We are mightily blessed.

Well – It’s been a while since I’ve written here. Not because I haven’t thought about it, but because I didn’t have the energy to figure out what or how to say what has been in my heart and mind. I’m going to briefly scratch the surface and try to catch you up a bit

• There has been lots of healing from January and other issues in life. Maybe Someday {soon’ish} I’ll write more about it. I know I will, but I’m not done processing, but I do believe there is much to be said and I will be speaking out. It will be hard. I don’t look forward to it.
• We’ve traveled overseas.
• I have turned 40!

Let me take a step back a bit further – in August (or September) I wrote to my brother and told him my kids & I would like to help them. This was not a new tug on my heart – it’s been there since February of 2008 when we visited them in Arizona. Last year when Vince came home from the Philippines he said he wanted us to return – not for a visit, but to work.

So, last fall I talked to Zach & Jane and all I really knew was we were willing – it was crazy and only possible if it was God’s plan.

As it ‘coincidently’ worked – their partner family, who is also their next-door neighbor, was leaving for furlough and was agreeable to us staying in their home. I did the necessary paperwork to become supported, short-term missionaries from our church; and in February I sent out a prayer/support request letter. I really struggled with asking, I don’t ask or accept well. Something the Lord has been working on me about. In conversation with one person about the cost and whether we’d receive enough financial support to go – she said, “It may seem like a lot to you, but for a church family together it is not very much.”

I realized in that moment how often I put God in a box. Whether by thinking I’m not worth {it}, or thinking someone else could use {fill in the blank} more/do more good with the resources.

So, after 6 months of unemployment and a very hard, difficult, and lean winter; a time when it was difficult to buy groceries and gas. A time when there was no possible way I could ‘buy our way’ to get here, or even contribute financially – yet, by God’s amazing grace, provision, and mighty plan – my children and I are in the Philippines as supported, short-term missionaries.

After about three weeks enough money had come in, I started to realize we really would be coming. I purchased our airline tickets in mid-March and had 3 weeks to prepare, pack, and ‘finalize’ life in the states before we left. Those three weeks were insane! To top it off – the four days before flying we got more than 12” of snow!!! On Monday night I was stuck in our driveway, Tuesday I got stuck again as we got more snow (the original picture at the top) – we flew out Wednesday night….driving to the airport in falling snow. We spent 2.5 days travelling and landed to 90+* temps with 80+% humidity.

We are warm.

… have not stopped sweating.

… are only cool when taking a cold shower.

I am learning how to:

share living spaces with Budiki (a small lizard)

be sweaty. all. the. time.

the value of cold showers. multiple in a day even.

sleep with two fans on me.

I have become a morning person. I go to bed by 8:30/9pm each night and am waking up 5:30/6 each morning. I love the breezes through open windows day and night.

We are here for two months to work alongside my brother & his wife. I will be spending time homeschooling the kids; we are working on a library; there will be time spent in different tribes working. During all of this – I am living in my ‘own’ house. A beautiful house, kept clean and running smoothly by a wonderful woman who is the house help. I have just spent the first week of my life with consistent help. As a single mom, I can’t even begin to describe how amazing it is to sit here on a Saturday morning – clean house & bathroom and all laundry washed, folded, put away.

We arrived the day before my 40^th birthday. It was my first international flight, first time out of the country (I don’t count going through Canada travelling from Alaska to the lower 48), and it had been over a year since hugging my nieces and nephew.

God did this! He made it happen.

We are here to be a blessing and true to God’s nature, we have already been blessed.

The flowers are all from Jane’s yard or my yard – either way I’m seeing them with my own eyeballs every day.

I don’t know when I’ll update again, as the internet has been difficult to get ahold of and hang on to. Have a blessed day.

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Song

GO:: My first thought – I can’t sing, at least not out loud. I pretty much always have a song – more acurately a tune – in my mind.

