You Seldom Experience This in the States

Hurricane winds were blowing outside. I had just gone to bed when suddenly a loud pop, like a big firecracker, erupted from my bathroom, accompanied by a bright flash. Three more followed in quick succession. Puzzled, I slowly opened the bathroom door, smelling smoke and seeing a wall socket turned black. The fiercely strong winds had driven rain water up under the window awning and down through the wall cavity, all the way to the electrical wall socket. Fortunately, the wall was too wet to catch fire.

In addition to hurricanes, earthquakes are frequent along this part of the “ring of fire”. About once every other month, we feel one. Most are small and harmless, rather amusing once we realize it’s not a big one. But some ARE big. Earlier this year, a 7+ one from a neighboring island brought me and my neighbors out of our houses. We had quite a fellowship outside as we waited to be sure our houses weren’t going to fall down.

Earthquakes, strong rains, bad planning, and broken equipment often cause electrical brownouts (or blackouts when the whole city goes dark). When the kids were growing up, they would use evening brownouts as an opportunity to play ‘hide and seek’. Now, brownouts find me reading by flashlight or cooking by candlelight (because of brownouts, I use a gas stove). Most last for a short time, but some have been known to last for days.

Houses here are not built very tight, so it’s easy for the many tropical lizards and spiders (not to mention the cockroaches and ants) to find their way inside. The 4-inch long lizards are quite harmless but messy. While they are good at eating insects, they are also good at falling from the ceiling or crawling across the bed, at night, with me in it. Most spiders are small, weaving their pesky webs in dark places. But a few species are quite large and are menacing. Chasing and killing them is a favorite pastime.

Then there’s the traffic. Imagine driving in a city of half a million people with no traffic signs or lights. Road markings mean nothing as long as the vehicles can squeeze past each other. Sometimes if there is a break in traffic coming from one direction, Filipinos will turn a 2-lane two way road into a 3-lane one way road. Roads often get clogged as each one “does what is right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). Quite exciting.

Today is Thanksgiving Day. Not a holiday here, but celebrated by many Filipino Christians on the last couple of Sundays of November. I’m thankful that God has given us a gospel message worthy of being carried to the ends of the earth. I’m thankful that God has given me a love for the Filipino people that overrides the weather, brownouts, lizards, spiders, and snakes (I forgot to talk about the snakes!). I hope that you found much to be thankful for this year. (You're probably thankful that you don't live over here!)

For your amusement, here are a couple of YouTube clips of David and Jonathan arriving at the airport in Roanoke, Virginia, for Thanksgiving, greeted in an unusual way by Hannah, Martha, and Bill - Jan’s dad. Sara couldn’t make it because of her job.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQUQ_CiyH0I

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTNptOpbfqU