a better chance
of keeping their jobs, and so continuing to pass on their genes? And
what gene is it that spins out a new set of fingerprints for each of
the (what is it now?) 6 billion or is it 8 billion people on the
planet? Or maybe it was that our human-like ancestors that got booked
for their crimes and fingerprinted, and didn't have unique
fingerprints all got mixed up with each other, so languished in their
jail cells, while those with unique fingerprints were able to be
properly identified and catalogued and so could properly serve out
their sentences or be released on time? I need some help here. I'm
just not getting how unique fingerprints contribute to the
propagation of the species through natural selection.

And as long as we are talking about unique, what about each snowflake
being unique? What is the purpose of that?

I propose that those unique fingerprints are the signature of God. In
my humble opinion God goes out of His way to extravagantly proclaim
His glory through Creation. As Bill says, "I personally go with the
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made explanation." That I can understand.

Barnyard Animals in our Neighborhood

Driving home the other day I had to slow down to not hit the two

little goats in the lane. They were tied to our neighbor's fence, but
had wandered out into the dirt road that leads to our house.

Every morning I wake up to the sound of roosters crowing. Lots of
roosters. Crowing really loud. In every direction. Our neighbors on
all sides of us keep chickens. Cock fighting is popular here in the
Philippines, and many Filipino men raise roosters. Several of the neighborhood chickens have figured out how to fly over the fence into our yard, so we often have
chickens pecking around our house as well. Unlike the
city where I grew up, no zoning laws prohibit farm
animals in the city.

And live in the city we do! Our house is one block back from a busy
street called The National Highway. The National Highway runs up and
down the eastern coast of Palawan. It is a two-lane road, paved for
the most part, well, at least it wants to be paved. But by the time it approaches the city of Puerto Princesa, it doesn't look much like a highway. More like a crowded
Third World street. The establishments closest to us include a
vulcanizing shop, some hardware and building supply stores, and an
elementary school. Motorcycles, trisikels (the local motorcycle plus
sidecar taxi), jeeps, trucks, cars and pedestrians weave among each
other. Little stalls selling after-school snacks, load for cell
phones, and daily necessities dot the side of the road. Dogs
occasionally venture out to cross the street, on the way to visit
their latest love interest. School kids wearing their cotton uniform navy skirts or
pants and white shirts, laden with heavy backpacks, run along
both sides of the street, excuse me, I mean The Highway.

Individual Packets of Shampoo and Toothpaste for Sale

I'm always amazed at the juxtaposition of rural and urban here in Puerto Princesa. Pinecrest Avenue, Serra Mesa, San Diego this isn't.
But I love it.

Fun Fotos

Searching through my IPhoto pics, trying to find one of Pidi, who was our neighbor in the tribe, and walked by our house several times every day, and who I always saw whenever I visited Aming, because he always spent all his spare time hanging out with Abil and Aming, but do you
think I can find one single picture of him anywhere? No, of course not. But here's one of me at Jollibee, the Philippine's answer to Mc Donalds. And here are some sticky rice goodies from our last church potluck in the tribe.
How many ways can you make a dessert out of sticky rice?

Praying for Pidi

Pidi arrived at our house barefoot, wearing ratty old shorts and a dirty tee-shirt. I had the doctor's appointment already lined up, so I had to take him in to see the doctor just like that. I don't know what the receptionist, or the other patients in the waiting room thought about the little barefoot man, with the big American woman.

I can only imagine. The doctor is a friend of ours, he attends the church we attend in town, and the Friday night Bible study we attend. He is new in town, like us. And I think he is new to having tribal people as patients, too. But he is a believer, and compassionate. He treated Pidi with respect and care. Pidi is mostly deaf, too, so communicating with him is complicated. His traveling companion, Karding, is used to "talking" to him using a combination of sign and lip-reading. I would speak to Karding in Palawano, Karding would sign to Pidi. The doctor used both Tagalog to talk to Karding, and English with me. It is hard to know how much Pidi understood of all that was going on around him and happening to him.

