Holy Week in the Philippines

 c. AD 30, Jerusalem

• On Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem triumphantly, sitting astride a donkey in fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9: "Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." People laid down palm branches and coats in His path. The Pharisees tried to silence them, but failed, and Jesus defended them. He then wept over the sad state of affairs in Jerusalem.
• On Wednesday, Judas Iscariot made a deal with the chief priests to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
• On Thursday, Jesus and His disciples held their Passover feast in an upper room, which Christians still remember today when they take communion. Judas left the feast to betray Jesus. They then left and proceeded to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus went aside to pray. Judas arrived with a crowd, and Peter resorted to violence, which Jesus healed and told him to put his sword away. The disciples fled as Jesus was arrested and taken to trial. During the trial, Peter denied 3 times that he knew Jesus, and when the cock crowed, he realized what he had done and wept. Maundy Thursday was an eventful and very emotional day and night.
• On Friday, having been beaten horribly and made to wear a thorny crown, Jesus was forced to carry a cross down the Via Dolorosa (Way of Suffering) in Jerusalem. When it became too much, the Roman authorities made Simon, a man from Cyrene, Libya, carry it for Him. When they reached the top of Golgotha, or Skull Hill, they crucified Jesus with two thieves. The sky grew dark as many viewers mocked Jesus. One of the thieves joined in the mocking, but the other one got after him for it. Jesus told the latter thief that he would see him in paradise. Jesus entrusted His mother Mary to the care of His disciple John. He wondered aloud why God had abandoned Him. After being given a drink, He declared things finished, and entrusted His spirit to God. As the Sabbath was approaching, the Jews quickly brought His dead body down from the cross and buried it in a tomb that belonged to Joseph of Arimathea. Burial spices would have to wait until after the Sabbath.
• On Saturday, Jesus' devastated followers observed Shabbat and grieved the loss of the man who had changed their lives.
• Early Sunday morning, several women brought burial spices to the grave, and wondered who would move the heavy stone away. Imagine their surprise when they arrived to discover that the stone was already rolled away! The tomb was empty, except for grave wrappings! The women were afraid, bewildered and confused. They ran to get Peter and John, who returned to the tomb and found the empty tomb and grave clothes. Peter and John returned home, but Mary Magdalene hung around. She looked in the tomb again and was shocked to discover two angels sitting there! They wondered why she was crying, and she told them someone had taken Jesus' body away. She then turned around and saw someone else that she didn't recognize, who also asked why she was crying. She asked this person if he knew where the body was. When the stranger said, "Mary," she recognized Him as Jesus! He told her to go tell the disciples, which she did. That evening, the disciples (except for Thomas and the now-late Judas) were having dinner, and Jesus appeared to them. Thomas didn't believe them when they told him. Jesus appeared to Thomas a week later. (Note: Most of this is from John's account of the Resurrection in John 20. Other Gospel writers also mention that the angel(s) asked the women why they were looking for the living among the dead.)

Magellan's Cross in Cebu, Philippines
Photo by Allan Jay Quesada
CC BY-SA 4.0 license

AD 1521, Cebu and Mactan Islands, Philippines

• In his "ongoing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before"* while circumnavigating the globe, Portuguese/Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan landed on an island in the middle of an archipelago in the Pacific. The island would eventually become known as Cebu. He brought the Roman Catholic faith to the islands, and spent some time there. He presented Santo Niño, the Holy Child, a statue of the child Jesus, to the local king Rajah Humabon and his wife Queen Humamay.
• In an attempt to help the people of Cebu, he travelled to the nearby island of Mactan, where he and his men were attacked by the tribe led by the local chieftain Lapu Lapu. In the ensuing Battle of Mactan, Magellan's journey ended at the end of a spear. His crew would return to Spain, among the first to circumnavigate the globe. Lapu Lapu is still regarded as a Philippine hero, for defeating foreign colonists.
• Though the people of Mactan did not convert, many in Cebu did. However, they did not entirely abandon their earlier animistic beliefs. Animists believe that everything, including inanimate objects, has a soul. There are good and evil spirits. Evil spirits must be scared away with talismans and by other means. Combine that with the Christian concepts of angels and demons, and you get some interesting, if unusual, customs.

