out to eat

It isn't too often that we eat out.
Last week we found ourselves away from home at dinnertime,
so we stopped by Antonio's, thinking we'd find some Italian options.
We paused to look at the menu outside the door, but before we knew it,
we had 3 or 4 employees out there with us, urging us inside.

At that point it was pretty hard to say no.

Even though there was not one Italian offering on that menu.
Silly us. Why did we think we'd find Italian at Antonio's?!?

Once inside, settled in our very nice booth with our own menus,
I found myself enormously amused by the selection.

Delectable entrees like
Breaded Squid With Garlic Mayo Dip
or Deep Fried Squid Tentacles With Lots Of Garlic
Or Sizzling Squid Tentacles

The kids were looking a little worried.

There was Balut (raw duck eggs)
and Milkfish
and (above)
Spicy Hot Pork Ears Tossed in Lemon, Vinegar...
Or Crispy Fried Pork Intestines With Garlic Vinegar Dip

I might have been looking a little worried too.

On to the salads...not your typical options...
Banana Heart Salad
Jackfruit Salad
Grilled Eggplant Salad
Fresh Pomelo Salad
Green Mango Salad

And the shakes!
Which one would you have chosen?

We chose the Watermansi Juice,
a blend of Watermelon and Calamansi,
a small lime-like fruit.
It was delicious and refreshing!

Our waiter saw me with my camera,
and offered to take a family shot.
What a nice idea.

It was a beautifully presented meal.


But not exactly a place anyone is begging to go back to...

the race marked out for us

Friday marked the end of school's 3rd quarter,
and the beginning of Spring Break.
Joy of joys!
In celebration, the morning was filled with Field Day events;
races, relays, frisbee throws, hurdles, soft ball throws, and jumping.

Amy and Michael both joined in the 1k race,
against kids from Kindergarten on up.

Michael's wearing red with stripes in the front row,
Amy's in red behind him

Guess who came through the finish line first?
I guess all that training with Dad paid off, Michael!

With Amy nine seconds behind, in second place.

Elise (in light green) and Amy (far R) prepare for the girl's 300 meter dash

Elise shows her team spirit.
It isn't easy being GREEN.

Then the shoe split.
Michael's 2-year old Nikes,
the ones we found at the outlet mall before leaving Savannah,
finally gave out.
The heart and sole separated,
leaving Michael with the rubber toe of his sole flapping in the breeze.
Not what the well-dressed elementary student wears for a 300 meter dash.

But Mark offered to run home and snag the duct tape;
one more reason that living close is a great thing.

Here he is, ready to go,
hamming it up for all it's worth.

The duct tape didn't seem to slow him down at all.
Another 1st place.

No more mom-brags, I promise.
At least, not in this blog post...

But maybe the best part of all
was just the time with friends,

And we're thankful for all of it.
Healthy, fast bodies,
the ability to use them for God's glory,
friends to encourage and who encourage us,
and opportunities to learn and grow and give thanks
at every single turn...

"...let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith."
Hebrews 12:1&2

May we all be running whatever race God has set before us today,
with eyes on Christ Himself,
persevering all the way to the finish.

the other side of the tracks

Michael and I took another stroll together last Saturday afternoon.

Our path led a different direction, and I was again amazed by the variety in our surroundings.

Hope you'll enjoy just another sampling of life in our colorful neighborhood...

down the street, barefoot boys and wandering chickens,
and for some reason it looks cleaner than it really is...

balancing produce for sale as she follows behind her mother,
hoping for customers along the way

the path to the cemetery, past the coffin-maker's shack

a posting of the schedule of interment;
written in chalk, so quickly washed away...
a reminder of our mortality

continuing down the path we pass several dogs;
all wild-looking, one blind, all skulking past us in fear


then past the home of a pig-keeper;
future lechon in the growing.
we smile and greet the woman in the background,
asking permission to photograph her prize-winner


the nearby pig-sty.
literally.
just a moment before taking the photo,
a pig had been peering curiously over the edge just below the blue bucket.

