I remember the day in which I got on the plane. I met a very friendly lil old Filipino man.
I remember the days I met my roommates, they asked a lot of questions.
I remember the days I prepared sandwiches for the cute kids in the squatter areas.
I remember the days I had a long conversation in English with Dreb.
I remember the days I cried on the phone with my dad because my emotions were everywhere.
I remember the days we celebrated Gina's birthday with a yummy turkey and fruit salad for dinner.
I remember the days it wouldn't stop raining then there was a flood.
I remember the days I cut little kids nails very very short which gave me pain, but, brought joy to my heart because of our conversations or just the fact that we were touching each other.
I remember the days I met relatives of the Wabes.
I remember the days I really used my blanket at night cause the air was chilly.
I remember the days I didn't know I was drinking tap water, but I turned out fine.
I remember the days to pass away the slow day I read a lot.
I remember the days I would sit with our landlord and enjoy each others company.
I remember the days the Wabes would take the staff out to eat.
I remember the days my ‘sister' Queeny would talk to all my suitors for me.
I remember the days the power was out, boy was that hot.
I remember the days the Singaporean team came.
I remember the day I ate chicken feet.
I remember the days I cut a dread off then waited to see if Queeny would notice it in her bed.
I remember the days I enjoyed with my campus friends.
I remember the days we had exciting Christmas parties with out ministries.
I remember the days I had a massage by the blind people at the mall.
I remember the days when words I had repeatedly heard clicked and I knew what they meant.
I remember the days we visited Hundred Island, what a beautiful creation.
I remember the days we would make bread together...it turned out good only sometimes.
I remember the days when our meetings were really long...oh that was everyday.
I remember the days I met my Slavic friend who always teases me.
I remember the days I cover my nose cause of all the gas pollution.
I remember the days I had salty dried fish and liked it.
I remember the days of my time in the Philippines, I experienced all sorts of things; love, anger, joy, frustration, energy, weakness, places, people, words, smells, sights, sounds and so much more.
I have about three weeks left here in the Philippines, an ample amount of time. But, I find myself getting restless. I have discovered a pattern in my life. Near the end of any of my adventures, I get restless and want to be done and move on to other things.
In high school, my senior year came and I was so ready to get out; to graduate and move on to earn big dollars at the Pig. Later I made the decision to do ComLife, and I was ready to leave Zion and find some independence in GA, although I didn't want to leave the great ol'Pig. Hehe. As ComLife came to an end, I found myself in the last few months getting restless and something inside me wanting to move on. I had to practically seat belt myself there.
Now, it's happening again, I am ready to move on and start a new adventure. I've thought to myself,
"Self! Why? Why do you do this? Are you not content and happy where you are?"
No, I am, I am quite content. I love the ministry I'm involved in, the relationships I've made, and the people I live with, of course things are not perfect here, but, where are things perfect? Life is pleasant for me here.
This time I don't want to be restless and fidgety. I've been praying and asking the Lord for more discipline in my life; to be satisfied these next few weeks and not to look to the future and what it holds for me; to focus on the ‘here and now‘. My desire isn't to leave here now so I can go to my future, but many times that is what my flesh wants; it wants to live in the future...but how in the world can it do that?
I am trying to break the pattern. Please partner with me in prayer. I want to finish strong, to make these next few weeks the most I can. To live in the ‘here and now‘.
Also, I will not post what I'm doing next in life, till I leave the Philippines, then I'll tell all of it!
I was just excused from our morning meeting because it's about planning, and I'm leaving in less then a month, so no need for me to plan for the future. Now I am sitting here on my bed, listening to the soundtrack of Pride and Prejudice thinking of what I can write and update you all on.
We experienced a tiny earthquake last night, enough to wake me up, but, in my state of grogginess I decided it was just my imagination that my bed was moving and the window shaking. In the morning I come to find out it's not my imagination but others experienced it too. This is my first encounter with earth shaking.
Lately I've been reading many books to occupy my time and to also expand my minute vocabulary. Which surprisingly has been working but hasn't helped my spelling much at all.
This last book I have been reading, which is by Paulo Coelho, reveals the struggles of a girl who observes life and yearns for love. I want to share with you a short part of the book. I am not posting this because I feel like she is speaking for me, or I feel like our lives are the same. But only because I believe there is some sort of wisdom in these words.
"I spent today outside a funfair. Since I can't afford to fritter my money away, I thought it best to just watch other people. I stood for a long time by the roller coaster, and I noticed that most people get on it in search of excitement, but that once it start, they are terrified and want the cars to stop.
What do they expect? Having chosen adventure, shouldn't they be prepared to go the whole way? Or do they think that the intelligent thing to do would be to avoid the ups and downs and spend all their time on the carousel, going round and round on the spot?
At the moment, I'm far too lonely to think about love, but I have to believe that it will happen, that I will find a job and that I am here because I chose this fate. The roller coaster is my life; life is a fast, dizzying game; life is a parachute jump; it's taking chances, falling over and getting up again; it's mountaineering; it's wanting to get to the very top of yourself and to feel angry and dissatisfied when you don't manage it.
It isn't easy being far from my family and from the language in which I can express all my feelings and emotions, but, from now on, whenever I feel depressed, I will remember that funfair. If I had fallen asleep and suddenly woken up on a roller coaster, what would I feel?
Well, I would feel trapped and sick, terrified of every bend, wanting to get off. However, if I believe that the track is my destiny and that God is in charge of the machine, then the nightmare becomes something thrilling. It becomes exactly what it is, a roller coaster, safe, reliable toy, which will eventually stop, but, while the journey lasts, I must look at the surrounding landscape and whoop with excitement."
This is NOT a Christian book or anything. But, it makes me think of John 10:10 (I am not paraphrasing John 10:10 either). We can either let the thief come and steal our life by weighing us down with worry, fear, etc. or we can allow God to give us life, freedom in Him so we can live it abundantly. We need to chose what attitude and perspective we look at life with.
I had to yet again, renew my visa, something I thought I didn't need to do, but upon entering back into the country form Taiwan, I needed another extension. I was not to happy to learn this especially because it's expensive, I have to dress up, take two jeepneys and deal with the officers, which I haven't found too many to be cheerful. Although my last visit to renew my visa didn't go bad at all. Remember my post about the grumpy old man before?
This time I went by myself, I was worried a bit about where to find the office again, cause I had forgotten, but I used my Tagalog skills and asked the driver to help me, in which he then struck up conversation with me, rambling on about something, I didn't really understand him, I can pretend well though.
I made it to the Bureau easily. Upon walking to the entrance of the office, I notice the old man (Albert) from before, so I put on a big smile and greet him politely, to my surprise he was very happy to see me and ushered me in to get my visa renewed, he made sure that I was being well taken care of in the office, and speeding my passport along. After I had filled all the papers out, we chatted a while, about history, the USA, why I don't have a bf, and other random things.
I was only in the office about an hour, which was a short time, and I was happy, I paid for the visa, which thankfully didn't cost so much, I realized a little while later when looking over the receipts why it was cheaper. I didn't have to pay the express fee which cost about $30, because I had made a friend, who was the top man. I was thinking in my trip back to the base, that God had granted me favor in Albert's eyes. I am very thankful for this, my eyes were opened in seeing God's hand in everything. Even if it's just a trip the immigration office.
Ok, the story gets better, Tito (uncle) Bert as he is now referring himself to me as, is sad that this will be my last time to renew my visa cause it will be the last time I see him.
I tell him, "I'll come back to say goodbye before I leave the country!"
Then he goes on to say something like, "We'll go have dinner."
I jokingly respond, "We'll call it a date!"
And that's what it has become. I now have a date with Tito Bert, the man who frightens everyone because he's a bit arduous.
When I was leaving he put his arm around me and we shot the breeze, then he gave me a kiss on the cheek (his stubble was abrasive). He is a cute old man, that is short and often frowns. On our date I will tell him he needs to smile more often!