Here in the Philippines, there are so many songs – all happening at once.
there are the roosters.
the dogs.
the traffic.
horns honking.
the occasional siren.
kids singing. kids talking. kids playing
and always, always multiple fans.
rain on a tin roof. [marvelous]
[every once in a while all the other song sounds diminish enough to hear] the birds’ songs.
I love hearing birds chirping, singing their heart song. there are so many different birds here.

my brain and ears get tired sometimes. other times it has just become ‘white’ noise.

Last weekend we got to spend time out in the tribe for 4 days, there the overall song was so different, more like home [in some ways, in others it was still a world away].

there were waves crashing – day and night.
adults speaking in different languages.
kids singing. kids talking. kids playing.
kids speaking in different languages – in play and work.
and so many, many birds. all with a different song.
there were times we could hear the breezes rustling in the coconut tree leaves.
and the rain gently falling. or dumping.
it was blissful.

I look forward to the sounds of home. Similar in some ways yet so very different, but they will all be familiar.  ::STOP

Can you hear the breezes in the Coconut trees and the birds chirping their song?

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In my defense, I was a senior. they were middle school boys. enough said.

However, today, 20+ years later, it is a whole different ball game. I could not be more proud of them, their choices, the way they parent, the husbands they are. <– Let this be an encouragement to all  moms with children fighting, what seems like, endlessly. day after day. In addition, I am so appreciative of the uncles are been to my children. The father role model my children don’t get to experience first hand, but they do get to see lived out as an example. they do watch. and they are learning from my brothers, their uncles.

Here are some pictures of the extremes my brothers are living right now – none of these pictures are mine. The pictures of Zach are from a MAF missionary who flew with him this week to help get supplies unloaded and given to those in need. They are covering so much ground each day. If you are looking for a place to donate money to help those devastated by the typhoon, check out NTMA’s website for more information. As I said earlier in the week, my brother is getting to be the ‘last link’ in a long chain to get the much needed supplies to people – ongoing donations are a huge blessing. These are amazing photos! The other pictures are Matt’s, you can visit his blog to see more about his amazing life – in his own words.

My brother is the one with the helmet on unloading supplies. They pay close attention to the weight distribution in the heli, so small bags makes it much easier to pack, shift, and re-pack – and makes use of every square inch of the inside. This is how food stuff is packed for the missionaries too.

I love this picture of Zach with the bubble and the beach. You see him flying, and you see the surroundings too. Look at that amazing view (and the heartbreaking devastation)!

While he roasts and has to figure out how to keep cool while flying, Matt has to make sure he has survival gear for the cold. Can’t get much more extreme flying condidtions- I suspect the temps they were flying in this week were 100* apart, at the minimum. almost the whole time. This is assuming it was at least 80* outside for Zach at all times (a pretty safe assumption I think); I know Matt said on his blog, he was flying with the temps on the ground being -25*.

I’m assuming this is looking out of the helicopter, looking at one of the NTMA planes. That’s a WHOLE lot of water!!!

Here you see some bigger bags. It looks like Zach is getting more out of the helicopter yet (I can see his legs and body leaning in on other side), or maybe he’s preparing to take off again. If you remember, he said people weren’t sure what he was doing landing on their beach. I kind of thought he meant near, or around, their beaches. I didn’t realize he meant literally landing on white sand beaches. There are some amazing photos of their smiling faces, you can see their gratitude for the help. I’m not posting those though because they’re not my photos and you can see the faces so clearly.

Jump a few thousand miles north (5,000+), and now you see Matt’s view this week. Do you see the sun hitting the top of Denali/McKinley? Brrr! it makes me cold just looking at this photo.

This is what Matt spends his days flying in. This plane is basically a member of the family. I especially like it with its bush wheels on :-). This was actually taken 3 weeks ago. Everything is very white today. We had negative temps, rain, then snow in a matter of about 24 hours. Currently it is a balmy 23* and we have about 1.5ft of fresh, white snow. Winter has arrived.

{Also, update on dad. Surgery went well. It was NOT cancerous – praise the Lord! They are currently en route – he’s even well enough to be looking forward to his favorite coffee in the Seattle airport – to pick up their new-to-them truck and drive it home. They wont’ actually be driving for a couple days yet. A little bit of work has to be done first – but he found the wheel he needed on the way to the airport in Texas. :-)}

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Thanksgiving in the Philippines. Yes, Thanksgiving is traditionally thought of as an American holiday – however, any person in any culture can enjoy thanks giving. or giving thanks. or Thanksgiving.

