New Year's Update!

Happy New Year!

I hope you each had a great Christmas and New Years celebration with friends and family.

The Christmas season here was a really neat time. Our little community of families got together and did a number of traditional “Christmas-y” things, and then some that are not so traditional. The whole week before Christmas we got together and watched a Christmas movie each night, at Scott and Vicki’s house. I baked Christmas cookies for the most part of a day, a few days before Christmas, and we played Christmas music the whole time. =) With all of that, I didn’t mind too much being far away from my family, and I enjoyed having a warm, sunny Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, Steve and Jessica planned an outreach to one of the Mangyan (mon-yan) tribes that is nearby. The Mangyan people are the indigenous people of the island of Mindoro, and they are further broken down into smaller tribes. They are very marginalized, poor people, who have traditionally not owned any land, but they live off the land, and move around frequently. You can tell who the Mangyans are easily, because they are smaller in stature than other Filipinos, they tend to have curlier hair, and rounder faces, and they are almost always poorly dressed and frequently dirty. They are dear people though, from the interactions I have had with them, but are painfully shy around us foreigners. We hope to be able to get to know some of them, and offer them free maternity care, because the majority of Mangyan mothers give birth at home with no one attending the birth but their husbands. So far we have had a few of them from the community up the road, coming for prenatal check ups.

For the outreach we packed bags of food for each family in the village. Each had rice and canned meats and some noodles, and a some fresh pork they could cook for their Christmas celebration. Steve and Jessica had worked with Pastor Toto who with his family, pastors a church right up the road. He has a real heart for reaching out to the Mangyans and a number of them attend his church. They bought 450 pairs of flip flops to give to the kids, and a toy for each child, as well as an apple, which is a special treats for Christmas time here.

Here is Pastor Toto, Steve in the background, and Sarah.
On Christmas Eve we drove up to the village, which is about 20 minutes away, and started to organize things to be able to hand them out to everyone.

This picture is of the kids lining up to get a toy and an apple.
I was helping with fitting the pairs of shoes on the kids…it was a bit chaotic….=) The kids all lined up well, but then somehow the line got tighter and tighter, and there was less and less room for me to work in.

It was a neat time though, and we all came back really glad that we had done it. It was a lot of fun. We gave away all of the shoes, and each family got a bag.
After, we went back and had a Christmas Eve service at Scott and Vicki’s and sang Christmas carols really loud on their front porch. There were probably about 30 of us, so it sounded pretty good. =)

Christmas morning a few of us got together at Corin and Joyce’s house, who are a young married couple, and we had a big breakfast and got each other some stocking stuffers. That afternoon everyone with Mercy In Action got together again, and had a big Christmas dinner, and then did a gift exchange. It was a good time, with good friends.

Even the cat had a good time
Thank you for your prayers for electricity!! Two weeks to the day after the typhoon hit, we had power back in our houses. We were all so thankful! I don’t think I take it for granted quite as much now. =)

The week before Christmas all of the medics and children in crisis students finished their outreach and graduated, and headed back home for Christmas. The next three weeks or so, I will spend getting ready for the new class of midwives to arrive and start their clinical training.

You can continue to pray for our relationship with the local Filipina midwives who are here. They are wonderful ladies, and we are walking through how we can support them, and begin our own birth practice.

Prayer Points
• Safety as members of our team travel- Vicki was on a small ferry boat about three weeks ago, that sank in stormy waters as she was crossing from Puerto Galera, to Luzon, to go to Manila. She’s fine, and everyone on the boat was okay, but it was really scary and we are glad she is okay!
• Good relationships with Filipinos, our neighbors, friends, and patients
• Wisdom as we get ready for the new midwives to arrive

Thank you!
Much Love,
Becka

Thanksgiving

So, about a week before the typhoon hit, we were able to have an absolutely lovely Thanksgiving day here. We were able to get two turkeys, Scott carried them over from Batangas.