Before our next appointment, to get a biopsy of the growth on Pidi's foot, and x-rays taken at the local hospital, I was able to get Pidi some clothes. Most of the Palawanos have some "town clothes" -- nicer, newer clothes that they keep hidden away for trips to civilization. But Pidi never goes out of the tribe. Palawanos are small people, and Pidi is extra small for a Palawano, so we found shorts and a shirt to fit him in the children's department. And we bought him a pair of flips. The Palawanos all told us, "Pidi doesn't wear shoes." And on his bad foot, he couldn't. But, in town, it just isn't acceptable to go around barefoot. Pidi liked his new shorts and tee shirt. He was a good sport and gamely put on the one flip, carrying the other one around with him, as he went to get his xrays and biopsy done. The doctor is afraid that the growth is melanoma, and may have already spread to his lymph nodes. If that is the case, Pidi's foot will have to be amputated, something he really doesn't want to happen.

We are praying for Pidi, as we await the results of the biopsy. The results won't be back for one week, or maybe two weeks, so we sent Pidi and his traveling companion back home to the tribe to wait there. I had to smile, as my last view of Pidi was of him walking up the steps of the bus, barefoot, carrying both of his new flips.

(I can't find a picture of Pidi, so here is one of Karding, his traveling companion.)

Road Food

As far as Donna is concerned, the best part of any road trip is the snacks. Munching makes miles move. Especially on Palawan buses, if my taste buds and tummy are happy, my twisted spine doesn't complain so much from sitting crammed sideways on too-close-together seats. Discovery is the fun part. What can I get to eat here, at this stop? Well, if you were traveling with us on the road heading down the eastern coast of our island, one of our stops would be the tiny town of Abo-Abo. This is where the bus turns from the main north-south highway, and starts heading across the island to the other coast. And the people are waiting for you. This guy has a whole tub of goodies. We like the garlic peanuts. They contain all the best ingredients - peanuts (that's protein, right?), garlic (lots), salt (lots) and grease (again lots). Yum. He also has some boiled peanuts, cashews, banana chips and hardboiled eggs.

And what road trip wouldn't be complete without fresh crabs? Pick some up here, and carry them the rest of the way home. Just caught this morning, and still wiggling. Your seatmate on the bus won't mind. Go ahead, get a few.

I passed up the crabs.

When it was time for our return trip, the bus was scheduled to leave at 5 am, so the afternoon before, I headed out to scout for some kind of bread product to pack for our breakfast. I went from little store to little store in the little town of Sikud. I have to tell you, Sikud is not the Consumer Capital of the World. In other words, they ain't got much there. But then I finally found it. How could I pass it up? This bread was machine sliced.

But I think my favorite spot on this particular road trip was the gas station in the town of Narra. And I didn't even buy food there. I just made a run to their CR, or Comfort Room, the nice Philippine euphemism for bathroom. And I saw a cat or two. Then I saw another one. When I stopped to pet them, the proprietors of the gas station saw me enjoying their cats, so they gave a call, and a whole bunch more cats came running. They told me they had thirteen cats! By the food and water dishes in evidence, they were obviously loved and cared for. And the cats were tame and friendly, which is unusual in this country where a lot of people have cats for their utility (catching mice and rats) but don't really like them, or treat them as pets, the way Westerners do. This gas station wins the Cat Lovers Award for Palawan.

Puerto Ponderings

I am way overdue on updating my blog. Life would be simpler for me if I had a different personality. But as it is I am a mess of conflicting emotions much of the time. I so admire my friends who are straight-forward. They just make a decision, implement it, and don't look back. Not me. I get tangled up. And that is what has happened to my blog site. Previously, it focused on the Palawanos and my life with them down in the tribe. But now we've moved to the city of Puerto Princesa, 'Puerto' for short. So, why don't I just start writing now about my life in Puerto? Because:

Part of my heart is still down in our little house in the jungle

Part of me feels sad about leaving the people

Part of me feels bad about leaving our partners alone in the tribe

So, if I write about how much I am enjoying life here in the city, and all that we see God doing in this new location, those parts of me feel like I am being disloyal to the Palawanos and our partners.

