More News

1.       A month of fasting from all things electronic (cell phone, computer, IPod, ect.) has just ended and I joyfully called home at 5:15am on the morning of the 28^th of February. I was met with answering machines and busy signals. What a letdown L. I kept trying throughout the morning and finally got through around lunchtime to Allana in Canada where she is visiting our cousins on spring break. Yay! It was great to catch up on all the news from a month!

During our month of ‘fasting’ Shama and I have delved into the culture and the language. While it still seems like I hardly know anything, I realize how far I’ve come when I think back to a month ago!

What seemed like a blur of faces when we first arrived is gradually sorting out into personalities and individuals. It’s going to be sad to leave Kemantian and go to Emrang where we’ll meet all new people, but it’s also exciting to know that we’ll be over there soon! Hopefully we’ll make the move within a month.

Ranging from getting up in the middle of the night to check IV’s to cutting off dead skin from a three day old knife wound, the clinic work has rarely been boring. Most of the cases that we see are malaria, but there have been a few more dramatic patients as well. John Miller taught Shama and I to suture using bananas with the peels split open. I am looking forward to trying for real.

I’ve set up my phone here with Facebook, so I should be able to receive short message sent to me thereupon J. That being said, the phone service here is finicky, so I don’t promise that I’ll be able to respond if you sent me a message….but try anyways! If you can keep it to 2-3 sentences, it’ll probably more likely to get through.

Thank you all for your prayers and I look forward to hearing from you J

In His service ~ Allie

P.S. If you want to read more about the Philippines you can go to the Miller’s blog at realmillermoments.blogspot.com. They are both nurses and have been working in the clinic since November, 2010. 

A Poem

I read this a couple weeks ago and really liked it!

      Love is the judge what comfort this

O shrinking heart to thee.

Though art dear workmanship of His

And perfect though must be.

He knows each lesson thou must learn,

How long to let the fire burn.

He does not judge by outward sign,

By failure not by sin.

Each secret heart response of thine

Each weak attempt to win;

He weighs it all, nor doth forget

The least temptation thou has met.

He knows thy blemishes and how

To purge away the dross,

Not overlong will He allow

The anguish of thy cross.

Love is the Judge and He doth see

The surest way to perfect thee.

Thou can’st not perfect if thou wilt

But turn thee to the light.

Love bleeds with thee in all thy guilt

And waits to set thee right.

Love means to serve sin’s outcast lost,

And cares not at what awful cost.

  Hannah Hurnard

The Goldfish

1.       It’s a 16 inch glass bowl enclosing two fake plants and I small castle half buried in glass beads. There is only one resident in the castle: a small fish all flashing gold and yellow and flowing fins. It spends its days circling the bowl; forgetting, or perhaps not caring, that it was just on the other side.

I felt like that today, circling round and round in my thoughts: certain one minute, then not.

“God you want me to be here, right? You’ve opened tall the doors! You do? Ok. I give You my life (again), its all Yours.” Peace.

Then…

“I want to go home! I want to hike out this afternoon. I want to see my family and be out of the jungle. I don’t want to hear bugs singing 24/7, sleep with ants, or take another cold shower.”

But wait…

“God, you want me here, right?” And I circle again to the other side of the bowl.

Then comes His promise, sweet and calming as a summer breeze:

“Thou wilt keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee.” Isaiah 26:3

I stop circling, and wait. 

random list of gross stuff so far... :)

1.                             -             A 3”spider build a nest inside one of my skirts

-          I found the tail of lizard in my wash (thanks to the cats I think)

-          Some ants built a nest in my shoe

-          Two lizard fighting in the grass roof nearly fell on me

-          Chickens walk freely under the house

-          A large cockroach got caught in my curls

-          I’ve seen four snakes

-          I regularly sleep with ants

-          Alupians (scary centipedes that bite) can crawl through the floor of our house….we killed one yesterday with a hammer :S

Learning

1.       I instinctively stick my hand into the shower to see if it has warmed up yet. Of course it hasn’t. It take a breath and step under the stream of water, letting the spray wash over me. Quickly grabbing at the soap, I rub the bar over the goose bumps on my arms and legs. You’d think in a jungle you wouldn’t need warm water, but I’ve found cold water does the same thing to me here as it does in the States: goose bumps and very fast shower!

The weeks have ticked by and as we passed the one month mark, Shama and I discussed hopes and plans for the next eight months. We had the opportunity to hike to Emrang one weekend and stay overnight. It’s a beautiful place and I can’t wait to be able to move there (though I’ll miss the other missionaries we’ve bonded with!). We are waiting on our house to be finished before we can move. At the rate its going it might be a while, but we aren’t stressing: it’s in God’s hands and we’ve still got quite a bit of language to learn!

I’ve seen four snakes since I’ve been here. That is four too many for me! Two of them we killed, but the other two were on the trail and so I just watched them slither by. Two were definitely poisonous, I don’t know about the others.

I’ve been practicing doing assessments in the clinic with a cheat sheet to read questions from. The Palawano are extremely patient with me as I stumble through the questions! Most of the time I can understand their responses enough so I know what question to read next J.

Though we get plenty of hiking in (there is nowhere here that is flat: even their reference to where they are going centers around “dut diya” (up trail) and “dut napan” (down trail). I have been wishing I could don a pair of tennis shoes and go for a run down a long road. Sadly, their isn’t very likely to happen for several reasons: 1) no road, 2) we wear only skirts and the thought of flapping along in one isn’t that great, 3) people would think we are crazy to expend that amount of energy for no apparent reason.

Each morning, we awake to the sound of roosters. They continue to serenade me as I have worship and we get ready for the day. In the evening, a multitude of bugs set up full symphonic orchestra and sing us to sleep. The sounds of cars, motors, or airplanes are just a memory. A shout is about the loudest thing around.

While the shower is still cold, the roosters wake me up at 4am, and the trail is always up hill, I feel very blessed to be among the Palawano people. God has many lessons for me here and I pray that in some small way I may be a blessing to those I come in contact with.

Kebetagan

1.       Every morning when I wake up, it is there: green shoulders rising powerfully from the narrow valley’s below. It can look sometimes formidable, sometimes peaceful. It’s the tallest mountain on the Island of Palawan: Kebetangan. Soaring up from from sea level, it towers above the village of Kemantian. I see it every morning, its different moods reflecting the probably course of the weather that day. Sometimes the whole mountain is visible – a promise of clear skies and dry trails. Sometimes mists swirl around its crest – gusty breezes and possible rain; other days the mountain is nearly obscured by dark clouds – rain and slippery trails and days of my laundry not drying on the line under the eaves of the house. Looking at the mountain, one can predict the course of the day.

I face another mountain each morning I awake and it too can set the course of the day. It is my time with God. When I choose to climb with Him, they sky opens up: clear and blue with a promise of fair weather. When I do not, mists and clouds swirl around obscuring the view and brining confusion and doubt.

Sometimes, looking toward the summit, it seems like an impossible task to reach the top. I don’t know the language, I can’t understand, I am too megla’aw (shy). But then I remember that Someone has promised to go with me and nothing is to steep or difficult for Him.