Growing up in the Philippines in the 1980s, I saw what Philippine Catholics did and assumed that was typical of all Catholics. I would not learn until later that some of their customs are unique to the Philippines. While I don't think this is a comprehensive list of their customs, what follows is my recollections from childhood. Please note, by explaining this, I mean no disrespect to the Catholic Church or anyone else. While it saddens me that people feel the need to do all this, and it misses the point of Christ's sacrifice, it takes a lot of devotion.

Palm Sunday

Philippine Catholic devotees make a pilgrimage to the local church. Traffic is completely blocked by a sea of people all heading to get their palm branches blessed by the local priest. Some carry Catholic statues and other objects. Once their palm branches have been blessed, they return home and post them on their door. For a few days, there is a green branch on the door. As it dies, it turns brown, but remains on the door until next Palm Sunday. This is supposed to protect the house by warding off evil spirits throughout the year. It was common to see palm branches on people's doors.

Good Friday

This is a very disturbing day. In the hottest part of the year, just north of the equator, penitent flagellants beat themselves with whips, often laced with shards of glass or other sharp objects. They parade down the streets in a reenactment of Christ's walk down the Via Dolorosa. It is part theatre, but part real. The blood is real. The pain is real. The heatstroke is real. While we did not participate, I did nearly faint from the heat once, just watching. Many believe they must do this to be forgiven of their sins, and some do it for other reasons. People dressed as Roman soldiers are everywhere. A person dressed as Jesus (usually a man, but not always) carries a cross down the street, sometimes accompanied by people playing the thieves. When they get to the site of the crucifixion, the people carrying crosses are nailed to them (sometimes literally, sometimes in such a way that it just looks like it from a distance, sometimes just tied, sometimes both tied and nailed). They hang on the crosses just long enough to reenact the crucifixion, and then they are taken down and rushed to the hospital.

The Catholic Church officially frowns on this tradition, but has done little to stop it, as far as I am aware.

Crucifixion in San Fernando City,
Pampanga province, Philippines
April 19, 2019
Reuters/Eloisa Lopez

Black Saturday

Many people believe Jesus is literally dead every year on Black Saturday. They generally try not to take risks, as Jesus may not be available to help out. This coming Saturday, my post will go into more detail on a specific Black Saturday that I remember well, when something happened that caused a mother to be upset that her daughter chose to travel that day.

Easter

Everything is back to normal. Our Protestant church held sunrise services every Easter, where we would meet earlier than normal outside and worship as the sun came up. When I was young, I questioned whether Catholics believed in the Resurrection, as I did not see much out of the ordinary on that day. But on further reflection, if they are willing to do things, and trust that God is there to help them, they clearly do believe that Christ rose from the dead.

As I have grown older, I have learned that the Philippine brand of Roman Catholicism, some of which is even frowned on by the Philippine Catholic Church, is not typical. Some call it Folk Catholicism. I have come to respect many of my Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ, and I have learned a lot about their faith. In this world that is so sharply divided, I think we need to come together and learn from each other. We need to hold fast to our beliefs, but we also need to listen to others, and we can agree to disagree on many of the details. So much pain and death could have been avoided in the Middle Ages if Catholics and Protestants (or Christians and Muslims) had just listened to each other! They might have realized they agreed on more than they knew.

* The quote referring to Magellan is from Star Trek, not anything to do with Magellan...but it seemed appropriate here.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santo_Ni%C3%B1o_de_Ceb%C3%BA

Days of Yore: It's About Time, Part 3: Time Travel!

"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important how we lived. After all, Number One, we're only mortal."
   - Captain Jean-Luc Picard

"Speak for yourself, sir. I plan to live forever."
   - Commander William T. Riker
Star Trek: Generations

Just when you think I'm done talking about time, the time comes to keep talking about it. Though the above quote is not technically from a doctor, it is from fictional time travelers who have deep thoughts, so it counts.

This entry will be a bit different from previous posts on time, as it is not about specific kinds of timekeeping devices, per se. It is about concepts related to time, way back in the days before time travel was invented (which includes today, since as far as I'm aware, time travel hasn't been invented yet, except in the sense that we're traveling through time at a normal pace, always forward).