BUT I think the time has come to just get over it, plunge in and start writing about life here nonetheless. And it has been an amazing ride.

Back in September of last year when the cauldron of the insurgency on Mindanao got stirred up and boiled over to Palawan, Bill and I had to evacuate our station in the tribe. And almost immediately we both became convinced that we weren't supposed to return to live in the tribe. At the time we thought it was because of the instability of the political situation. But as the weeks went by and the cauldron of insurgency went back to a simmer, with all the activity based on Mindanao, Southern Palawan became a safe place again. Our co-workers began to return to their stations. But Bill and I still didn't feel we were supposed to return to the tribe. We each had a strong check in our heart against returning home.

Now, we have to admit we aren't the most mystical people. We do believe in God. We do believe that He is active in our lives and is active in the whole world. But we aren't prone to hearing Him speak to us the way He did this time. Yes, He speaks to us through scripture. Yes, He speaks to us through our pastors' sermons. Yes, He speaks to us through the lives and the words of our brothers and sisters in the Lord. But this was one of those rare times when His voice just came us a word to our hearts, 'You aren't supposed to go back. You are supposed to move to Puerto.'

During our time in the U.S., we visited our dear friends Jeff and Helen Jackson. Jeff has a great library. In our guestroom was a book by Dallas Willard, Hearing God. The whole book is on the subject of hearing God's voice. Willard had some timely words for us. He says many things, but I'll just share one thing. . . one of the ways we can recognize God's voice is by the 'weight of authority' that comes with those promptings we receive from Him. Willard says, "The quality of God's voice is more a matter of the weight or impact an impression makes on our consciousness. A certain steady and calm force with which communications from God impact our soul, our innermost being, incline us toward assent and even toward active compliance. The assent or compliance is frequently given before the content of the communication is fully grasped. At least I find it so and others do as well." Bill and I both experienced that calm weight of authority. It wasn't like our minds wondered, 'Maybe we should stay out of the tribe and move up to Puerto now.' No, it was more like, 'It's time to move to Puerto now.' Bill has expressed it as, 'The decision was already made for us. We weren't the ones trying to make the decision.'

As I ponder this move, I wonder IF God was the one behind moving us to Puerto, and IF we weren't being relocated for negative reasons -- to avoid the insurgency-- then might there be positive reasons for us to be in Puerto? Maybe the Lord wasn't causing us to flee a bad situation, but instead was forcing us to move toward some good He had for us.

Ants in the Printer, Thorn in the Foot

Monday morning: Get ready to print out chapter 4 of I Peter, so I can
begin doing the exegetical checking on that chapter. But, oh no,
can't use the printer yet. Ants have moved in and are nesting in it
since the last time I used it! So the first hour of the morning was a
big battle, killing all the ants spilling out of the printer when I
disturbed it, and trying to remove every last one of them from inside
the printer, and putting bug powder all around my office area to kill
any ants remaining, as well as discourage new ones from trying to
take up residence here again.

Tuesday morning: Reading Bible and praying before the start of my
taping session with Lini. But, oh no, first I have to come out to the
porch where a crowd has assembled. The mother of one of our neighbors
was threshing newly cut rice with her feet, and stomped down hard on
something that stuck into her foot. Could I remove it, please? Sure.
I disinfected the area of her foot where I could see a 1/4-inch thorn
sticking out. Got a good grip on it with my tweezers and pulled. And
pulled. And pulled! The thorn kept coming and coming. It was a sliver
of bamboo, imbedded in her foot. Yikes. Yes, the part I saw was about
1/4-inch long, but the part we couldn't see was a good 1 1/4-inches
long! My, oh my, oh my! The poor woman was in a lot of pain, and the
rest of us were just amazed by the length of the sliver in her foot.
Bamboo is very sharp. It went in the bottom and almost came out the
top. There was a drop of blood on the top of her foot where the
sliver broke the skin there.