then we heard the squeals,
and peeked into a nearby dis-used coffin

home for the piglets

with no food in hand, we were a sore disappointment to them all


on down the trail and back to a road we went,
greeting elderly women, children, and all friendly faces after we spoke our
'maayong hapon' with a smile

lovely vines growing down into a drainage ditch at the roadside,
beauty nurtured and braided where it's found

seeing us photograph the vines, they cried, 'picture!'
'take my picture!'
with joy.
and a stalk of almost-ripe cooking bananas, too.

focused on his grazing in succulent pasture along the road,
this goat was coaxed to pose by Michael's encouraging noises

and children shy but eager to see their own faces digitalized immortal on my camera screen

cascading vines of periwinkle

and a moment's break in a street game of basketball


is it any wonder our children worry that life back in the U.S. might seem boring?

homesick

I sink into the lawn chair alone on the deck, head tilted back to look beyond this street where I live. It’s the end of a long day, and I’m feeling a little worn around the edges. I’ve been homesick today – missing my own culture, my family, my friends, the beauty and quiet and climate of my own land.

Night is pinned to the sky with a million stars, and Orion’s belt looms large. This same star-spangled sky is visible to you too, my family and friends, all those thousands of impossible miles away. In a few hours you may notice this very constellation. Somehow that thought eases some of the ache; it makes home seem not quite so unreachably far away.

Then a bank of clouds from somewhere off the coast of this island begins to swiftly blow in. Within minutes the stars are completely hidden from view and raindrops land on my cheeks like tears from the skies. An inexplicably deep and unreasonable sense of loss comes over me; a wave of isolation as those twinkling diamonds that linked me to home disappear one by one.

But the clouds haven’t extinguished the stars. They are no less real, no less bright because they are invisible to me. That link to home is still there, but more importantly, home, and YOU, the ones I miss, are still there, no further from me than before.

I begin to think of the greater homesickness that we share in common; not for a terrestrial land, but for our eternal one. A homesickness for glory, for our beautiful Savior, for the climate of peace and sinless perfection of our REAL home beyond those invisible stars.

Sometimes the storm clouds block my link to that home. Tossed and flurried, eyes on the waves and the upheaval in life, whether it’s earthquakes and tsunamis or negative attitudes or more laundry on top of more appointments or sickness or just no time to even think about HOME and our beautiful Savior and the cross that unites Heaven and me.

Wrapped up in the clouds of here and now, I forget where I came from. And where I’m going. But the clouds haven’t dispelled the cross; the link to HOME. It’s no less real because it’s unseen.

And the One who hung there, who spoke peace to the waves, who named every star in the night sky; He’s preparing a place for us.

One of these days we’ll be going Home.

"In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you...”

John 14:2

pillars tremble

Thank you to all of you who have expressed concern for us in the wake of the tsunami in Japan, and the subsequent natural disasters in the Pacific. Please know that we are fine - we have not been affected in the least.

Then join us in praying for those whose lives have been ravaged by this upheaval, and that all these events will serve as a reminder to the human race of Who is really in control of this planet after all.

"It is God...who shakes the earth out of its place,
and its pillars tremble;
Who commands the sun not to shine,
and sets a seal upon the stars;
Who alone stretches out the heavens
And tramples down the waves of the sea;
Who makes the Bear, Orion and the Pleides,
And the chambers of the south;
Who does great things,
UNFATHOMABLE,
and wondrous works without number."
Job 9:5-10

neighborhood walk

A while ago I took you for a photo-stroll through our neighborhood.
Here are a few more shots of the streets around our home.

Michael poses by papaya trees laden with fruit

a flooded street

one of many grazing cows in an empty lot

and a couple of the cow pies they leave behind

a spot someone calls home

another one of those mid-day siestas

a quaint gate in a barbed wire fence,
leading to a well-tended garden

a fenced dog going wild
over a wet and traumatized cat he can't quite reach



and home again, to find a friend waiting for us at the gate.

There's never a dull walk through our neighborhood!

ramphotyphlops braminus

So what do you do
when you find one of these
behind your living room couch?