Image by Freepik

Time Zones

As world travelers when I was young, we went back and forth over the ocean several times. US to Hong Kong. Hong Kong to Philippines. Philippines to the US and back and forth a couple times. Manila to Taipei to Seoul to Bangkok and back. Seattle to London (and train to Paris) and back. At that time, our clocks were not connected to the satellite, and we had to change the time on our watches manually when we got to our destination in a different time zone. If we brought other clocks, we had to change those manually as well. Computers were generally too large to bring on a plane, so we didn't have to change the time on those. While as yet, I've never been to places that are a half hour off from the next time zone over (such as Newfoundland and parts of Australia—though both are on my bucket list!), that could complicate things even more!

A few years ago, I had to turn off my cell phone once I got on a plane. These days, I can leave it on, but have to put it in airplane mode until the nice voice on the intercom says we can take it off airplane mode....and then put it back on airplane mode when we start descent. Once I get to my destination in another time zone, presto change-o, the time has magically updated without me having to do a thing! Satellites are pretty awesome. I'm still holding out for the invention of a teleporter, though! Think of all the money that could save in travel expenses!

Wait a minute...if crossing the International Date Line isn't time travel, I don't know what is! Sometimes when traveling from Manila to Seattle, we have arrived in Seattle before the Manila time that we left. Similarly, going the other way, we lose nearly a day. It makes for a very long day or a very short day.

Daylight Savings

"I've just sucked one year of your life away. I might one day go as high as five, but I really don't know what that would do to you, so let's just start with what we have. What did this do to you? Tell me. And remember, this is for posterity, so be honest. How do you feel?"

- Count Rugen, The Princess Bride

In 1936, President Manuel Quezon instituted a new concept in the Philippines called daylight savings. It only made it to 1937. President Ramon Magsaysay tried again in 1954. Those were, naturally, before I was born. After I was born, but before we lived there, President Ferdinand Marcos tried it in 1978 (source). I don't remember any of that, for obvious reasons. What I do remember is when President Corazon Aquino, the nation's first female president (the Philippines is way ahead of us on that!), observed it in the US and thought it would be a great idea to institute it in the Philippines in 1990. It did not go over at all, as most people didn't understand the concept. Schools moved their start times forward an hour because it was "too early for our children to get up." Whenever anyone wanted to schedule something, people had to know if it was DST (Daylight Savings Time) or RT (Real Time), not understanding that DST has nothing to do with make believe. After some time of national confusion, it was abolished. It has never been used since then, though I see on Wikipedia that it has been proposed a few times.

Here in the US, we have gotten used to setting our clocks forward in the spring and back in the fall ("spring forward" and "fall back"). Similarly to traveling between time zones, our cell phones and some clocks make the change automatically these days, but we still have to change some clocks, such as the stove and microwave clock, and any wall clocks that aren't connected to a satellite. Computer clocks change automatically, as does our atomic clock. As for the clock in my car, while it's possible to change it, I usually just mentally subtract an hour during Standard Time when I'm looking at it. Once we spring forward again, it is once again correct. I love that day, despite losing an hour of sleep!

A few years ago, Washington State, along with a few other states, decided to get rid of Daylight Savings, and our governor signed a bill to approve it. Unfortunately, that requires federal approval, and that has gotten bogged down in red tape, so we still have to move our clocks forward and back. Maybe someday the madness will end?

Hmm...maybe we do time travel twice a year, come to think of it! Also, taking into account time zones, it makes computing the time in another time zone that may or may not observe DST more complicated. These days I just google what time it is in another place...but back in the day, we had to remember and calculate the hours...and consider what time of year it was and whether one or both places in question (here and there) observe DST.

Speaking of the clock in my car (a couple paragraphs up...what can I say...ADHD...), I asked on Monday if that clock takes us Back to the Future. Sadly, the answer is NO! Possibly because, while an amazing car, Luke is not a DeLorean. I've never driven a DeLorean (oh wait a minute...scratch that...my TARDIS takes the form of a DeLorean), but maybe more of them do? Unless...during the Standard Time months, I do have to subtract an hour, so maybe it's like going back to the future? 

Speaking of a DeLorean...

"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads!"

- Dr. Emmett Brown, 1985, shortly before the epic voyage to 2015
Back to the Future

 

Days of Yore: St. Patrick's Day

In which my "Days of Yore" series meets my previous series on simple acts of kindness shown to me in the past. Most entries in my current series concern changing trends over the years. This one is more along the lines of my previous series, but does take place when I was a child, so it fits in both categories. Also, leprechauns are known for their mischief and shaking things up. Besides that, I'm part Irish, and proud of it. So there's that.