Tuesday afternoon: Starting to work through the process of exegetical
checking on I Peter chapter 5, but a woman and her children are on
the porch. The clinic is closed this week while we work out some
difficulties within the community. So the very sick ones are coming
here. This little girl, five years old, looks like a little Biafran
child. Her arms are stick-thin, her stomach is protruding, her legs
are skinny, she has a horrible cough and is coughing up blood. Her
mom claims she has only been sick two weeks, but I find that very
hard to believe. She probably has TB among other things. I started
her on some medicines, but she will need follow up when the clinic
opens again.

Wednesday: The clinic is re-opened, hurray! And my life is back to
normal again. We are taping Luke now, and it is going very well. Bill
and I have been learning so much all along the way as we work through
these New Testament books. The things we learned from working on
Acts, Bill has applied as he is drafting Luke. So we are starting
from a better first draft. Which makes the taping go more smoothly.
Which bodes well for comprehension checking. We are thankful for the
privilege God is giving us to be involved in this job. And we are
thankful for all the ones He has provided to help us.

The Apostle Peter Speaks on Liposucton

Rini with baby Adrian

One of the passages I taped with Lini this week was I Peter 3 where
Peter is talking about women -- that our beauty shouldn't come from
braiding the hair, wearing gold jewelry or fine clothes, but should
come from within. As we were going over that in the Palawano
language, I couldn't help but think of an email I had received from a
friend back in the U.S. just the day before. She is working as a
nurse in a plastic surgeon's office. She said in the mornings they
take care of old people -- removing skin cancers and the like. But
the afternoons are for cosmetic surgery and Botox for 'high
maintenance people' as she put it. I thought of all the money being
spent in the cities of the world tucking and shaping and zapping and
lifting and 'enhancing'. How would I Peter read if it was written
today, I wonder? I didn't even try to explain to Lini about what I
was thinking. How could a Palawano, who is just trying to get enough
food grown for her family to eat understand about people spending
thousands of dollars to make themselves look like they are starving?

Bill has zoomed ahead and is drafting Luke now, and my taping is
lagging behind, so Lini and Rini worked out a schedule. Lini will
come two days a week and Rini will come two days a week. So Rini came
back to work this week, with her six-week old baby boy tucked up
against her chest in a cloth sling over her shoulder. While we taped
I Peter, he slept and nursed. I wasn't sure how it would go, but it
went fine. I don't know how long he will stay this quiet. We only
work for two hours. Longer than that and Rini's ability to remember
the passages I'm reading and tell them back to me in her own words
seems to fade. She begins to need a lot more prompting, and then I
don't think the renderings have as natural a feel to them.

So now we are moving ahead. When I'm not doing taping, I'm still
working on the Palawano language to improve my vocabulary and
fluency. We are also collecting Palawano traditional oral stories,
getting them recorded and transcribed and translated into English to
preserve them.

Civilization Strikes Again

Over the years we've been working with the Palawano people a lot of
things have changed. The outside world has come nearer and nearer.
The government has still not put in the long-promised road to this
spot in the 'jungle.' And I put jungle in quotes because when we
moved here, most of the land around us was forest. But over the
course of the years, many outside settlers have moved into this area
among the Palawanos and cleared rice paddies. So now much of the area
looks more like farmland. The Palawanos have also learned how to grow
rice in paddies and many of them now own the requisite water buffalos
to do so. Last night, when Bill and I were walking the airstrip, we
counted four water buffalos grazing along the sides of the strip.
There didn't use to be any. The people have more food now, since you
can harvest a rice paddy three times a year, while their dry rice
fields only yield one harvest a year, which was never enough to last
the whole year through. That's a good thing.

