Is There a Doctor in the House?

Since Allan began med school in 1998, we have heard stories from other docs, especially missionary docs about stitching people up on their kitchen table. I have been anxiously awaiting the day when we would have our own “kitchen table” story. While we have had a few minor treatments at the house, with the clinic so close, Al takes people with more serious injuries up there. That is until today… We have finally given stitches here at the house, only it wasn’t some friend or neighbor knocking on the door and we didn’t use the kitchen table. It wasn’t even one of our own children. Never did I envision the patient would be….me! This evening when Allan came in from the clinic for dinner, he was carrying a big box filled with some Christmas surprises from some of our wonderful friends in Greenwood. I scooted out the screen door to hold it open for him, but when I came back in the door slammed quickly catching my heel making a deep gash. Since it was so deep and jagged, Allan felt like it needed a few stitches. So instead of the kitchen table where we were about to eat supper, I laid face down on the bed and let Allan stitch me up. Will was our wonderful photographer despite his aversion to all medical procedures. The hardest part was keeping Maggie out. She really wanted to join in the fun.

This comes at the end of a banner week at the Gilmer house. I ended Christmas day with a stomach bug. Two days later, I was bitten in the eye by Maggie. I was lying on the floor near where she was playing and she accidentally took my eye for the new rope toy Emily gave her for Christmas. It really wasn’t bad and in the grand scheme of things it could have been a lot worse. I am a now beautiful sight with one puffy red swollen eye and a limp. At least they are on opposite sides of my body to balance each other out. Otherwise we have had a good week. Will received a Star Wars game for Christmas that is keeping us well entertained. Hope the end of 2006 is better for you!

Maligayang Pasko

Merry Christmas from the Gilmers!

Hope you are enjoying a wonderful Christmas! We are spending Christmas Eve making cookies and going to a Christmas Eve service. Tomorrow, we will spend the day at home as a family. Below is a video I made of some sights in the Philippines set to one of the most famous Filipino Christmas songs. The song is called "Pasko na Sinto Ko" which means It's Christmas now my love. The words in Tagalog are printed below. A lot of the pictures around Manila and Antipolo were taken by my dad when he was here. Interspersed are pictures of Christmas lights here in the PI. I didn't take all of them. I hope you enjoy our Christmas gift!

Allan, Ginger, Emily and Will

Pasko Na Sinta Ko

Pasko na sinta ko,
Hanap-hanap kita
Bakit nagtatampo't nilisan ako.

Kung mawawala ka,
SA piling ko sinta
Paano ang paskongAlay ko sa'yo.

Sayang sinta,
Ang sinumpaan atPagtitinginang tunay;
Nais mo bang kalimutang ganap,
Ang ating suyuan at galak.

Kung mawawala ka,
SA piling ko sinta
Paano ang paskong
Alay ko sa'yo

Kung mawawala ka,
SA piling ko sinta
Paano ang paskong
Alay ko sa'yo...

Sayang sinta,
Ang sinumpaan atPagtitinginang tunay;
Nais mo bang kalimutang ganap,
Ang ating suyuan at galak

Kung mawawala ka,
SA piling ko sinta
Paano ang paskong
Alay ko sa'yo...

My How They've Grown!

I was looking at some pictures tonight and I happened to look at the Christmas picture we sent out last year. I decided to compare it to this years' Christmas card photo and Wow! Will looks like a tiny boy in last years' shot. They sure have grown a lot in the last year. Emily is now 5 feet tall with hair halfway down her back. Look at the difference:

2005

2006

Wet Dry Market

With my parents visit and the busyness of the Christmas season, I haven’t been able to blog about all the things I have in my head. I am aware that I never finished the tour of the clinic that we began last summer. Hopefully I will get back to that in the New Year.

Today, I thought I would share some pictures from my trip with Pop to the wet dry Market here in Antipolo. I don’t do a whole lot of shopping here because the fish smell about does me in. Emily and Will hate the smell and also seeing all the meat hanging. I am more comfortable shopping at the local grocery store, Shopwise. It is similar to grocery stores in the states. So boring missionary that I am, I stick with the familiar. If you are ever out our way though and want to take a trip to the market, I will be glad to take you there. You, like Pop, may decide that the grocery store is the place for us! By the way, my Mom opted to stay home and get some things done at the house.

Approaching the Wet Dry Market from the street

Fish anyone?

A man hawking his fish

Pork

Want some chicken feet?

How about some chicken heads?

Ahh, this is more like it... eggs

Beautiful fruit

Pop shopping for dalandans--a native orange that's green

of course we have rice!