So, we had turkeys, and then we ordered some barbequed chickens too, since we weren't sure if the turkeys would be enough...there were going to be about 30 of us.

We also were able to have stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry jelly, straight from the can. =) We had green beans, and carrots, and of course gravy, and it was so good!

I made pumpkin pie from the local orange squash here which turned out great, and Shawn and Jenna made their Sour Cream Dutch Apple pie recipe.

I've put in a few pictures of it...because I've found it saves me time, and a picture tells so much! We didn't get a group picture, but afterwards I thought about how that would have been fun...oh well. Next time na lang.

Vic and I had just taken the meat off of one turkey. Here are Terri and Irie...we were trying to make some whipped cream by hand. We had this box of super-pasturized UHT whipping cream, so we added a little sugar, and set to stirring with a whisk...well, we'd been stirring for a bit, taking turns, and all of the sudden the cream starts getting lumpy, so we keep stirring, and then...it turned into butter. All of the solids clumped together at the top, and the skim milk was at the bottom. We had a good laugh about that...our super whipping powers...hehe. We actually used the butter to make a couple of different batches of cookies, that turned out great.
Here is Curt "carving" the turkey. He actually posed for this one with the knife in his hand, because he was mostly picking the meat off with his fingers....
Of course we had the "kids table". =) All the kids ate outside.
And yes, we have been going to births too...here is a picture of one we went to a couple of weeks ago. She was a first time mom, so it was a long labor, but all went really well.

Typhoon Durian

Well, we all survived the typhoon, with relatively little damage.

It hit hard though, and tore up lots and lots of trees, and tore off roofs. It really hit about maybe 11pm, and I'd been sleeping for a while, so I woke up, and closed my windows and watched the wind and rain whip around outside. I was up and looking around every couple of hours, and I dosed inbetween that. Finally about 4 am it quieted down a bit, and I woke up at 6:30 to see my neighbors repairing their torn off roof.

There wasn't a whole of of structural damage to things, besides for the trees torn up, but the sad part is the loss of electricity. We are hearing reports that it may be 1-3 MONTHS before the electricity is back up. That sounds so crazy, I can hardly comprehend it. But if you think about it the electric lines run along the road, and there must be thousands of trees down along the stretch of national highway that goes from here to Calapan, the big city on northern Mindoro.

So, my last post about waiting for electricity for my house is somewhat null...maybe when power is finally restored, my place will be included. =)

So, for now I'm good. I was at a labor/birth for about 18 hours yesterday, so I'm a bit tired. I did rest some during that time, but it's still not ever relaxing. There was a shoulder dystocia, so that was exciting, but everything was fine, and the baby responded well right away.

Thankfully we have a generator at Scott and Vicki's, so amazingly the internet is running by that, and I can charge my phone, so I'm able to communicate with people. =)
A lot of people in White Beach have generators also, but not really so much here in Aninuan, which is about a 10 minute walk away. So we'll see, we may be living by generator for the next while.

It's okay though, and life seems to be going along as usual...except for the trees in the middle of the road

Here are some pictures of the inside of my apartment, now that it is all painted up! It's tiny inside but it feel so homey already, now that we have painted, and set some things up. Sarah and I are in the process of finally getting moved in for real...the only reason we haven't yet is because there has been no electricity...and there still isn't. But we still have high hopes that it will come soon. We're waiting on the electric company now....

chocolate chip pancakes

A couple of days ago, I had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast (thanks to Carrie). I know, chocolate for breakfast...it almost doesn't seem right, and I thought that, as I was eating them, but still enjoyed them immensely.
Filipinos have perfected the art of the perfect pancake. They are more like a dessert, and are usually found in the dessert section on the menu, of the restaurants here that serve them. They are light and fluffy,and puff up tall when you cook them, with just the right amount of sweetness. Usually you can order them with pineapple, or mango, or banana in them. And of course, chocolate. Most often this will look like a pancake, with chocolate syrup on top.
These pancakes are very different from the idea of a pancake that I grew up with. I think, not having the history of specialties like flapjacks, and johnnycakes, and buckwheat pancakes, and the different varieties that pioneers and homesteaders made, what you get here is an import, dessert version...lite.
But still really good. And these lovely pancakes come from a mix...just put in the egg, water and oil, and--perfect pancakes, every time.

