Joy Revisited

I slept and dreamt that life was joy.

I awoke and saw that life was service.

I acted and behold, service was joy."

The above quote is written by Rabindranath Tagore, a philosopher and reformer who lived in Calcutta at the turn of the 20th century and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.  When I saw this quote, it struck me quite stunningly how accurate this is in my life. 

When I went on my first mission to Africa, I was told that now my life would be split into two parts…life before Ghana and life after Ghana.  I didn’t believe it at the time, I thought how could one experience change one’s life so irrevocably that it would never be the same again.  But it totally did!!  It was like I woke up for the first time and saw how I should really live my life, caring for and serving others.  My path may be different from yours, but whether we move to another country to serve and care for others or do it in the town we were born in, we are all called to service.  The amazing thing that I learned on my very first mission was that when I gave myself totally in service to others, I was filled with great joy…even through difficult times and painful experiences.  It is not a joy born of earthly things, for that kind of joy is temporary.  The joy I am speaking of comes from deep within yourself, it is a brightness, a lightening of your load, a feeling of peace and of grace. “I acted and behold, service was joy!”

   

This past February, missioners from around the whole world came to Borongan City for the 12^th Annual Bulig Kablas Medical Mission through the Diocese of Joliet Partnership in Mission.  48 men and women including doctors, nurses, dentists, builders, painters, and community outreach volunteers came to Borongan traveling thousands of miles, spending hundreds of dollars, leaving their families and their work.  They worked here for two weeks without pay healing the sick, helping to restore dental health, building homes in the rain and reaching out to the poorest of the poor, from the smallest children to the senior citizens.   Why do they do that?  What could be their motivation?  I know what it is… it is the joy they feel in serving others.  It may seem hard to believe, but even in the challenging situations, the painful encounters and headaches and tummy troubles, there is joy!   That is why so many of these volunteers have been coming back to Borongan for this mission for many years now.  They acted and behold, they found service was joy.

This year for the Medical Mission, I was on the dental team.  We served the poor in the barrios of San Jose and  San Miguel, we worked two days in the provincial hospital and we also gave dental care to the prisoners at the provincial jail and at PJMB.  Three dentists came from the US along with three dental hygenists, and, working alongside Sister Michelle Ureta, one of the Oikos Sisters who is also a dentist, they saw over 650 patients and did over 1,000 procedures!!!  I was working as the dental pharmacist together with other Oikos co-workers throughout the dental mission.  It was really amazing to see all of the dentists working so hard, bending over patients, one after the other, understanding and feeling the fears and pain of their patients, working from early in the morning until late in the afternoon and treating each person with kindness and patience.  Despite the back pain, headaches, heat and long hours, at the end of the day, I could still see the joy on their faces.  Truly, there is great joy in service!  For me, it was my first time working as a pharmacist, although all I gave out were pain killers and amoxicillin!  Still, being able to offer a comforting smile, some relief from pain and receiving lots of smiles as I gave the instructions for the medicine in Waray Waray, I felt blessed to be able to do even that.  The experience at the prisons was something I will never forget.  It was the first time I did prison ministry, but I hope it won’t be the last.  I had a personal encounter with each prisoner as I explained to them how to take their medicine, offered empathy for their dental pain and gave wishes for a speedy recovery.  Each of us received the grace to look beyond the exterior of each prisoner to see the person God created, and gave them all the care and love a child of God deserves.          

There is great joy in service, and I am so thankful to God for the blessing of being able to experience this joy day in and day out with the Oikos Sisters in their mission, Oikos Ptochos Tou Theo, the Poor Household of God.  From the big acts of service like making food for 600 people and serving it to the smaller tasks like encoding a songbook for the Oikos Family to use during prayer, when I am able to put others first and truly rely on God, I am filled with the joy of service.

I know that Rabindranath Tagore did not write this poem for me... but I thank him from the bottom of my joyful heart that he wrote it for it explains something I have been trying to put into words for 4 years now.  By the way, you don't have to become a missionary or travel hundreds of miles to feel this kind of joy.  The Good Lord knows there are many, many people in need right here in our city, our neighborhoods, possibly even in our own families.  Do the service...feel the joy...never stop!!! 

Dr. Terry and Dr. Mike in San Miguel

Ready to start the day!!

Dental Hygienist Laura...can you find her?

The dental team with our protectors...Thank you!!!

A Humbling Experience: Arnell

I know that I have been sorely negligent in my commitment to posting about my missionary work.  I apologize for the interruption.  It is true that I am quite busy here and that at the end of the day I seem to fall into bed with a loud sigh and drift right into sleep.  But I do miss writing, I miss the connection I have had with those of you who have been faithful readers.  I will do my best to begin again.  I had some technical issues...the computer I was using crashed, and I lost many of my pictures and posts I was writing.  So...here we go...beginning once again...I hope and pray that the fervor in which I desire to write is enough to keep my eyes open at night!!

So this is my fourth trip here to the Poor Household of God mission in the Philippines with the Oikos Sisters.  I sort of was surprised at the feeling of coming home that I experienced upon my arrival here.  But truly, it felt so natural and right.  It was a great feeling to experience!!  I have made a commitment to the Oikos Mission, this past January I renewed my status as a co-worker of the Oikos Sisters.  It is a one-year commitment, my second year as a co-worker.  I have also made a personal commitment to remain here in this mission, to look no further to where God wants me to be.  I believe He wants me here...and I am happy to be here!