Em's Christmas play

The last week of my parent's visit, they got to see Emily in a play. Emily joined the 6th grade drama club this year and they performed a Christmas play during chapel. Emily had one of the major roles as Angel #2 in "The Angels were Watching". They all did such a great job. She has some great little actors in her class. I look forward to their next play!

The Angels

(My Mom helped me make the angels halos)

The Stable Scene

Christmas Parties

As Christmas draws nearer, we are in the midst of parties and school programs. This has been a particularly busy week for us. I guess this way we don’t have time to miss Mimi and Pop. Wednesday, we had our annual Clinic Christmas party at our regular Wednesday lunch. I decided to order lunch from a restaurant called Max’s. It was a true Filipino party meal. We had fried chicken (don’t picture the kind grandma used to make or the kind KFC sells), stir fried vegetables, lumpia – this is the Filipino version of egg rolls, pancit- a Filipino noodle dish with veggies, shrimp, chicken livers, and fish balls served on special occasions like birthdays and Christmas. We also had a creamed asperagus soup, and of course ----plain rice. For dessert I ordered a chocolate cake from a bakery called Red Ribbon. The staff seemed pleased with my choices—I couldn’t go wrong since it was a set party meal from Max's. Ling Ling, our nurse, kept saying it was “talagang Christmas party”. Which means it was really a Christmas party. While the food was good and "abundant" and we had a good time, it wasn’t nearly the party we went to at Ling’s house on Thursday.

Thursday, Ling had a Christmas party and lunch for her ladies bible study group. She has 16 ladies from the nearby squatter area that she ministers to and disciples every Thursday morning. They began with a time of Thanksgiving. Each woman got up and thanked God for what He had done in her life this year. It was an emotional time as many of them have had a tough year. Many of the families are with out work and income. There is the mother of 6 whose husband is out of work. She supports her family by cooking and cleaning for $2 a day. There were quite a few women who had lost husbands this past year. One of whom was found dead in our neighbors' yard. Another, whose husband died, is supporting her family by selling food out of their home. She makes barely enough to survive. There were hard times that the ladies were thankful they had gotten through, but also joyful times. One of the ladies had been battered by her husband for years. The Bible Study began to pray for a change in him and the situation turned around. Allan gave our Christmas greetings and thanks in Tagalog and spoke for just a minute about the hope we have in Christ. It was so beautiful and perfect for the situation. There weren’t many dry eyes in the room when he was done. These women truly know what it is like to rely on the hope we have in Christ.

We were invited to join in all the festivities, but we decided only to drop by for a little while. Since Allan is the doc, we, including Ling, decided the women wouldn’t feel able to “cut loose”. I don’t think it would have mattered though. When we left there was an intense game going on. The women were paired up in 2s and “dancing” with a tomato between their foreheads. They had to keep the tomato from dropping. There was much laughter and merriment. I think they might have gotten a kick out of Al joining in. Ling had many games and prizes for the winners. I think next year she will have to organize the entertainment for our clinic staff party.

Today, I am off to the Elementary school’s Christmas program. It should be very entertaining. Will is excited because he only has to go to school a half day (much to em’s dismay since she has to go all day) and his friend Sam is coming home with him. Tomorrow night Emily will go to her first Middle School Christmas Banquet. She can’t wait. I have made her a long skirt out of Christmas fabric to go with a sleeveless red shirt she has. In the States, we have always had many Christmas clothes--sweaters, dresses, and sweatshirts, but she just didn't have any Christmas clothes suitable for the tropics.

Creepy Crawlies

Well we have experienced another aspect of missionary life in the last few weeks. In an earlier blog, I mentioned Will has been sick. After a week or so of being ill, we had an x-ray and some blood work done. He had worms. This is common here and some missionaries de-worm their kids twice a year just for good measure. The worms were causing him to lose a lot of weight and he became anemic. After de-worming and taking iron and vitamins, he is finally back to his old self. We de-wormed Emily, ourselves and the Brewer kids just in case. Mimi and Pop decided to forgo the worm treatment since they hadn't been here very long and hadn't walked outside barefoot.

No sooner had the worm problem been conquered, then we had an infestation of a different sort that is also common here. Friday morning, a friend called me to let me know her daughter had lice and since she and Em had been together I might be on the look out. Emily walked in the door after school scratching her head and sure enough there was lice. This is so common among the Filipino kids and MKs that they don't even stay home from school. I had the privilege of combing lice out of Em's hair Friday night. Mimi and Pop, while not concerned, really didn't want to have the honor of de-lousing their granddaughter. Em didn't have too many and no eggs that I could see so hopefully I got it all. No one else has shown any signs, but I did feel the urge to scratch my head Friday night.