I remember, being a kid, and wanting the big fluffy pancakes that you would get from the Bisquick mix. We rarely ever got those...which I'm thankful for...but I think I remember the first time I had one...when a babysitter came over and made them for us one night for dinner. I remember looking at the box, and watching the pancakes puff up on the griddle.
Yes, my dad liked the pancakes full of whole grains and goodness...Cornmeal Mountain Pancakes. =) I like them too...and now, when I make my own pancakes I always put whole wheat flour, or wheat germ, or oatmeal, if I have it.
I bought some oat flour pancake mix at the health food store in Manila a few weeks ago. I tried to make them, and they almost wouldn't cook, they were so heavy...so I think next time, I may just have to start with that light and fluffy Maya mix, and add a bit of the real stuff...to get a happy medium. =)

On Friday, we had a big shebang for Vic's birthday, complete with a whole roasted pig, 6 or 7 barbeque chickens, a grilled tuna, and of course lots of rice, and some pancit. It was great!

They roast the pig most of the day, over a charcoal pit, down at the road, on the side of the little canteen restuarant that recently opened.

Rose made cupcakes and brownies, and Scott bought loads and loads of ice cream. The kids were thrilled...=) We were all thrilled actually. I haven't had much ice cream since I've come to Puerto Galera.
There must have been at least 50 people here, because we invited all of our neighbors, which are a whole family that live in about 6 houses right near us. The barangay captain is part of that family, so he came along, as well as the pastor of the church we've been going to down the road, and his family, and Grace, the Filipina midwife, and some of the medical staff from Dr. Francis' clinic.
Plus all of the Mercy In Action students and staff, and there were a lot of us. It was a lot of fun.

The first picture is the stairs we get to go up to get to my apartment. The bamboo ones are loose, so we need to put more of the baling wire they have on it, to make it stronger. =)
The apartment is the white building on the right.

Here is the view from our little balcony upstairs.

The Update Letter

Dear Friends and Family,

I'm sitting in a small house in the Philippines, listening to the sounds of the toko lizard somewhere on the kitchen ceiling, and thinking that this letter is long, long, overdue.

So, please forgive me if you haven't heard from me for a while, and have no idea what I'm up too….sometimes I don't know that myself. =) Or, forgive me if you've already heard all of this.....

There is a lot to tell, for those of you who I haven't spoken to in a while, but this will be the shorter version. =) I do plan to continue to send out update letters more frequently, as long as our internet service allows it. =) We are really blessed to have wireless internet at the house, but often times it is down as much as it is up.

Almost four weeks ago now, I made the move back to the Philippines, to continue working with Mercy In Action, who I've been involved with, as a student and staff member for three years. The ministry itself went through a whole lot of transition this summer…and the biggest thing that came from that was that we decided to move our entire headquarters to the Philippines! This is going to help us by bringing the ministry all to one location, and let us continue to regroup, and reach out.

One reason that this change came about, was that in late June, the Department of Health for the city that we were working in in Metro Manila, came to the clinic there and issued us a "cease and desist" order, telling us that we had violated a sanitary permit, and would not be allowed to deliver any more babies there, until that was taken care of. That was a shock to all of us, and it led to three months of many hours of deliberation and prayer for favor. We hired a Christian Filipino lawyer to help us figure out all of the legal things here in the Philippines, our staff here spent many hours talking with people, filling out paperwork, and basically doing all we could to meet the requirements they gave us. The bottom line, is that those charges were trumped up, and the Department of Health admitted it, but it was also an issue of money, and they did not like that our free clinic was taking patients away from their paying ones.

