Going Green

We have posted a few times about experiencing loneliness while being here. This is not one of those posts, but in some ways it will probably be very similar.
DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a post about whining or complaining about anything. It is, if nothing else, me simply trying to think through some of the feelings that we have had over the past couple of weeks.

There are some new missionaries in town. Two new families, to be exact. There are two families with a collective 6 1/2 kids that have moved in to Butuan, and they all live within a few minutes of us. Now, two new families moving to town may not sound all that crazy or like it's big news, but boy howdy it is! With new Americans (one of them is Canadian, but that's ok) here that means a few things. First, it means that we're no longer the noobies here as far as missionaries go and second, we are not alone.
Wait? Did I just say alone? I mean, we've been here 8 months now, we have friends, we have contacts on at least two different islands, we have gone to events and parties that we have been invited to by our Filipino friends. We know people, we would even consider some of them really good friends, and really awesome brothers and sisters in Christ. But yeah, we are (or we at least we were) alone.
Why is that, you may ask, since we have contacts and friends here and are in contact with our friends and family back Stateside? Well dear Reader, I will try to explain it to you, and I will need a nifty illustration* to do so.

Jimmy lives in the land of the Yellow peoples, and he himself is a Yeller. He has always grown up Yellow and speaks the Yellow language, knows all of the cultural Yellow things, understands Yellow thoughts and feelings and what causes them. He knows the history and religious background of the Yellers, and his heart stirs within him with patriotism and pride when he thinks about and reflects on these things.
But one day Jimmy hears from his God that there are people in the land of Blue that need to know about Him and His plan of redemption. So Jimmy follows that calling, and goes through years of difficult struggle and training to get ready to go to where the Blues live. He may even have visited there a few times, and he may even know a few Blue people that have visited the Yellers. So he prepares himself to go live in the land of Blue.
As he transitions to living with the Blues and learning the Blue language and history he realizes that these people are different. He recognizes that they are people made in the Image of God just the same, but they act differently than he is used to. More importantly, they think different than he and other Yellers think. At first this doesn't bother him, and to an extent it still doesn't bother Jimmy, as he has been living for years in the land of Blue.
But he has changed. Jimmy can no longer call himself truly Yeller, because as he has lived in the land of Blue he has ingrained within himself some Blue culture and some Blue-ways of thinking. But he can't call himself Blue either, because he doesn't look like a Blue or really think like a Blue. No matter how long Jimmy stays in the land of the Blue he will never be Blue, but now when he goes back to the land of Yellow, people there will probably realize that he really isn't Yeller anymore, but he's more Green, a mix of both Yellow and Blue. But! while he is still living in the land of Blue some other Yellers come to live and work near him! Oh man, to be able to speak true Yeller with others, and not really have to explain what he means (unless it's a bad joke) and to be able to understand the feelings of being separated from his Yellow family and friends. He gets to introduce them to his Blue friends and all the cool places that he has found, and soon they get to settle in to a mutual-isolation of sorts. You see, while some of the Blues understand a little of what it means to be Yellow, they can't really, not able to think exactly like a Yeller. But neither can the Yellers and Jimmy really be able to empathize with the Blues , because there are major cultural barriers to break down, language being the most visible. So the Yellers do sometimes feel alone, isolated in a sea of peoples who may love them and want to help them in their work. And they may try to feel desperate to talk to other Yellers who pass through their part of Blue or on the social media site bluebook or the yellowpages (anybody? anybody? jokes people!). That shouldn't scare any of the Yellers away from being friends with Jimmy and the others, because they're Yeller, and they aren't scared of anything (Ok I'm done with the jokes now).

Man, I told you that was nifty right?

Ok, so these new families are pretty cool from what we've seen of them so far. They are both here as part of a team for doing medical mission work here in the Philippines. So we have been getting to know them, helping them around town, helping them get set up and finding specific things they need and all the good stuff. It has been fun and it feels good to have people here that we can relate to. A short term team is awesome, we get to see people that we have solid, already established relationships with. But they go home. They get to experience the culture a little bit and then go back to America. There's nothing wrong with that, in fact we want more of you Americans here to help us! But there is something fundamentally different about a family that comes here and plants themselves here that we can share our struggles with and they get it, they understand what we are going through because they too are going through the same things.
This blue/yellow illustration even works between other countries. Because the shade of green that we are becoming is different from the shade of green that other missionaries we know who have served or are serving in far flung parts of the globe like China, or Italy, or Mexico. So even missionaries can have a hard time relating to each other if they work in different countries, or even different parts of the country. I think that's why teamwork and these new relationships are so important. It is someone with you fighting the same fight in the trenches of mission work that you can look to and rely on and they can do the same for you. This community can take a negative turn and missionaries can put themselves up in compounds where they only time they interact with the people they are there to serve is when they go out of their compound, while inside the walls it's like a little America. That's bad. But this type of community is also able to replicate a small, teeny-tiny bit of America that can be used to draw strength from during hard times before going back out into the challenging life of mission work.

Ok, I hope that wasn't too bad, or too emotionally harrowing.

On a different note. We are really appreciative of our church family, Solid Rock for all of their support for us! We are super thankful that we don't have to do the crazy stressful work of fund-raising (or as one friend calls it, friend-raising) and asking for donations. Some of you guys who love us and want to support our work have stepped in and helped us out with a few donations, and that is awesome! In the coming months we are going to be having some slight changes, all good ones, that will dramatically affect our ministry here. Right now I want to let you guys know that we will be highlighting some of the different areas that we will be working in, and I will be trying to launch a prayer program of sorts, enlisting you readers to help us as we start to pull back the big curtain on what we are/will be doing. If you feel inclined to step alongside us and help us out financially in our work we would greatly appreciate it. We know that there are thousands of worthy causes that you can give your money to and with all that is happening stateside there are causes and people that need support. But, we hope and pray that you guys will feel led to support us in our work here. To be apart of what God is doing here in the Philippines and to see lives changed and churches planted and strengthened because of your gifts. We can't do it alone, we need your prayers and support. Thanks!

*This is not my illustration. I read it on a mission blog somewhere and it was just so....true, that I decided to use it. Unfortunately I can't give full credit because I can't remember where I read it.