Image by Artificial Dream on Adobe Stock

Anyway...

St. Patrick's Day was serious business at our school in the Philippines. Friends and classmates had no trouble pinching anyone who was not wearing green. So it was with some shock and consternation one March 17 on the bus to school that I suddenly realized I had forgotten what day it was, and—horror of horrors—I was not wearing green! (Cue the Psycho theme) We're talking major emergency here. As I was on the bus, I couldn't go home and change! What is a kid who needs some green, stat, to do to avoid the dreaded pinch?

That's what friends are for. Sara was a year or two ahead of me in school. Her younger brother Luke was around my age. Their dad was a teacher at our school, as was mine. They were even British, which gives a person a lot more authority in the matter of an Irish holiday. Sara had a running theory that as long as a person wearing green is touching someone who isn't, the person who isn't can't be pinched. (This theory worked better for kids in the '80s than it would for adults today.) Obviously, she couldn't follow me around all day for so many reasons, but she had a better idea. As soon as we arrived at school, she and I raced down the stairs to the playground and hurried to a tree, where, with a great sense of relief, I obtained some leaves. I don't remember how I wore them, but the day was saved by the quick thinking of a thoughtful friend who was herself wearing green.

Come to think of it, maybe it would be a good practice to carry green lapel pins or something with me in case people I meet on St. Patrick's Day are enduring a similar crisis. Hmmm...

The Scent of Pine

Growing up in the Philippines, there was magic all around us. The tropical beaches, palm trees and coral reefs were breathtaking. The rice paddies, plantations, mountains and more were amazing. The tropical fruits were mouth watering. When people arrived in the country, it was common for the people meeting them to put sampaguita (jasmine) leis on the new arrivals. It's their national flower. Sampaguita and plumeria (pictures at the bottom of this post) are two of my favorite flowers, thanks to their amazing scents. But one thing we did not see much was pine. There are some evergreens in the north of the country, but further north than we usually went. It was a smell we missed when we were there, and the only time we got to smell it was when Christmas rolled around (starting in September) and the local hotels put up their imported trees. Partly due to the heat, partly due to the length of the Christmas season (September 1-January 6), and partly due to the scarcity of evergreens in the Philippines, most people used fake trees. We kept our tree in a barrel and assembled it every year. So it was a special treat to visit the local hotels to smell the trees. A bit of an odd tradition, but it was amazing.

Photo by Hotel Continentale on Unsplash

The hotel lobby was resplendent in Christmas glory
Garland draped luxuriously on the walls
Wreaths announced the joy of the season
And in the middle, the crown jewel stood in all its splendor:
A tree of real pine, imported just for Christmas.

The scent of pine filled the air
Recalling memories of snowy slopes
Of sledding down the hills
And making angels in the snow
Memories of walking through a pine forest
The sweet smell wafting through the fresh air
Memories of long ago and far away
In far-off America

A scent in the hotel which we enjoyed but once a year
Stepping out of the heat of the outdoors
Into the cool of the air-conditioned hotel
Standing at the foot of a real pine tree
Savoring its sweet fragrance

Christmas season would soon be past
And the year through we would enjoy the savory fragrance
Of the enchanting sampaguita and the fair plumeria
And we would look forward to September
When the Christmas season would begin
And we could once more enjoy
The scent of pine.

Sampaguita (jasmine)
Photo by Eslah Saad on Unsplash

Plumeria
Photo by Gina Ball on Unsplash

Days of Yore: Shopping

 "SA-PA-TOOOOOOS! SIYAY!" "BALUUUUUUT!"

These and more were a regular sound living in the Philippines. Street vendors pushed carts or carried their wares and shouted out what they were selling. If the musical Oliver! were reset in the Philippines, I imagine the above calls, along with others, would start out the song "Who Will Buy?" (For the record, the above calls translate to "Shoes! Shine!" and, well...I'll just say that balut is surprisingly delicious, considering how it looks and sounds when described. I think I'll go with "hard-boiled eggs on steroids." I would put a full description of it on a level with Scandinavian lutefisk, though the two dishes are nothing alike, aside from involving meat.)