My sister-in-law posted this on facebook today – they’re on Thanksgiving day in the Philippines:

We are all still plugging along! With 2 planes & 1 helicopter pretty much flying all the time, we’ve flown 160+ hours & hauled almost 44,000 lbs of cargo around! Our relief efforts are still focused on small islands surrounding Palawan & helping them get food & shelter until they can get back on their feet. 

Today is Thanksgiving here in the Philippines. Zach and Dave, the hand at the end of a long arm of support, will be the ones who get to see many thankful smiling faces as they deliver food to the people of these typhoon torn islands. 
…
Our hearts prayer is that one day these same people will be thanking the One who is truly deserving of their praise and know Him as their personal Savior.

Thanksgiving is an action, it is giving thanks. Stopping to be thankful and give God praise for the harvest of blessings and food provisions for the coming winter.

In the Philippines this year there is great thanks giving in many remote and hard hit areas.

I have wondered this year – in America, do we even remember why we have Thanksgiving? It doesn’t seem so. In stores we went from Halloween to Christmas. Thanksgiving was just grouped with fall and Halloween. I saw Thanksgiving stuff on clearance and Christmas out before Halloween! Really – lets all see the Black Friday ads 2 weeks before – or forget waiting for 5am on Friday the day AFTER giving thanks…let’s shop on Thanksgiving day?! or do Black Friday shopping before Thanksgiving? I just don’t get it.

Let’s remember Thanksgiving ISN’T about gluttony with food & Black Friday.

Amazing God note: In the last week someone named Dave, with MAF, has been flying with my brother (the same ‘Dave’ Jane referred to in the above note) – I’ve greatly appreciated the photos and being able to see Zach in action. I posted on Saturday morning about my brothers, the extreme differences they’re flying in right now, and shared pictures of both. Then on Saturday afternoon when I was finally reading emails from the day – I was reading through Grace Full Mama’s email and there was a picture I’d posted and looked at many times throughout the week…{enter several mind boggling moments as I tried to process her having the same photo I’d seen from my sister-in-law on facebook}. Get this, the “MAF guy” flying with my brother – is her husband! How crazy is that? Go read Dave’s account of Thanksgiving in the Philippines. You will get to see amazing smiles, I promise you won’t be sorry. Especially, if you have given or are able to give financially – go, see first hand pictures from those seeing the results.

All pictures taken and owned by Dave Forney. {I did get permission from Joy, once I knew whose pictures I’d “stolen”, and she assured me it was okay for me to keep them up and share these Philippine photos here.}

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This is my absolute favorite picture from Zach!

 

Every time I see this picture I am overwhelmed with how happy I am for Zach getting to be where God has placed him, doing exactly what God wants him to do right now.

 

Here is a copy/paste of a couple different emails from Zach, this first quote is what he said with the above picture.

Jan. 25th, Day 4 in Haiti – “I realized today as I was flying back from a mission that I love what I am doing. I feel guilty for having fun in a disaster area, but the work is so rewarding and so challenging that no flying will ever be the same again.”

 

Feb. 1st, Day 9 in Haiti – “I cant even begin to describe what all happened yesterday, but it was long, sad, happy, hard and dirty. I need to write something down about each day because they are all beginning to blur together. I can’t spend much time writing because I have to get ready for today.

This may sound strange, but I just suddenly realized that with the help of God we were able to help save the lives of a little baby and a 7 year old boy yesterday. I only suddenly remembered it because I experience a lot of sad things every day that can overwhelm the good that happens.

I had a guy ask me yesterday when I have to get back to the states and get back to work. My immediate response was, this IS my job. And suddenly I was filled with gratitude for our supporters who make it possible for me to be here working. There are very few people down here who have the flexibility in their work schedule that I do. Maybe you could pass that on to them in the next update.”

 

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