One Year Later....

May 1^st marked the one year anniversary of when our young family of five stepped off the plane and onto Philippine soil.  Anniversaries have a way of making you feel nostalgic and reflective.  God has been faithful in many ways this first year and I don’t want this one year anniversary to pass without recording and acknowledging His goodness.  So I thought I would take time to write up a short blog post to reflect on our first year living in Manila, Philippines.

Biggest Trial & Biggest Blessing

Moving to another county comes with a variety of trials as you can probably imagine.  But if I had to name the biggest trial God used in my life this past year it would be taking my thoughts captive.  Left unchecked, uncontrolled emotion and passion has a way of stealing your joy and hope and leaving you anxious and in despair.  Learning how to be a wife and mom in my new surroundings was challenging for me, and not just because I had to learn new ways to do things but also because it challenged me to examine what was truly biblical and what was merely preference and a different way of doing things.

In contrast to my biggest trial, the biggest blessing was my relationship with my husband.  I had no clue how moving to a new country would bring me closer to my husband in ways I never knew before.  His friendship, companionship, and leadership is more precious to me than ever before.  One of the major motivations for me to move to the Philippines in the first place was to support the desires of my husband.  I have been blessed beyond measure from following my husband!  It has been and continues to be the biggest source of blessing.

Most Unexpected & Most Expected

The most unexpected thing from this first year is how much I enjoy learning and experiencing how the Filipinos approach life.  They are warm, resourceful, respectful, fun, and hospitable!  I love how they just burst out in song and dance and all the variety colors of life!  To think that my favorite colors before was browns and earth tones makes me embarrassed and wonder if I have been playing with mud pies when there was castles in the sky!  My new idea of a fun date now includes going karaoking, wearing matching outfits with my husband, and do dance-dance revolution together.  Ha ha… I just have to convince my husband that this is his idea of a fun date too! ;)

Since I am doing contrasts, the opposite of the most unexpected would be the most expected.  That one is a bit hard to choose, but if I had to pick what the most expected thing I experienced the first year it would be the food.  Shortly after we started dating I asked Allan, “what’s your favorite food?”, to which he replied “Filipino.”  So I had a head start with exposure to a variety of the dishes, ingredients and cooking methods of most of the common dishes.

Most Foreign & Most Familiar

When you live in another country, many many things are foreign.  But there are a few things that stand out that still to this day makes me stop and say, “Toto, we aren’t in Kansas anymore!”  The power and majesty of rain is one of those things.  The sound that vibrates through the house in a downpour makes me stop what I am doing and run to the window to watch.  Amazing is the word I would use to describe it.  Another thing is humidity.  It is all encompassing without an opportunity for escape.  An odd twisted pleasure I get is looking up the humidity percentage and finding the percentage in the high 80’s.  I giggle to myself and say, “ha ha…. Ooo yikes that is high!” as my slippery eyelids have trouble staying open from all the sweat that has lubricate them.

But more than the differences there are a surprisingly number of familiar things.  The the wide use of English and the western influence, things like McDonalds, Papa John’s, KFC, etc. are the most obvious.  But the most familiar to me is sin.  Let me explain.  Even though there are many culture differences, the underlying sin struggles are the same as in the States.  Culture makes sin manifest itself in a variety of new ways I am unfamiliar with, but at the root of it the sinful motivations are the same.  People are people.  And knowing this makes me rejoice in the sufficiency of Scripture!  We are all sinners in need of grace and the loving mercy of a Savior!

Things I Learned & Things Still to Learn

My favorite aspect of trials is the truth one learns about God as a result.  I love fellowshipping with fellow believers who share not only their sin struggles but also their repentance and the victory God worked in their life.  That being said, I did not want to end this post without recording what I learned about my God and Savior this first year. 

I already shared with you that my biggest trials was taking my thoughts captive.  This trial has taught me my NEED for the Word of God to shape my thoughts.  Identifying that my passion without restraint was a lack of meekness in my life has brought me hope.  Meekness is power under control.  One who is meek is someone who understands the goodness and control of their God.  This is the complete opposite of my when my thoughts are not captive.  If I allow my thoughts, emotions and passions to spiral without the restraint of Scripture then I become one lacking meekness.  BUT realizing this is the source of so much hope! 

These trials have taught me how to stop the spiral into despair and has given me great confidence in the power of the Word to restraint my emotions.  The lack of meekness directly reveals my unbelief in God’s goodness and sovereignty over my life.  Join me in praising God for His goodness in teaching me these things.