I always like to have a picture with the blog, but even if I had a picture of the lice or the worms I don't think you would want to see it. I am including a picture my mom took of our precious Maggie looking over the Christmas greenery on our stairs. She is so cute, but she is really enjoying the Christmas decorations too much!

Time for Goodbye

Well today we said "Goodbye" to Mimi and Pop. This morning before church we dropped them off at the airport for an early flight. Their time here went so fast. It didn't seem like 4 weeks to us. We had a great time and we will really miss them. There were no tears at the airport. They were held in reserve for later. In an ironic twist, my parents arrived as a small typhoon was passing through and they also left during one. It was south of Manila and has only provided lots of rain and cool temps today in the PI. After a long hug, the kids (OK and me too) hung out the car window waving goodbye as we drove off. We arrived at church as it was beginning, just in time to sing one of my favorite hymns-- "Great is Thy Faithfulness" in both English and Tagalog. I was reminded how faithful and good the Lord has been to us and what a blessing the parents He gave to me have been. I have to admit I did get a little teary then.

After church, we made a little stop at Starbucks with some friends while we waited for the mall to open. We enjoyed chatching up with them. At the mall, we accomplished some errands and found the Christmas presents for the clinic staff. We then headed off to meet 2 other families for lunch. We had a great time visiting and chatting. Emily's PE teacher was one of our lunch companions and he brought us a special gift....Krispy Kreme Doughnuts! Just this month the first Krispy Kreme doughnut shop has opened in the Philippines. It is down in Makati, the business district, near where he goes to church. Ahh, how the Gilmers love Krispy Kreme! It was a wonderful surprise and helped soothe a couple of down kids! Thanks Tom!

After lunch, we decided to go to the movies. We went to see The Nativity. We really enjoyed it. If you haven’t seen it I recommend it for your holiday viewing. After buying some dog food and bread we finally made it back home about 5:30. What a busy full day! We needed it. We took this picture just outside the movie theater. Everything was so festive and nice for Christmas!

After a snack supper, Emily finally broke down and the tears began to fall. We snuggled up together and I just let her cry it out. Will joined us and we talked about how wonderful our time together had been. Our day ended on a happy note. Thankfully, the next few weeks are busy as we finish out the school quarter and get ready for Christmas.

Another Typhoon

This past week, our region of the Philippines suffered the 4th Super Typhoon in as many months. Wednesday we began preparing for the impending typhoon, predicted to pass directly over us. Fortunately for us the path shifted and the brunt of the weather passed just south of us. Unfortunately, the damage to the Bicol region, 200 miles to the southeast on our island of Luzon, has been horrific. There has been massive flooding and mudslides. Here are some pictures taken by reporters on Saturday and Sunday. They tell the story better than words could. Please remember these people in prayer as the death count has risen to over 1000 so far.

Schools and businesses in the Manila area were closed Thursday and Friday, but the kids were already out of school for some local and national holidays. We were supposed to be leaving for a short trip to the beach Thursday morning, but Will has been sick off and on for the last 2 weeks, so we decided at the last minute not to go. The Lord really protected us because we would have been in the direct path of the Typhoon. The last place I want to be trapped is at the beach, on another island, during a major typhoon.

The damage to Manila is minimal. We lost power for about 18 hours due to a transformer blowing. We were without water for 2 days, but since we had only had water for about 8 hours since Monday, it was nothing new. Water was restored on Saturday about lunchtime.

With the loss of water, power, and typhoon prep, my parents are getting a good taste of what our life here is like. So far, the only thing they seem to really dislike is the traffic, but who doesn't. My dad wrote in a recent email: "The traffic here makes Atlanta rush hour traffic a piece of cake. The roads are full of buses, jeepneys, motor bikes, motor bikes with a side passenger car, and of course the normal cars and trucks. The traffic is either stopped or moving at a slow pace. The distance we traveled one way last Saturday was about 30 miles or less (everything here is in metric). It took us over 1 1/2 hours." I think they will enjoy getting home to the open roads of Alabama and Georgia!

Thursday, as we were waiting for the bad weather to arrive, we took Emily and Will and the Brewer kids out to lunch and bowling. Allan was the high scorer of the day, followed closely by Pop. We had a great time and for once we had a camera at the bowling alley, not only one camera but 2. Below is a picture of the bowlers. (minus me the picture taker) Mimi decided not to bowl. She wandered the mall a bit and had a great time window shopping and buying a few things.