Sari-Sari Store
Photo by Free2barredo
CC BY-SA 4.0 license

Then there were the sari-sari stores. They were neighborhood convenience stores, usually built into the ground floor of a family home. Our next-door neighbors at one house had one. They sold snacks and a bunch of other things. Many of them had fresh, steaming pandesal, or Philippine rolls topped with bread crumbs. Those are some of my favorite rolls in existence, right up there with Hawaiian rolls. Most sari-sari stores have a window where the customer asks the cashier for what they want, and then the cashier gets it and the customer pays for it. If they weren't next door, they were usually within walking distance.

Grocery stores in the Philippines were similar to the ones in the US, and some of my distaste for pop music was formed by the songs over the loudspeaker at grocery stores in the '80s... If I hear "Eternal Flame" by the Bangles (we changed the lyrics to "Do you feel insane?"), "Miss You Like Crazy" by Natalie Cole ("You're driving me craaazy!"), "Nothing's Gonna Change My Love for You" by George Benson, and others, one more time... Nothing against the talented singers, but I got sick of those songs that I heard over and over in the grocery stores. And now I have those songs going through my head. I have nobody to blame but myself.

They had markets where they sold produce, meat, and other things. Those markets smelled fishy. There were markets where you could buy souvenirs. We had sukis, or vendors that we would visit regularly when we needed the specific wares they sold, and we would get to know them. They often gave us great discounts as we became friends. Bargaining is an art form in the Philippines, and it was a unit in Tagalog class in school. We generally started the bargaining in English, and they would come down a bit, but they would only go so far when speaking English. Then we would switch to Tagalog. They were often surprised, and more willing to bargain further. 

National Bookstore was a large chain in the Philippines, and one of my favorite places to go, as reading filled up most of my spare time when I wasn't grounded from reading. 😀 We had a shopping mall called Greenhills where we often went. They also had some great restaurants. As malls got more popular, Robinson's opened all over the place. It's a chain of malls, like Carrefour in France and elsewhere. (In fact, I recently found out that Tum Nak Thai, the restaurant we visited in Bangkok and the largest restaurant in the world at the time, is gone, and they now have a Carrefour and a Robinson's in its place. One single restaurant was replaced by two malls.) I remember Robinson's Galleria in Manila. I have heard that they have continued to open more and larger malls in the Philippines since we left in 1991.

Coming to the US, we found grocery stores were similar. Safeway, Albertson's, Fred Meyer and QFC were everywhere in the Seattle area. (Fred Meyer and QFC are currently owned by Kroger. When I visited Utah last year, I went to Smith's, which I had never heard of, and they honored my Fred Meyer rewards card because they are also owned by Kroger.) Albertson's is now owned by Safeway, so many of the Albertson's in the area have converted to Safeway. There a few Wal-marts in the area.

There were video stores all over the place. Blockbuster was one of the largest chains. When DVDs replaced VHS, they adapted. Eventually, with Netflix and others, they were unable to compete and have mostly closed. There is only one Blockbuster left, in Oregon. Many grocery stores and electronics stores (such as Best Buy), and some surviving bookstores such as Barnes & Noble, still sell DVDs and Blu-Rays.

We had multiple malls in the Seattle area. Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood and Bell Square in Bellevue were huge. Northgate Mall in North Seattle was smaller, and was the oldest shopping mall in the US. Everett Mall in Everett was somewhere around the same size as Northgate. My grandparents used to walk there all the time. Totem Lake Mall in Kirkland was one of the smallest malls I've been to. There were others around as well. Of those, Totem Lake Mall was the first to close. For a long time, there was only one store left in the mall, and it was sad walking down the dark hallways with almost all the stores closed and nobody there. When the movie Warm Bodies came out (which involves zombies, for those who haven't seen it...basically Romeo & Juliet in reverse), I thought that mall would be a perfect place to film a sequel. It's gone now, with new developments in its place. More recently, Northgate Mall is mostly gone, replaced by a hockey rink and transit station. Last I knew, there were a few stores left, but it isn't really a mall any more. The other malls listed above are still there, but they have undergone a lot of changes over the years.

