Building Relationships

It was over eight years ago when we first arrived in the Philippines and over the years we have learnt many wonderful things from the people who live here, especially our team members. Culture can be so complicated and we have had plenty of opportunity to be offended and cause offense with our words and actions. It has been an interesting journey but along the way we have learned some of the finer points of Filipino culture that most of the West would do well to practice.

One of the strengths of this culture is the value of relationships and family. Close knit communities and families are developed over years of giving them priority, at times that priority may have cost a promotion, a pay rise or even a presitigous trip but the family unit is stronger and healthier when the priority is given. With over 8 million overseas workers originating from the Philippines this isn't always the case and the distinction between the families is obvious.

We decided years ago that while our children are young to make it a point to go back to Australia, if possible, to be with family for a shirt visit. 2011 will be no different, we leave Davao Feb 10 and will be in Brisbane Feb 11 ready to be with family and friends for almost four weeks.

What happens while we are gone?
Our incredible team in Davao will be working every week in high schools teaching Values Education, doing breakfast club in elementary schools, preparing for the Youth Leadership Academy and Summer Camps. In addition, 2011 welcomes a new ministry opportunity to connect with high school students through hosting a radio program called "Campus Edge." While we are away, the wonderful people who we have realtionship with here will be working hard to keep the ministry flowing and growing.

Is it really December???

2010 will not be a year quickly forgotten in the Biggs household for some heart breaking reasons but mostly for the amazing times we shared as a family in so many different places with different people.

We started the year with the Germain family up in a small tribal village called Kihan, we were inspired by their love and commitment and touched by their friendship and passion. Their heart for the people they lived with was refreshing and their sacrifices both in Kihan and in leaving will never be truly understood by anyone. Our family grew solidly attached to this unique and wonderful family and we were privileged once again to see them in Alaska (or Alastika as Jasmine likes to call it).

Our friendship tour through the USA was heart warming and refreshing, it was a journey that proved to have an incredibly healing effect for me especially. So many people opening their homes to us and our family, so many friends loving us just because we live and so many hugs that made the painful parts of the year fade far away.

This December will be the first Christmas we have been alone as a family of five and there is a sense of excitement and anticipation of what we will discover, what memories we will create and how we will grow as a family through this.

Part of the Christmas season here at Global Impact are the annual Christmas outreaches. This year we are doing such a broad range it is never boring. We perform in tribal, school, church and community events. Ethan is dancing and in the drama for this year's performance and I am dancing also (hey stop laughing...no there will be not be videos released).

The highlight of this Christmas will be the "Impact a family packs" we are creating. Big groups are fun and now the opportunity to touch individual family groups is going to be a blast. We get to help create memories for them by touching them in the midst of their circumstances with a tangible expression of God's love. There is no set recipe for the pack unlike the over 200 hygiene packs we have already made. Each pack is designed for a specific family including: groceries, clothing, medical supplies, vitamins and some just plain fun stuff.

Each year people help us give hygiene packs with soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, wash cloth etc. to hundreds of kids, youth and adults. So this year we decided to go one step further. We have selected three of the families already and as we have the provisions we will add more families. Our goal this year is 12 families and if you would like to help just let me know.

Many blessings for your Christmas and the final weeks of 2010. Our family is praying for an awesome 2011 for you.

Friendship Tour through the USA

Recently, our family took a much needed break and visited the USA. We took what quickly became termed the "Biggs Friendship Tour." Our tour took us through 32 states, staying in 26 cities and driving more than 9,500 miles in 6 weeks. The highlights were definitely seeing old friends and meeting new people who quickly became friends (Tracie, Laura and Sarah).

We were so blessed on our tour to see all our partners and visit with friends we have not seen for 8 years. The whole idea was birthed through our very good friend, Autumn, getting married. Her reception was to be held in Texas and we wanted to celebrate with her and spend time getting to know Rob.

The idea soon exploded into a big tour including lots of houses, friends, missions presentations and preaching. Through the tour we were blessed to stay with friends who opened their homes to us and made this trip possible. Our thanks and appreciation to everyone who hosted our family and listened as we shared our lives in the Philippines with willing and encouraging ears.

We were able to preach, teach, rest, play and have a memorable time throughout the USA. As you can imagine we took hundreds of photos to remember our journey. We have created an online album with Picasa and there are collages like the one above telling the story of our fun in each location.

http://picasaweb.google.com/112300857097831921256/USATrip2010Collages?authkey=Gv1sRgCKO7qqWfgPu6ogE#

Old Stomping Ground

This post was written at the start of our Great Adventure almost three months ago.

It was perhaps an epiphany or whatever word you would use to describe the moment I had this afternoon. I was on the roof of the hotel looking out over the city of Manila and the view was breathtaking. One of the closest tower structures to our hotel is a set of four smaller towers called Governor's Place. Although, they are now dwarfed by the newer bigger towers being built in the area they are still a well known landmark for the locals.

For me they are a strategic part of my history, a flash back into what was and how my past has effected my future. September 2002 saw Governor's Place be the first place in the Philippines Glen and I called home. It was here that I experienced the first critical taste of culture shock, intense and desperate loneliness that I found hard to explain when I lived in such a highly populated area. How could I be lonely? I was living in a city crammed full with millions of people, the work we were doing was very fulfilling and the future was looking very bright especially when we discovered Ethan was on his way into our lives.


As I sit down to write this entry I am looking out our hotel room's window at Tower One of Governor's Place and the emotions have flooded back to the surface in a manner that it temporarily felt like I was drowning. Such raw emotions that I am only now learning how to work through or process as Amy and Teresa call it. Processing emotions is a skill and one that is not necessarily natural or easy.

This trip to visit our friends and speak throughout the USA is one I have dreamed of for years and I am so excited. Ethan, Jasmine, Glen and I are about to embark on a friendship tour like no other.

The Great Adventure

For the next two months our family will be touring the USA. We will be preaching, teaching and sharing missions and missionary life throughout more states than should be legally allowed. We arrive in the SanFrancisco on August 22nd and will begin playing a game with our readers called "Where in the USA are the Biggs family?"

We have had an interesting year in Davao with high highs and low lows. In our previous blog we have shared both the highs and the lows. This time in the USA will be a great way to spend some quality time as a family, meet new people and catch up with friends. We would appreciate your prayers as one of the reasons we are making this trip is to raise awareness of what we do and raise financial support.

Our trip is almost finalized but if you wold like to catch up with us, have us speak at an event or look at our SAFE home products while we are in your area please let us know.

Prayer Requests:

Favor and Safety as we travel

Health and Rest during our trip

Fun in Alaska to finish off our trip

Christopher - our son.

As I'm sure you noticed, my blog took a vacation while our family went through a summer of fun and intensely hard work here in Davao. I will at some stage take the time to blog about the summer and the time in Australia but first we have something far more important to share.

Our newest family member, Christopher.

Christopher has been with our family for over a year but I did not want to share his life story and his eventual becoming a part of the Biggs family without his permission. Chris is 17 years old now and he has stolen my "mum heart". Not to say it is not a bit of a shock to suddenly add a teenager to the family but the journey has unlocked a new and quite inspiring "type of love" in my heart.

Christopher first came to our attention during the summer camps of 2008. His face screamed "life sucks, does anyone care?" He was selected for a small group who met with Glen every morning and even though his tough exterior seemed impenetrable, his heart was eventually reached by displaying God's love not judgement or criticism.

Chris' story when I first heard it was confusing and shocking. His mother was a drug addict and dealer, when she fell pregnant with him. She did not want to keep the baby but her sister told her she would take the baby. Chris' mum did not stop the drugs during the pregnancy, nor the alcohol or other illicit activities. When he was born, his Aunt took him and became his mum.

During last year's summer camps his Aunt, who had been like his mother for years died after a long and painful battle with cervical cancer. The hospital system here is substantially different to that in Australia or America. She needed a "watcher" or someone by her side constantly. The watcher is the one who goes and buys the drugs or blood she needs, they are responsible for the food and bedding for the patient and themselves. Chris' Aunt's battle with cancer had cost Chris a lot, he had left school to be her watcher, had no income or regular food for months and had resorted on occasion to unimaginable methods to get money to feed his sister.

The death of his Aunt was bitter sweet for Chris, he could see that she was better off being gone but now he was alone and couldn't see much of a future for himself. Chris' grandmother asked us if we would take responsibility for Chris and care for him in our family. Due to the unimaginable bureaucratic red tape Chris is not allowed to be legally adopted by anyone due to his age and other factors but he has been in our care since he was 15 years old.

Recently, when he has been trying to enrol in his final year of high school he was asked to provide a birth certificate for proof of identification. He had never received one and so began the journey through bureaucracy. Unfortunately, it turns out that his Aunt and Uncle never legally adopted him and so his name on the birth certificate, which he still can't have yet, is different to the name he has completed all his schooling under. This adds a whole new and somewhat eventful journey through government departments to help Chris graduate.

Our family recently met, Queenie, his younger sister. She had been living with friends but was in the process of being moved to be with another Aunt. She was so malnourished it was heart breaking. Queenie had been raped recently and when Chris had found out what had happened he took her away from the danger and organized for an Aunt to take care of her. She was willing to do so because Queenie was a girl and young.

Ethan and Jasmine both love having Chris in our family and it is so sweet to see the innocence of their love. When people comment that he can't be their brother, their simple answer is "of course he is." So as you pray for our family please remember Chris because "of course he is part of our family."

Recover and Move on

When I started writing this post I was sitting in my bed in the Philippines and planning on writing a magnificent blog for everyone on how we victoriously moved on from the pain and loss into life that no longer hurt. It just hasn't worked that way yet and thankfully after some much needed time with my Mum and Pastor Amy I am satisified that I am not just trying to move on and forget what has happened instead I am trying to reach a place where my emotions have been guided through all the areas where it has hurt because of loss.

This journey has involved a whole lot of learning about the powerful emotion, grief. I have been blessed to have incredible support during this journey and my true friends have shone so brightly and been such a blessing to me. I am still amazed at the connection that I felt for my precious child even though I had never had the privilege of meeting him/her. I am also stunned by the grief I have felt for "what could have been."

It has been over a month since we lost our baby and the feeling of loss is still real, the pain of losing someone so precious and the physical challenge of recovering from substantial blood loss are still a challenge. Although now I can look at babies without crying and I can celebrate with friends their joy in pregnancy. I am stronger physically and although not ready to run a 10km race, I did make the flight to Australia with no problems.

Grief is a powerful emotion and one that many of us don't know how to navigate when we are in the midst of it. This seems to result in either a determined pushing through which demands us to supress the emotions or we sink into a depression not knowing how to move on. Interestingly loss comes in many forms and grief can be attached to every type of loss, much like stress can be attached to every type of change...good and bad.

Next blog "Australia, Larger than Life"

What a rough an unpredictable month.

I battled for a while as to whether I would even publish this blog but after some convincing from friends who believe it might help others here it is, an open and honest look at my heart in the midst of pain.

The last month's events are I hope a once in a lifetime experience because I never want to live the lows of this month ever again.

December saw us lose one of our biggest supporters. This supporter was the main partner of the Young Men's Discipleship Home and also of a number of our team. The support just stopped with no warning, no reason and left us feeling high and dry. We received this news days before Christmas, for one of the young men the first Christmas he had ever been with people on.

New Year we celebrated in Kihan with friends of ours who have had a really rough month also and are now packing their bags to go back to Alaska off the mission field. We really enjoyed being with this family and the pain they have recently been through is very frustrating to me and I find myself once again in a place where I can't seem to do anything to help.

Beginning of January we lost one of our personal supporters. This couple have been our longest supporters starting back in 2002 and what hit us hard was not just the loss of support but the fact that our friends were having a hard time financially. When I received the email my heart broke for them, this is not God's plan.

January 14th Glen and I lost our baby to a miscarriage at only 9 weeks along. We may never know exactly what went wrong but we do know that during the process I lost a lot of blood and the surgeon was concerned I might die without immediate intervention. Somewhere through the process I had an allergic reaction to a drug and blew up like a puffer fish. Then like a comedy show during the night as I was recovering from the surgery there was an earthquake and my drip which was on the rolling stand next to my bed rolled away pulling the drip partly out of my arm.

So what next?
In the midst of all this pain that will definitely take time to process I can appreciate that after the whole physical process I am still alive...exhausted but alive.

The first thing I learned is that I can stop and just cry for a while before pushing on. Taking time just for me is extremely important and it is ok to say "no" to the overwhelming needs that we face almost daily living here in Davao...in fact it is important to say no and be "selfish." Rest is really important.

One of the ways to move forward when ready is to try and keep things in perspective. Sometimes the hurt and pain screams louder and is glaringly obvious, hiding the high points and the fun in the midst of the pain. As I look back over our last month it would be so easy to focus on the loss of life, the loss of partners and support, the pain of fellow ministers and the feelings of isolation and loneliness. Yet to be fair there have been some great highs too.

Our Christmas and New Year were both definitely high with friends playing the temporary role of family during these special times and making us and our children feel so valuable and important. We were blessed to have an impressive menu that the neighborhood kids from the squatter area were able to taste the following day...highlight watching one little boy eat lamb for the first time and say "it doesn't taste like chicken" lol.

Keeping perspective doesn't mean we should just try to put the painful events out of our mind either, just learning to focus in different places instead of always on the pain. How do we keep going? By holding onto the word of God and believing the truth it presents so clearly. "Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." I can walk through the valley and not stop there.

Ethan came to see me last week and asked when we would bury the baby and if we knew whether he had a brother or sister waiting for him in heaven? The faith of a child is surprisingly wonderful at righting a world that seems to have lurched violently to one side. We will indeed meet our precious child when we get to heaven and we will walk through this pain with the care, love and support of the people around us. Don't be isolated in the journey.

We buried our precious baby on Sunday January 24th in the morning after family devotions. We appreciate everyone's prayers, well wishes and support.

Starting 2010

Starting 2010

The start of each year seems to be an obvious time to reevaluate everything that comprises of our lives. We are free to make plans and dream of what our future could hold, we can look at our current circumstances and list of activities and take stock. The new year has a similar effect on most of my friends. As the team leaders at Global Impact in Davao City, Philippines we do this a little more often but new year is a great time to review and redefine. Every year there is room to improve and a hope for something new...this year is no exception.

God has challenged Glen and I in many areas the last few months and with life constantly changing we took the time to review our years on the mission field and our future direction. God is not looking for our comfort or even to help our life become predictable He is looking for our growth, our willingness to change, open ears, quick obedience and an uncompromising love for Him and His word. Each of these qualities is what will help us stay on the straight and narrow and not get caught up with what the world thinks.

2010 for our team is once again focused on Matthew 28:18-20
¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them. He said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
¹⁹ So you must go and make disciples of all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
²⁰ Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And you can be sure that I am always with you, to the very end."

Glen and I developed a family mission statement sometime ago "We are to be living examples of disciplined followers of Christ, who help others walk out their destinies through discipling and mentoring." It fits very closely along side the mission of Global Impact "to help people grow, develop and flourish in all aspects of life (spiritual, vocational, relational and financial) through a variety of education training programs, orphanages/homes/care facilities and various forms of Christian ministry."

One of our friends reminded us recently "Glen, Sarah the people are the end, never a means to an end. So many ministries use people as a means to an end...don't do it."

Perhaps my next post will be more about the specifics for this year, for now though remember 1 Cor 13 and that is how we are to treat people, never as a means to an end. How am I showing God's unconditional love to others?

New Year Challenge

2010 has started with a challenge from the Compassion Army. Read the whole New Testament and book of Proverbs in the month of January. I love challenges as long as I succeed and unfortunately in the past these type of challenges or resolutions have only in essence added insult to injury. You see I am the type of person who likes to start with a bang and in a flurry with the intent not only to succeed but to be perfect. Then five days into the challenge when I wake up 30 minutes late and didn't finish my five chapters before work am inclined to either chastise myself or quit because I didn't do it right. Works in everything really ... exercise, new eating plans, skin care ... hey you name it.

I have started the challenge and I am taking an entirely different approach this year...perfect or not lets have fun and listen while we do it. So here's how I am taking the challenge:
1. Read the book of John (over the month) with Ethan and Jasmine at Bible time everyday
2. Read a Proverb everynight before bed - actually before even getting into bed or else sleep prevails fast and furiously
3. Read a couple of chapters from the other gospels in my personal devotion time
4. Listen to the rest on MP3

Way to conquer the "need for perfection" and enjoy the journey at the same time. Best part is if I miss a spot I don't fret, I am totally relaxed in this. 2010 will be a year of not aiming for perfection and enjoying the journey I am on with God.