Electricity still has not reached us. But cell phones have. We don't
have good cell phone coverage at our house, but up on the hills
around us, people can send and receive text messages. But how do you
charge a cell phone when there is no electricity? Simple, take it to
the missionary's house. We often have one or two of the peoples'
phones plugged into our outlets, charging from our solar panel/
battery system.

There are lots of little stores now, out of different people's homes.
It is easier for the Palawanos to get the things they need or want.
That's a good thing. But after shopping, both adults and kids often
just drop their candy and cookie and snack wrappers anywhere on the
ground or along the trails. We didn't have a litter problem here before.

And the government finally got a school going in here, after years
and years of the Palawanos requesting it. Which is a good thing. The
Palawanos want to learn, they don't like being taken advantage of in
their ignorance. But---the school has its downside too. The teachers
are not Palawanos, and they are bringing in things in from the
outside world that are contrary to the Palawanos' customs and
culture. Traditionally, Palawanos are peace-loving and modest. The
current teacher has a TV and video player. Every night she shows
Tagalog movies -- think violent action films and over-dramatic love
stories -- for a small fee to any one who wants to come. And lots of
people do. And now she has instituted a Friday night dance. Last
Friday the Christian Palawano girls didn't go, but one can't help but
wonder if they will continue to stay away from the fun. The church
leaders are very concerned about the influence of the movies and
dances on the young peoples' morals.

Speaking of TVs and videos, not just the teacher, but a number of
Palawanos and the non-Palawano settlers have those too. They aren't
hooked up to satellite, but can watch and show movies, too. The
machines run on batteries, and a few people have small generators to
charge those batteries. Where before, people used to sit around the
fire at night and tell stories, now they hike over to one of those
houses with a TV and watch Tagalog movies. We are seeing kids play at
fighting, karate kicking and punching at each other. That is
something they never used to do.

These changes are inevitable. Some are good. Some are bad. Some are
neutral. We can't stop progress. We can't hold on to the past and
make the future go away. Ecclesiastes says, "Don't long for the 'good
old days.' This is not wise." (7:10) But there are good things that
don't change. We are in the process of translating 1 Peter right now.
It says, "For you have been born again, but not to a life that will
quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from
the eternal, living word of God. . . the word of the Lord remains
forever." (1:23-24) Our new life in Christ, and the word of God will
last forever. That is our hope for ourselves and for the people here.
That's why we are here, to put this Word of God into the Palawano
language.

Lini, Rini and Nili

Lini & Elisa with Butterscotch

Once upon a time, a little girl moved to a new house in the jungles
of Palawan. Her name was Elisa. Elisa was four years old, and had a
baby sister named Bethany. Elisa's house faced the grass airstrip.
Across the airstrip was another little bamboo house. In that house
lived two little girls named Lini and Rini. Lini was 3 and a half
years old, and her big sister Rini was ten. Lini came across the
airstrip everyday to play with Elisa. They were best friends.
Sometimes they would go down to the river that ran right by their
houses. Sometimes Elisa's mommy would take them, and sometimes Rini,
the big sister would take them to watch them play in the river. Lini
and Rini had a cousin named Nili who came to visit them sometimes. It
was Nili who taught Elisa how to swim underwater when she was six
years old. Elisa's mommy and daddy where so happy that their daughter
Elisa loved her new house and friends and neighbors.

Many years went by. Elisa is now a young married woman, living in San Diego, California. But Lini, Rini and Nili are still living in the
jungles of Palawan. And Elisa's mommy and daddy are living there
again. Lini, Rini, and Nili are young married women with three, four
and five children respectively. Nili now helps the people in the
village with their medical problems. She works at the little clinic.
Rini was Elisa's mommy's language and translation helper for two
years, but she just had a new baby boy and can't do that work right
now. So Lini is her new language and translation helper.

Elisa's mommy and daddy never imagined that the little girl living across the airstrip from them would become such a great help in the
translation work they were doing.

Did they all live happily ever after? Well, this isn't the end of the
story yet. We will all have to stay tuned to find out.