I am continuing to work with the Baking Mamas.  There are now 4 mothers working, baking each day.  We have a daily order of snacks each morning delivered by 9:30 in the morning.  The mothers make pizza, empanadas, toron (bananas wrapped in a thin shell and fried), banana Q (bananas cooked with brown sugar until caramelized and put on a stick), and cassava cake (a local delicacy made from a root crop called cassava, sugar and milk).  This summer we will hopefully get a stand near the beach and sell our products each day as well.  We've also tried baking baked pretzels...quite a marvelous new treat for them!!  So much fun!!  I'll also be teaching them some new treats to make.  The mothers get paid an hourly wage along with a meal while working.  we hope this can become a livelihood program we can begin again and again with poor mothers.  Please pray for us!!  There's more information about the Baking Mamas on our website, http://www.PoorHouseholdofGod.org.  Feel free to check it out!!

People continue to come to our door for help.  Whether looking for medicine, rice or money for their needs, we see everyone who comes and try to help as best as we can.  The other day, a man came to our door with his auntie.  His name was Arnell and he was 37 years old.  His mother left the family when he was just a baby and his sister, who up until a few weeks ago had been providing for him, has now left him to work in a bigger city.  So now he really needs help, and this is why:

Arnell was born with a skin disease.  It looks like he has sustained 3rd degree burns all over his body.  Every inch of his skin looks like it has been severely burned.  He has rounded feet, so he cannot wear shoes of any kind and walks around barefoot everywhere he goes, he has no eyelids, so he cannot ever rest his eyes...they are always open and he has no protection for them.  Arnell is always hot and thirsty, probably severely dehydrated, and the heat he feels is constant, he says he never feels cool.  All of this he told us upon our asking about him and his life.  He was not complaining, about anything!!  He came because with his sister deserting the family, he and his auntie have no one to provide for their food, so they were asking for rice.

I looked at this man, who has no way to rest his eyes, who cannot wear shoes of any kind to protect his feet, whose skin looks extremely painful and is painfully dry, who cannot find any relief from the constant overwhelming heat he feels and who was in no way complaining about any of this, and I thought to myself... I have no reason to complain about ANYTHING EVER AGAIN!!!  Oh my goodness!!  Since meeting Arnell, I have been searching on the internet ways we can help him, and I have been in contact with a dermatologist who came on the last medical mission that we had here last month to see what disease he could possibly have and if there is any help for him.  And even though the days have gone by and many other people have come to Oikos for help, still I cannot get Arnell out of my mind.  We asked his auntie to be the one to come to Oikos when they need help so Arnell wont hurt his feet anymore, and she has returned for food.  We have also promised to visit their home as well, which we will soon do.  But how humbling was this experience???   I have come here to help people and continuously find myself being the one who has been helped/changed for the better.  Please keep Arnell and his auntie in your prayers...and us too as we search for ways to help him.  Thank You!!  xxoo

A Moment of Looking Back

Happy New Year!!!  It's 2018...hard to believe that 2017 is already over and that just a few days ago I celebrated my 4th year as a missionary!  How  my life has changed over the past 4 years!!  Incredibly is an understatement!!  This past January 4, 2018, I returned to the Philippines for my 4th mission with the Poor Household of God mission and the Oikos Sisters.  It's great how "easy" traveling half way around the world has become...how commonplace.  Me, who hardly ever ventured outside of my own community is becoming a confident world traveler!!  Pretty funny!

So, 4 years isn't exactly a milestone, but to me it is pretty significant.  My whole way of living, thinking, even just being has changed.  The way I see the world has altered irrevocably...sometimes for the worse as I can be judgmental, although I really try not to be.  I have learned over the past 4 years to live in both the first world and the third world, a balancing act that has taken some time to level out.  Sometimes I still struggle with the vast differences between the two worlds, but it is getting easier.  I have broken out of my shell more and become more outgoing.  Overall, I would say the that the changes that have taken place in me have been pretty positive.

I remember my reasons for not wanting to go on a mission trip... the heat, the bugs, the loss of conveniences, being away from my family and friends...everything familiar.  Looking back, I see most of those were excuses not really reasons.  But I've learned I can take the heat...in fact I can't tell you how many times people in the US tell me how nice my skin is, which is due to the humid climate in the Philippines and the loss of skin toxins due to sweating!  Bugs...well, what can you really say about that... whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger?  Shaking out the ants in my clothes before I put them on and becoming friends with the lizards in my room has become commonplace for me.  I'm not saying you won't hear me screaming when I see a spider that is bigger than my hand, but I've even come to not panic when there's a huge cockroach in my bedroom at night.  As for conveniences, at times I admit to a certain amount of frustration in that department, but I have become a much more patient person as a result of not having everything the moment I want it, having to do without or come up with creative substitutions.  Thanks to the electronic age, talking with  my family is really easy.  Computers, the internet and wifi make communication a snap.  Of course, here in the Philippines the signals are not always strong and the routine brown-outs and not-so routine surprise brown-outs can disrupt the regularity of  our communication, but all in all, messenger, Whats App, facebook and email make communicating a breeze.

So, Happy Anniversary to me!!  My anniversary pales in comparison, however to the anniversary we will be celebrating in May... May 3rd is the 20th anniversary of the Oikos Community!  Already we are gearing up for it...it is sure to be quite a party!

It's good to look back every once in a while, to see where you've been, where the road has taken you and how you've changed since the beginning of your journey.  Just don't get caught there, stuck looking back lest you suffer the fate of Lot's wife...she turned into a pillar of salt!!  I am happy to have this time of reflection...now, back to looking forward (no pun intended!)  Upwards and onwards to continue my journey as a missionary and as a daughter of God.  xxoo