Matt and Kristin in the Philippines

Love Jesus? Help end the war. Join us.

As we adjust to life in the United States again, one of the most challenging aspects has been to figure out how we can honor our relationships with our friends and colleagues in the Philippines. How do we work for justice for the Filipino people while living in the affluent culture of the U.S.?

I find myself strangely resistant to engaging in the world. Even now, months after our return, I have difficultly signing up to help at a soup kitchen or volunteering in agencies I was involved in before. Sometimes I can't even bring myself to read the news.

Like our new look?

After about a month of technical difficulties, the site is back up with lots of software upgrades, though some things may be missing as we still iron out the kinks.

We're both juggling seminary at the moment as well, but we'll keep posting here occasionally.

Peace.

Below is an article I wrote as part of my work with a peace organization in the Philippines. Since the killings continue, the statistics in it are already out of date.

Here is an excerpt from an email I just received from a friend in the Philippines:

Former IFI Supreme Bishop Alberto Ramento was killed last October 3. What angered us is the way the Tarlac police chief hastily declared to media that this was "plain and simple robbery." Lot of Bull.

Three days after, Father Ablon, the priest you met in CDO (Cagayan de Oro City), received a text message saying "Even the Supreme Bishop gets killed. You will be the next sample here in CDO."

In January 2006, our president signed the McCain Amendment which explicitly prohibits cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by ALL US personnel - no exceptions.

This past week, the administration pushed for legislation to amend both the McCain and War Crimes Act so that CIA personnel would be "exempt" from these clearly stated policies.

I am currently taking a class entitled Ministry, Spirituality, and Survivors of Human Rights Abuses. Our second reading assignment is the memoir of an American nun, kidnapped in Guatemala, tortured for 24 hours and managed to escape. Thousands of Guatemalans were not so fortunate. They were burned, raped, mutilated, stabbed, electrocuted, there is no end to a tormentor's choice of methods.

It's a dark gray Monday in Chicago. I'm wearing long sleeves. What happened to August? It's still August in the Philippines. It's always August there.

Our friends at McCormick have been wonderfully welcoming and it has been great to be back and see old friends and meet new people. We have many friends here who have done the YAV program or similar mission service before, and they have been deep wells of understanding who make it easier to return to these familiar settings.

Some of them ask "How are you doing?" with voices full of concern. They are right to be concerned. We've been warned that returning to your home culture after a year abroad is typically more difficult emotionally than entering a new culture. Being an American in the Philippines can be difficult, but how much more strange to return to the U.S. and discover we are not quite the Americans we were before? We have a friend who was a YAV several years ago, and upon her return spent several days sitting in her closet.

Our first two weeks in the Philippines had us reeling from the intensity of novelty. In our last two weeks we shed tears for the home we would leave.

Now in the US, my eyes, ears, nose, tongue can barely absorb as fast as they are stimulated and sometimes I am exhausted from the inevitable constancy of comparing two very unlike cultures.

What I have seen:

Green grass, lawns, organized flower beds, no gardens

Car ports as large as the nipa huts we lived in

A line of 8 wooden spoons discovered in our "kitchen supplies" box

Shiny cars

People of every color and none of them stare or shout at me

We have been safely back in Chicago for nearly a week, and we're settling into our new apartment.

We'll still have some stuff to say here on the blog as we reflect on returning and living back in our home country. At the moment, however, there is a great deal of information saturating our eyes and ears and noses and tongues...but we'll be back soon once we've gathered ourselves and bought some shampoo and figured out which box we put the iron in.

Peace.

It's a good thing we had some reflection time, because these final days back in Manila are filled with lots of last-minute shopping and careful packing and re-packing. It really feels like we're tourists again, as we don't speak the language here (I did find someone today who gave me directions in Visaya, though. That was cool.) and we're aiding the Philippine economy as best we can with our consumerism.

I don't quite know why it's impossible to get a box bigger than the one-size-fits-all 20-inch cube that's sold here. After days of searching everywhere you might think to find such a box (I even tried the American way of going to the supermarket hoping to get a used one. It was a market that kept it's overstock in big boxes above the accessible shelves on each aisle. But even though I could see and point directly to boxes that would be perfect, and even though a very nice woman tried her best to help me, the other guy "helping" me insisted there were no empty ones that size, and my famous Americano good looks, charm, and puppy dog eyes were not enough to inspire anyone to empty the box or check in the back...), I bought the standard cube and an extra piece of cardboard and spent all evening cutting and taping it into a larger, narrower box that will now fit the rather large, beautiful rain stick we were given.

We are exhausted in every possible way, our shadowy eyes bulge under the weight of tear-streaked goodbyes and I love you's, our bodies ache from 2-3 hours of sleep a night this past week, our wallets are bare while our suitcases are full (8 kilos over the allotted weight of 44.4 pounds per person to be exact, and yes,they charge for that). We celebrated our friendships with speeches, laughter,jokes over my cooking abilities and fear of the cockroach'sbite, Matt's introvertedness and my not-introvertedness,and of course,food! We continue to reel in this remembering and departing.

And now we will spend the next week on the beach, internet-less, processing this year and allowing ourselves to grieve and rejoice over the home this has become and will remain a part of us always.

I'm going to seminary! McCormick Theological Seminary.

I'm not going to be a pastor.

I am going to share a portion of my autobiographical statement....
********************************************************************

We have a ticket home. In two weeks we will pack up our souvenirs and memories in suitcases bound for the United States. In two weeks we will leave behind a country of equatorial sun, pillaged land, political killings, landslides, volcanic eruptions, displaced families. In two weeks we will stand in a Chicago we haven't seen, heard or felt in a year.

So why seminary? Truthfully, it's the only option that brings my gut a sense of peace. I knew we'd return to Chicago for Matt's final year so I researched the tremendous wealth of job offerings in non-profit organizations and could not imagine myself in any of them. I don't know how re-entry will affect my being but I assume it will turn the world upside down yet again and it seems irresponsible to deal with other people's emotional junk when I'm dealing with my own in very new ways. I do know I want to begin the process of rebuilding a faith still scattered at my feet. I want the intentionality of community because it is through relationships that God becomes real. I want the familiarity of McCormick and Chicago. I'd like to go part-time in order to develop my passion for photography, but also because of the uncertainty that accompanies a decision like this. I don't know where I am headed vocationally, but that does not worry me. I want to learn what there is to be taught about making God real through social justice work, how to practice Jesus outside of a traditional church setting, how to unite with my global brothers and sisters of all faith traditions. I come with many doubts about the church and this man we call Jesus, I come with questions and skepticism. I come with the touch of a hungry child on my hip and a prostituted woman holding my hand. I come knowing the imperfection of the world and that the struggle is too big for me. I come believing this is the next right step. I come because I have a ticket home and the knowledge that this is only a beginning.