Matt and Kristin in the Philippines

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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 Since the killings continue, the statistics in it are already out of date.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."

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.

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.

My sister-in-law (Hi Kelly!) just asked us what we were looking forward to upon returning. That question deserves a long answer, and I thought others might like to hear about it, too.

We've just returned from what I've been calling my "Farewell Tour" to Mangagoy and the surrounding areas. We visited the church where I've lived in the community in a rather different way than we live here in Davao, and I preached in Visaya. That's a story in itself, especially since my Visaya is in no way good enough to give a public speech. We said goodbye to one of my host pastors there in Mangagoy and the congregation. We also visited my other host pastor (that's his daughter Tamica in the picture. She was born two days before I arrived to in Mangagoy to live with their family in October) in his new assignment several hours away, as he transferred last May from Mangagoy.

There's a lot to say about how it feels to be coming home soon. But I'm not going to talk about that right now. This is just to let people know, since some have been asking, when we're coming back and where we're coming back to.

Our itinerary leaves Manila on August 16 and arrives in Chicago on August 16, even though we will be travelling for 24 hours. The metaphysics of time zones still confuses me.

We'll stay with friends for a couple days to decompress a little, and then we'll begin moving into our new apartment at McCormick housing. Our new address is

5539 S Kimbark Avenue, Apt. 3E

Yup. Blessing vehicles is a common practice here. While fraught with theological pitfalls, I've seen pastors use it as an opportunity to affirm a rejection of materialism and not putting too much emphasis on our posessions, which seems kind of ironic, but works.

These cars were going to be used for community based health services, so that redeemed the event for me. And I let the nun handle the part with the holy water, in a Virgin Mary plastic bottle with the cap screwed on her head. Hail Mary, full of water...

Perhaps the most amazing thing about living in a different culture is that learning occurs on all levels. Our understanding has been challenged and broadened by the realities of poverty, political repression, global economics, imperialism, and other really "big" issues. Yet at the same time, there's all sorts of little things that are just a little different, or little things that are a lot different, or just little things that are kind of somewhat similar but a little bit less similar than one might expect and...well, you get the point.

So here's some of the little stuff I've been thinking of recently. Simple living is an emphasis of our program, but we're also in a country where people often live simply by necessity rather than choice. The distinction between forced poverty and elected simplicity is extremely important, but that's getting to one of the big issues again.