As the internet got more popular, I made more friends around the world. I was surprised to hear my friends in the Southeastern US talking about shopping buggies, as they are clearly called shopping carts. They have carts in the Philippines. They have carts in the Northwest US. They have carts in the Midwest and Southwest. They are called carts just about everywhere I had been. I had no idea people in other English-speaking regions called them something different! (Granted, they are called trolleys in the UK, if I remember right.) I always associated buggies with horse-drawn carriages.

There were several bookstore chains, such as Barnes & Noble, Borders, Waldenbooks and others. Waldenbooks and Borders have since closed. With Kindle and other electronic means of reading and listening to books, as well as the convenience of ordering online, the demand for brick-and-mortar bookstores has decreased considerably. (I had forgotten about Waldenbooks until I watched Stranger Things recently, streaming on Netflix.)

Online merchants got more common. Amazon has been one of the largest and most enduring. There are also others, such as eBay.

Speaking of online merchants, guess what? I don't do most of my shopping at the brick-and-mortar stores any more! I do shop at them sometimes, but lately I've increasingly used...I hope you're sitting down for this...my cell phone! Many things are much more convenient to order on Amazon and other online merchants. Since COVID, I've done a lot of my grocery shopping on the Instacart app and had it delivered. I am finding more and more that shopping on Instacart also helps me to avoid the annoying habit of groceries I didn't need "magically" jumping into my cart off the shelf and making me spend money I didn't need to spend. I can blame the groceries in question because they are inanimate and can't defend themselves. 

Many stores have pickup options, which we have also used. You order and pay on the app, then drive to the store, and someone brings the groceries out to your car. (They have a part of the parking lot dedicated to this option, and you can tell them on the app which parking spot you are using.)

Shopping has changed a lot over the years. I can't speak for the Philippines, as I was last there in the '90s, but I have heard there have been a lot of changes there too. As far as I know, they still have sari-sari stores and malls and all the other stores mentioned above (at least, those mentioned in the part about the Philippines).

They Answered the Call

Martin and Gracia Burnham, missionaries to the Philippines, were celebrating their anniversary on Palawan Island in the western Philippines when they and several others were taken hostage by Abu Sayyaf, a militant group associated with Al Qaida. Over the course of their captivity, several of their fellow captives were murdered by their captors, and others were released. June 7, 2002, over a year into their ordeal, the Philippine army stormed their camp and managed to rescue Gracia. Martin and fellow hostage Deborah Yap were killed in the fighting. I wrote this poem when we got the news.

Having grown up in the Philippines, and having good friends in New Tribes Mission, their mission organization, this hit close to home for us, and we followed it closely over the course of the ordeal, praying regularly for their safe release. While I didn't know them in the Philippines (that I remember), Gracia's book In the Presence of my Enemies mentions people I knew. I did meet her later, and she gave me a hug when she found out I was a missionary kid.

You can learn more about them on Gracia's website.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
     for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:10

Martin and Gracia Burnham
AP/New Tribes Mission

They heard the call
The call to go
To preach the Gospel to the world

And they answered the call
No matter what the cost
They preached the Gospel
They showed God’s love
Wherever they went

It was only a break
A time of rest
How could they know
How much a rest would cost?

They answered the call
They showed God’s love to their captors
They prayed for and cared for their fellow hostages

They would spend a year
With little to eat
Moving around
In the thick jungle’s heat

Their bodies were weak
But their faith was strong
They showed God’s love
To those who hated Him

They saw the others released
Some killed
But still they were held

He was in chains
She was in pain
They went through illness
And agony

But still they answered the call
"Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness
For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven"

At last the rescuers came
She was rescued by the army
He was rescued by God Himself

They are free
She recovers from her wounds
And her loss
He sits at the feet
Of his eternal God and King
For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Kindness in the Flood

Cainta, Philippines (near Manila). That evening, we were gathered around the piano singing from a songbook while my mom played piano. We sang a bunch of songs we knew (folksongs, if I remember right), and then we found a very short song called "Scotland's Burning" that we didn't know until then:

Scotland's burning! Scotland's burning!
Look out! Look out!
Fire, fire, fire, fire!
Pour on water, pour on water!

The song was so absurd that we sang it several times, and I could still sing it today.

It had been stormy and rainy the past few days, but we were safe in our house, content in the fact that our driveway had an incline, so it was about 3 feet above street level, should the torrential rain cause flooding. In the past, floods had covered the streets, but never serious enough to reach the level of our driveway.