While all this was happening, we were running a school in Boise, which was going great. We had 17 midwife students, 16 mission medic students, and 5 students in a new school dealing with issues of children in crisis, which Katie is involved in. We had condensed the class also, to run in three months, what we normally did in 4 ½, but it was still a whole lot of fun, and a really great school. The students were all amazing; I lived in a house with 12 of the midwife students, and of course, there was never a dull moment. All of the mission medic students and children in crisis students are in the Philippines now, doing their clinic outreach, and we are hearing great reports from them. The first group of new midwife students is planning to come in January.

So, knowing that our clinic here was closed weighed pretty heavy on us all, and Scott and Vicki, the directors, made the decision to move to the Philippines to do whatever it took to get it reopened. As that happened, the decision was also made to move the whole ministry here, and I was very happy to come along. I had been thinking about it, and praying, in the back of my mind, that I would be able to come, not really thinking that I would….=)

When I arrived, the rest of the students and staff had been here for three weeks, and they had had to make the hard decision, that we were not going to be able to reopen our Manila clinic, despite everything we had done, and meeting all of the requirements that were asked of us. It was very, very hard on all of the staff and students who had been working here already, hard to leave the moms in the squatter area we know need our services, moms we'd made friends with, and gotten to know. As hard as it is, we have to believe that God has a plan for it…that His will is in place, and we can pray that the plans of man will not prosper. It is hard to know that so much of why we had to leave was because of politics and money, and it is the poor who suffer because of it.

We are now headquartered on the next island south of Manila…Oriental Mindoro, in a community on the beach, Puerto Galera…that we used to come to for vacations. =) It's a tough life. =) Yes, the beach is a five minute walk away…but of course it is a bit rural when you're used to living in Manila, where practically everything you are used to is available. On the plus side, you don't have the pollution and traffic of Manila…everything here is beautiful and green. The reason we moved here is because we have gotten to know a Christian Filipino doctor, Dr. Francis, who has a couple of walk-in clinics here, and he has an incredible heart to reach out to his people, and wants to work with us.

We are still working on new clinical sites for our midwife students. We're also blessed to know a missionary couple who run a free birth center in the city of Antipolo, on the outskirts of Manila, and they have agreed to let our students come and learn to catch babies there. We hope to be able to also set up a small birth center here in Puerto Galera, in a room of one of the clinics, as well as working with the local midwives.

I have been able to rent a little apartment, just up the road from the house that Scott and Vicki are renting here, and a couple of other houses that our staff and students are living in. It's a tiny little place…has a room downstairs with a bathroom, and tiny kitchen, and a bedroom upstairs. It's brand new though, and it's up the side of a hill, so from the balcony on the second floor, we can see the ocean. =) I have attached a picture of the stairs up, and the view from the balcony.

I am going to continue to work as an administrator for the school, mostly for midwifery students, and also work to answer emails and correspond with people, as well as be a clinical midwifery supervisor and preceptor, when the opportunity comes. In Boise I was a midwifery instructor, as well as teaching some of the other classes we had, which I loved.

I am really glad to be here…and while I miss Boise in the fall, a whole lot, when I think about it, I know: that there is no other place I would rather be than here, right now. =)

If you've made it to the end of this letter…thanks!

I have decided to start a blog…because it's the "in" thing to do =), and because I did realize that it's a great way to keep people updated more regularly, and you can check back on it when ever you feel like it! I will also post pictures there of the adventures I know I will have, so you can look at those if you'd like. I will also be sending out updates though, as often as I can.

The address to my blog is www.adventures-afar.blogspot.com

Check it out! =) I haven't posted much besides this letter yet.

I am planning to be in the Philippines for at least a year, possibly longer. Thanks for sharing this journey with me!

Much love,
Becka

Prayer points

• Good relationships with local midwives and doctors, and neighbors
  
• Continued vision for the future of the ministry
• Safety and good outreaches for our teams traveling the Philippines

First Post

We'll give it a try!