What an interesting day! I'm thankful for such a stress free experience.
Well, I am safely back in the Philippines, as many of you know by now. My apologies that I have not posted sooner, I can blame it on nothing but laziness. Although, I did just read Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austin. A rather good read too.
For this trip, I was helming the writing of a daily journal. It's very general and doesn't have much of my personality. But, I'll share a bit of it with you. But first I will tell you my impression of the Taiwan.
Taiwan is very modern, built up country with great public transportation, it is very uncommon to find garbage laying around, and for the most part the food is not too salty or oily. Everything is in Mandarin, which is the language most commonly used nowadays. The older generations speak Taiwanese but the younger generation has great difficulty speaking it. The government recently reinstated Taiwanese to be taught in the schools. The children are for the most part calm and obedient; laid back. The weather was pretty chilly, I wasn't prepared for such cold! Can't imagine how it's going to be for me when I return to the States in March. I didn't take many pictures, but what I have I'll post in a differ blog post.
Dec 22, 2009
Day 2
Our day started with breakfast and a meeting; discussing finances and a bit of scheduling. Then we headed to the Rock Café with Karen for an orientation about YWAM Taiwan let by Rebekah.
We ate a late lunch out because we toured around the town and did banking. We then went back to our apt for a tiny rest and another meeting.
The ministry of the day was going go the Rock and meeting with people. Some of us passed out business cards inviting people to come up to the Rock for FREE coffee and conversations. We served drinks to the people that went up to the Rock and others of us sat down for conversations to be spoken in English, the reason many people were coming; to improve their English.
We went back to the apt at night and had yet another meeting, making out day very long; even though today was the shortest day of the year.
New name for YWAM: Youth With A Meeting!
Dec 25, 2009
Day 5
Today we woke up a bit before six to eat breakfast and have a meeting then meet Karen at the MRT at 7:30 am as Manny had heard, but! We weren't supposed to meet her till 9:30am , so instead we walked along the river taking in the sites as we waited for 9:30am to come around.
This time we didn't take the MRT, instead we rode a bus to the hospital. It felt a bit like a continuation of our Nursing home experience. The hospital is called MacKay memorial, named after the first missionary in Taipei. It looked similar to a mall at first, very fancy. There were scriptures on the wall too. Our performance went well and we had about 15 people watch, 20 people came and went and six people received Christ.
In the evening we went to the Living Mall, to do the Nativity scene again, we performed three times with about 230 people including children watching.
We rode the MRT back to Danshui, it was wet and rainy. Eww! We thankfully took a taxi back to our apt. and had leftovers for dinner. We were very hungry because we hadn't eaten dinner yet and it was late.
Dec 30, 2009
Day 10
Busy day today, first we went to an elementary school and performed for the entire school which was about 100 students and teachers in total. It was a very interactive time with games and fun songs.
In the afternoon we ate at the duck place again then had a little time to talk to bikers that were biking through and all around Taiwan.
The after school kids; that come everyday for tutoring at the church had a half day for school, so they came in the afternoon instead of evening. They were very excited to hang out with us and were very loud. But we had a good program from them, it was fun but hectic.
We finally went somewhere else to eat for dinner, we had chicken.
What a great day.
Posted in The Philippines by Maggie Kalinowski on 12/15/2009
Queeny has a mother's bible study at the slum of Pantal, but, I don't attend with her because it's on Wednesday's and I go the campus Weds. But I had the opportunity to go to her Christmas party with them. Chelsea, a young adult from Singapore also is visiting our base and participating in all our activities.
Last night after a lot of frenzy we went to ChowKing; a famous Chinese fast food restaurant. They wouldn't open their upstairs seating for us because there was available seating in the regular section, even though we insisted they should let us. We relented and just took the downstairs seating instead. We only had five mothers attending so it was a small group. This was one of the mother's first in her 30 years of age to eat here.