Well, Michael agrees with the Yiddish Proverb:

"A snake deserves no pity."

Not even when it's no bigger than an earthworm.
This must be the world's smallest snake.

After executing justice,
Michael took the remains up to the office to ask some Filipino friends what kind of snake it was.
"Udto Udto" they said. And said to be so poisonous that if he bites you,
you won't last til lunch.

So we did a little research at home.
Love that Google.
And we found the above photos of the ramphotyphlops braminus,
identical to our invader,
a harmless blind snake species found mostly in Africa and Asia.
(Did you catch that, Grandma?!? Harmless!!)

Completely fossorial, (that's a Wikipedia word)
they are often mistaken for earthworms
(yep, we weren't sure until we saw it move)
except that they are not segmented.
(and they move a lot faster than a worm!)

"Even if a snake is not poisonous, it should pretend to be venomous."
-Chanakya

nice try.

ukay-ukay

For some of you it would be the ultimate garage sale.
Ukay-ukay literally means "dig, dig."

It's what happens when an enterprising Filipino spends a few dollars to ship a crate of American left-overs to the Philippines for resale. And ukay-ukay is the name for the Filipino tradition of digging through those piles of clothing, shoes, linens, etc., hoping to find some buried treasure for a few pesos. (The clothes typically sell for between 10 cents -$2 or so.)

These left-overs (items you gave to Goodwill along with seconds that didn't sell at Old Navy) are tossed in piles; on tables, on the ground,or sometimes they are hung on hangers for easier browsing. (Though those ones tend to cost more.)
These ukay-ukays are all over the city - sometimes stretched out for a block on the sidewalk for a weekend sale, other times in their own shop space.

As you dig through your own closet today,
hoping to unearth that perfect something to wear,
remember with me that the most valuable clothing of all
is that which is too precious to be bought;
yet free to those who believe...

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God,
for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
He has covered me with the robe of righteousness
Isaiah 61:10

I know it will severely disappoint some of you to hear that no, we haven't gone digging yet.
Ya'll know I'd rather do my ukay- ukaying at the used book-store, digging for treasures to read!

muddiest shirt

Anyone recognize this child?

A face only a mother could love.

These photos are just in case anyone doubted
that our children actually get dirty.

I heard rumors that there was some
competition between Michael and Mr. B.,
the band teacher, to see who had the muddiest shirt
after Ultimate Frisbee.

But we all know Mr. B. would never do such a thing.

tide rolls on

The laundry never ends.
But the other day as I was opening a fresh bag of Tide detergent,
the picture on the back struck me for the first time.
(Yes, I'm a little slow.)

These are no ordinary laundry instructions.
This bag is for the average Filipino.
The one who scrubs laundry in a round tub at the back sink
or takes in a neighbor's laundry on the street side for a little extra cash.

Then Amy pointed out another unique aspect.
The instructions are written in a mix of Cebuano and English.

"Kusutin ang mga puti nang at least 20 minuto..."

****************

Filipinos use another laundry product also that is fabulous.
They use detergent bars -
produced specifically for people who do their laundry by hand.
Hard bars of laundry soap that take stains out miraculously.
Believe me.
I'm a soccer mom.
I buy the Tide bars that are the size of a normal bar of soap,
moisten the clothing, rub the stain with the bar,
scrub with a brush for a minute, and the stains are GONE.

Others use the foot-long size of detergent bar, (above)

One side of the bar is ridged,
something like the washboard my mother used when she was first married!


*******************

Maybe you remember this post about how thankful we were for the rain last spring, after a very hot and dry season? Well, this year we've been blessed with lots of cooler, rainy weather. The bigger struggle has been to get our clothes to dry before they mold!

Never dried socks in my kitchen before.


As I do all this laundry,
I find myself so thankful for God's good gifts...

for the luxury of a washing machine...
for sunshine to dry these clothes...(most of the time!)
for these 4 precious people I get to serve by washing their clothes...
for all of these changes of clothing!...
for health and strength to be able to do this job myself...
for the smell of clean clothes...
for the reminders of His blood that cleanses me from all sin!