So I was a bit confused when I woke up the following morning, June 28, 1985, to find living room furniture in our room on the second level of our split-level house (there were about 2 steps between levels). When I went out to investigate, I was shocked to discover water streaming under our sliding glass door into the lower level of the house! My parents and our helper who lived with us had moved furniture and as much other stuff as they could to the second level as the water was approaching. If I remember right, they put the refrigerator on blocks. (I don't remember if it was ours or a friend's, but somebody's refrigerator actually started to float.)

Friends came to help

As the water was about 5 feet deep in the street, it was too deep for me to go out by myself, but with the rate the water was coming in, I also couldn't stay in the house! (At its peak, it was about 2 feet deep in the house.)

Thankfully, our neighbors came to the rescue. They had a much higher second floor where I would be safe. My dad carried me over to the neighbors' house, where they let me stay and wait out the flood waters, while the adults frantically worked to save everything they could from the rising water.

Our neighbors were very friendly. They had a sari-sari store on their ground floor; that is, a small family store with a counter and window. Customers come up to the counter and order food or anything else they want to buy, and then the owners go back and get it, and bring it out. Sari-sari stores were an amazing source of steaming hot rolls (called pandesal) and other fresh food, peanuts, snacks, and other items. As the neighbors' ground floor was also flooded, they had brought their wares up to the second floor, where it was safer. They also had kids, some of whom were younger than me. I remember the neighbors showing me how their dogs could swim. We went out on their porch, and they threw the dogs into the flooded street, and they swam back to us. (The porch had a stairway down to the ground, so that served as the main door in the front of their house, directly above the store.) People in the neighborhood used doors as rafts. Tall friends came over to help my parents with anything they needed. I was amused how some of them used umbrellas, with flood waters up to their shoulders at times, because we wouldn't want to get wet!

[Continued below the pictures]

At our front gate
(The place they were standing was above the street;
thus why the water doesn't come as high on them.
The picture at the top of this post shows
them standing in the street in front of our house.)

Once the water was shallow enough for me to wade in it, my parents got me and I went back to help out. As we bailed water out of the upper level of the house, we were singing, "Pour on water, pour on water!"

That's me on the right, helping to clean the gate.
My t-shirt said "You drive me Bumby's."
No idea what that means, but it still makes me smile.

That was also when we learned our street was on more of an incline than we realized. It didn't look like a hill, as it was gradual, but it was 5 feet deep on our end of the street, and only a couple inches on the other end.

So many people stepped up to help. As with most floods, some people were affected more than others. Some friends had houses on higher ground. Our neighbors took me in to wait it out, safe on their second floor. They did it with a smile, and kept everything as positive and fun as they could. Other friends came to our house while it was flooded to help out. Once the flood water receded, we had a bit of a work party to clean the mud that caked our floors and walls, as well as the car, and move everything back. We put mattresses out on the railings in our backyard to dry out. As difficult as the flood was, everyone's positive attitude was a big help. 

We were able to find humor. I thought it was hilarious that people were wading through shoulder-deep water (in some cases) and holding umbrellas so as not to get wet. The neighbors throwing their dogs into the street made me laugh. (It was safe, as the water was deep enough and the dogs were good swimmers.) The song we had sung the previous evening (about a disaster, no less) kept the tone light as we worked to bail water out.

We were working hard, and nobody wants their house flooded and property damaged. Even so, thanks to everyone's positive attitude and kind, generous spirit, it is actually a happy memory for me on the whole. I wouldn't want to repeat it, but it was a generally happy memory! It's funny how that works.

People sitting on the roof of a pickup,
which was mostly submerged

The Two Seasons

Some of the most stunning natural beauty and the most violent weather I've ever encountered have been in the Philippines, where they only have two seasons: dry and rainy. The palm trees, the sunny beaches, the coral reefs, banana trees, and so much more, are breathtaking. Both seasons are necessary, and both have their drawbacks. 

The rain floods the rice fields, which is important in growing it. Tropical downpours are much stronger than anything I have encountered in the Seattle area, where I live now. It is like standing in the shower. At times, we had to deal with flooding. The wind can get very violent. We had some friends who lost their roof in a typhoon once. With the combination of rain and wind, we learned to move beds and anything else away from the windows when there was a typhoon in the forecast. Thunder can be loud and last a long time, and the lightning lights up the entire sky. The rain, wind and lightning are an awesome force, and are both amazing and terrifying. They can cause a lot of destruction.