Right off the start I was introducing myself and familiarizing myself with them. There was one who was very talkative and didn't mind chatting away! (she might have been a bit tipsy though). When we finally started the program of the night I shared a Christmas story about the birth of Jesus and why Jesus is important to us. We played many games! Which were all so fun to watch and participate in. We played Pictionary, a song game, word search, a game they play here in the Philippines in which you put a word on your forehead and you have to guess it with the help of a person trying to explain it. We also played a game where we put peanuts in a bowl and tried to see how many peanuts we could get using chopsticks. We laughed so much my cheeks hurt!
This group is not afraid to make fools of themselves and laugh a lot. And that's what made our night so enjoyable. We had so many people staring at us the whole night, I think the ChowKing regretted not letting us upstairs.
We held a feeding in Pantal and Arellano Saturday and Sunday. We gave out fried chicken this time and of course, rice to accompany it. Not only did we give them food that will just perish but we gave them the living word. We were able to pass out about 200 Bibles to people.
The team of missionaries I'm staying with here in Dagupan go on different outreaches two or three times a year. This Christmas they are going to Taiwan. They have graciously invited me to go with them, which I'm glad cause otherwise I'd just be here at the base by myself. They are a performing arts team, which just means they do dances, skits, dramas and singing. Since I will be going with them, I have been learning some of the dances, so I can participate with them. Obviously I can not learn everything but just some.
We will be going to the capital which is also the largest city in Taiwan called Taipei, it's in the northern part of the country and the population is 2,619,920. (The world's tallest building is also here in Taipei). Some interesting little things about Taiwan: The national sport is baseball! Go Cubbies! The official language is Mandarin, (too bad my sister wasn't with me). Over 93% of Taiwanese are adherents of a combination of Buddism
, Confucianism and Taoism. This will be my first country to visit in which Catholicism or Christianity isn't the main religion. Ang Lee is Taiwanese and is the director of "Sense and Sensibility"
We will be staying at YWAM's only base in Taiwan for 14 days. This base has many international staff; even some from America. One unique thing about this base is they have a cafe called the "Rock" which is designated as a place young people can hang out at and get free drinks, enjoy different kinds of Christian music and the cafe provides a comfortable environment for chatting and making new friends. The best friend the base eagerly wants to introduce is Jesus. I'm really siked about hanging out at the Rock.
The base here in Dagupan has been praying and planning on going to Taiwan for quite a few months already now and they have been preparing in all sorts of ways. A few of the preparation (which we have had MANY morning meetings about) have been raising funds, preparing documents for travel and getting visas. It is more difficult for Filipinos to travel then US citizens. I don't have to have a visa but they do, it is also very difficult for them to be granted that visa. But luckily they were granted the visa so we are going!
I am excited to go visit another Asian country and be able to get the experience of more traveling, I am also very excited about having conversations with people from the Rock Cafe. Likewise, I'm excited to have some conversations with the staff there because some of them are American, and believe it or not, I am hungering for solid American conversations.
We have a Singaporean coming to our base today to stay for until we leave for Taiwan. I'm excited for her to come because it's always pleasant to meet new people and have a little change in our daily lives.
Please be praying for my health and my overall mental saneness as I've been here three months now, and could use a little taste of home...although this doesn't mean I'm homesick. J
Life, and I was ready to leave Zion and find some independence in GA, although I didn't want to leave the great ol'Pig. Hehe. As ComLife came to an end, I found myself in the last few months getting restless and something inside me wanting to move on. I had to practically seat belt myself there. 
ve been a bit tipsy though). When we finally started the program of the night I shared a Christmas story about the birth of Jesus and why Jesus is important to us. We played many games! Which were all so fun to watch and participate in. We played Pictionary, a song game, word search, a game they play here in the Philippines in which you put a word on your forehead and you have to guess it with the help of a person trying to explain it. We also played a game where we put peanuts in a bowl and tried to see how many peanuts we could get using chopsticks. We laughed so much my cheeks hurt! 
This group is not afraid to make fools of themselves and laugh a lot. And that's what made our night so enjoyable. We had so many people staring at us the whole night, I think the ChowKing regretted not letting us upstairs.