Our family has been here in the Philippines a little over a year and a half now. When we first landed David started halfway through Kindergarten and is now starting the second grade! Lynn has flourished and is just starting pre-Kindergarten and is having a blast. She loves going to school with her big brother and making friends of her own.
We moved from a cool climate to a hot and humid one. We moved from a place where cockroaches were only on tv to a place where they are everywhere. We moved from a world where the poor were much more invisible to a place where they are so numerous that to open you eyes is to see need. Life here is odd in an unexpected way as well. Many times I feel as if I have fallen into a 50's tv program. Sure people have smart phones and you can buy new technology, but finding a website for a company is difficult. You want to find the best price for something, or even find out if it is carried? You go to each place and scout it out yourself- maybe a friend will post a good deal on facebook. Glass bottles are the norm. You must bring a shopping bag with you- it is highly unlikely that you will be given a choice between paper and plastic. Sometimes I can't even put a finger on why it has a 50's vibe... but it is there.
The city here is so big and expansive that it is difficult to see the sky and the horizon is only seen when you get a little out of the city. But once you do step out of the city it is beautiful. The fields are green and the sun is luminous. Farms are run with carabao instead of tractors. The Ocean is alive with color and coral and warmth I had never before experienced.
We have tasted new foods and seen new places and me new friends and have found that wherever and whenever we move from this place there are things we will miss eating, places we miss going and people that we will miss and much as we now miss our friends in the States.
In saying goodbye to Washington, to family and to friends in order that we might come here, we have entered into a lifetime of farewells. And as I watch new friends move to the next place that God has in store for them I realize that many of our goodbye's will also be "see you in heaven", because we cannot know that we will find one another in the great big and beautiful world of ours. If we find ourselves back in Washington among our family and friends. We will miss the mangoes, the friends and the waves that are only found here. I wonder if ever again I will find a place that is truly home. A home where my heart is content to be or if maybe a part of me will always be pulled in many directions. I know only that I trust God. I trust Him to guide our steps and to lead our family together to wherever His best waits for us.
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