But once the rainy season is over, the weather is a lot more calm. The sun beats down. The tropics shine, and the beauty is dazzling. But with my fair skin and red hair, I had to be very careful, as I also got some serious sunburns. The rice fields dried out and cracked. During the dry season, they looked like a desert.

Both seasons are warm year round, as the Philippines is just north of the equator, but it gets a lot hotter during the dry season. We were shivering when it dipped down into the 70s.

I wrote this sonnet in high school as part of an assignment in English class.

travnikovstudio/Adobe Stock

The sun is shining bright

Over the beautiful land of the Philippines
It is such a sight
With an array of gorgeous scenes.
The sea is sparkling light
And the beach cannot compare
While the birds in their soft flight
Soar on the wings of the air.

Rainy Season is here.
The rain falls in torrents
Lightning strikes and thunder claps, causing fear,
And making the little birds tense.
In five months, the rainy season will be over and done
The Philippines will once more know the sun.

Michael/Adobe Stock

icemanphotos/Adobe Stock

Paul Heaven

It was 1991. We had just gotten back to the US from the Philippines, with plans to return in a year. In previous furloughs, we had lived on Washington State's Olympic Peninsula, but this time we would be east of the Puget Sound, attending United Evangelical Free Church in Seattle.

I remember the first social gathering we attended. I met the Heavens and the Beckmans, two couples who would grow to be great friends, and both couples would become important in my life. Along with several other youth, we walked from church to the nearby Westernco Donuts (they have amazing apple fritters). Having just returned from the tropical Philippines, I was freezing. It was July. My 13-year-old mind was wondering how many degrees below 0 it was, while everyone else was wearing t-shirts and shorts.

At that time, we had weekly potlucks at church. Paul and Cathy Heaven had a great sense of humor, and they would bring angeled eggs to the potlucks on occasion. After all, if your name is Heaven, why would you think of bringing deviled eggs?

That summer, we had a church campout north of Seattle, and one day we went for a hike up Sauk Mountain. As we approached the trailhead from the parking lot, we encountered a sign-in sheet, and we signed in. We had a good laugh as the previous group had signed "The Heavenly Host"...and here we were with the Heavens! (When we got to the top, we got to introduce the Heavens to the Heavenly Host.) Sometime earlier, a minor landslide had taken out parts of the path up the hill, and consequently, parts of the switch-back path were narrower than the rest. With my fear of heights, I was terrified as we went over those parts. It was Paul who took my hand each time we reached a narrow part and got me across. I don't know how I would have made it up the hill without him there to help. That increased my respect for him, and when we got back home, I made some blackberry jam to thank him. (It was blackberry season, and as we didn't have blackberries in the Philippines, I made the most of it.)

Paul went out of his way to spend time with me, and he had a great ministry. At a time when I was known by my peers at school for not going to the cinema, he took me to my first cinematic movie. 101 Dalmatians was being re-released, and it was the first movie I ever saw in a regular theater.

As 1992 came along, they started expecting their first child. It was an exciting time, and near the end of the year, little Ethan was born. Cathy taught me how to hold him, and Ethan was the first baby I held properly. It was a very memorable day.

Though we ended up not returning to the Philippines as we were planning, Paul and Cathy and Ethan had to move on. We kept in touch off and on, and we heard about more kids joining their "Heavenly host." I have yet to meet their other kids (who are mostly grown by now), but maybe I will someday.

Years later, we got word that Paul had come down with cancer. They caught it, but it came back. After months of struggles, I got word this morning that my dear friend slipped into the presence of his Savior.

I am so grateful to Paul and Cathy for reaching out to me (literally at times) and loving a missionary kid who felt more at home in the Philippines. That they would take time to get to know me, just to hang out at times, and to help in other ways as well, spoke volumes. They were instrumental in my transition to 8th grade and high school in the US, and if not for them, I would not be who I am today. I only hope I can be as caring and helpful to others as they were to me.

Thank you, Paul. I look forward to seeing you in Heaven.

Now please excuse me while I go cry...

Cathy has done a great job of keeping people updated here. Check it out for more on these amazing people.