This Mother Rambles

Flowers, Flowers Everywhere

A Mother's Day Present

Today there seemed to be flowers everywhere. As we maneuvered our Honda Accord in the crowded Costco parking lot in So. City, we could see the bundles of roses and assorted bouquets in many shopping carts on the way back to the owners’ cars. Tomorrow is a special day for millions of us mothers. I earned my stripes 39 years ago when Kristy Inez made her much-awaited arrival, all 8 lbs. 12 ounces and 22 inches of baby. She changed our lives. Eighteen months later her baby brother came along. We named him Matthew, a gift from God. 

Earning My Stripes

Our first experiences at being parents seem so far off now.  It began with that ecstatic moment the midwife handed me the grease-covered tiny body of our baby. My first words to Don were “I guess you’re not getting your football player.” He replied, “she smiled at me, she looked up at me and smiled!” My water bag broke on Sunday night. Kristy arrived early Tuesday morning. Matthew was different. He was very matter-of-factly. On a Saturday (or could have been Monday) morning. I had a couple of contractions while I was talking with someone across our dining table followed by a hurried trip on a manually driven “betchak” to Brayat Minulyo hospital, and two hours later, he was in our presence. Just like that.

Dreaming to be a Lawyer

When I was a young girl, I used to think it would be great to be a career woman, a successful professional, possibly a lawyer, arguing in court. I did not ever think I would marry and have a family. I guess I bought the Women’s Lib propaganda hook, line, and sinker. But God had very different plans for me.  I met a wonderful man and got married in 1974. Three years later, I became a mother.

Two days ago, Don and I were talking and trying to picture what kind of person I would have been if God had not intervened in my plans. I will have been quite a different person.

As Don and I raised our children, we became more and more aware of our responsibility to these little ones we brought into this world. Everything we did had to be considered in the light of how it would impact the lives of our children. Sometimes there was tension between what we wanted for ourselves and what was good for the children. Actually, for the mother, this starts as early as during pregnancy and onto the breastfeeding months. I would have wanted to enjoy the good spicy Indonesian food we had, but which I had to avoid at the time. Motherhood was changing my life and my very person. 

With grandchildren, Francine & Haley at
Stow Lake, Golden Gate Park

Motherhood revealed how selfish and self-centered I was. It taught me to be more sensitive to others needs. It helped me develop a filter on my motives and intentions. It gave me opportunities to grow in many different ways. As my children went into the junior high and high school years, I was challenged to get a better understanding of the context in which Kristy and Matthew were growing into. I could no longer get guidance from how I was raised because the times and the culture have definitely changed. Theirs has become a terribly more complex society. The leaps and bounds that technology was taking, left us parents in its wake, confused and often hardly able to cope.

God has used my children to educate me. In my 40's* I put on ice skates for the first time and skated with my kids in a public rink in a big mall. I was a ridiculous sight as I nervously and self-consciously skated my way around, hanging on to the rails or being held and led by 10-year old Kristy. And when I fell flat on my back onto the cold ice, embarrassed before the watching crowd, I found out that it was not such a horrifying experience. One could survive a public embarrassment. My children had taught me to be less judgmental and more understanding of others whose opinions may differ from mine. This past Christmas, our whole family spent a couple of days and nights together in Kristy’s & Jon’s home – all 11 of us, which included Don and me, our children and their children. Our love for each other survived the very animated political discussions. Helen and Matthew were Sanders’ fans (they gave us a bumper sticker for our car), Kristy was uncertain but was more liberal than Don and me who are card-carrying Republicans. To help us get on with the new technology, Matthew and Helen gave us smartphones to replace our flip top phones, so we could face time with them when we call.

Both Kristy and Helen are very intelligent, creative, capable and attractive women who have chosen motherhood over career, raising the kind of grandchildren that grandparents wish for. Two years ago, Helen told me, “I have come to the conclusion that the role in life God wants for me is to be a wife and mother and I am very happy with that. We do not have a lot of money, but I am very happy with my life.”

My life would have been very different if God had not intervened. I probably could have had a J.D after my name earning fame as a fiery litigator in court, with much more money in the bank.  But at the end of the day, I would have gone home to a beautiful but quite empty house where the sounds of grandchildren calling Gramma or children who ask “Do you remember the curry leftover meatloaf we had for dinner when we were children?” are never heard.   The joys, blessings and rich life that motherhood has brought me cannot possibly be compared with that which could have been.

Just a Mother’s Day rambling from me.

*I have just noticed that I had wrong info here originally.  I wasn't 40 when Kristy was 10.  Apologies.  

A Good and Faithful Servant

Jared W. Barker

Jared W. Barker has been called home.  Probably next to my own father, he has been the biggest spiritual influence on my life.  I sit here, thousands of miles away from where we first met, and many years distant.   I look at his death announcement and his photograph.  The tears come unbidden.  I guess it is sadness at his final departure from our presence or is it from selfishness?  I didn’t want him to go away. 

It was 54 years ago when I first met him.  I was a 92-pound, 5’ft, pony-tailed 19-year old, fresh out of college.  Behind his desk, he looked up and his blue eyes made a quick evaluation.  Years later, he would confess that his eyes told him that day it would be lucky if I lasted 3 months in the mission.  I stayed on for 4-1/2 years.

The young Barker family in Cotabato - John, Jared, Marilee
Jerry & Jim.  Mary Beth & Joy are not pictured.

The Philippines Evangelical Enterprises, Inc.

Through the years, Jared and his family faithfully did their appointed tasks.  Through the Philippines Evangelical Enterprises, Inc., they started and operated two high schools and a college department in Marbel and Isulan, an elementary school among the Tagabili tribe, a high school among the Manobos, an annual summer camp in Lake Sebu for young students and college kids, public extension classes that teach the Bible to 14,000 students in 43 public high schools every week.They partnered with the Far East Broadcasting Company to establish a Christian radio station on the high school campus in Marbel.  To support the mission financially, they operated a cannery, a lime factory, farm projects, and a harvesting combine service for the farmers in the area.  They dabbled in a chicken farm and pig farm and planted citrus, corn and mango trees.  The moneymaking ventures were to make the schools and spiritual outreach financially sustainable without dependence on foreign aid, a concept that was hardly known to mission organizations at the time.

A Good and Faithful Servant

What Jared accomplished is impressive enough, but how he accomplished it is even more impressive.  I remember my thoughts on first setting foot on the Marbel campus in 1962.  I was shocked at the simplicity and austerity of the offices and the buildings.  This spoke of Jared.  His brand was "do much with as little as possible with no fanfare or publicity."  Long before I was taught in a Spiritual Formation course in Seminary about how important it is to perform for the audience of One, Jared was already on to it and touching many lives.  He worked with laser-beam like focus.  He was intense and constantly engaged.  He was not one for a lot of spiritual talks; in fact, he really wasn’t much of a talker.  Those who worked with him sensed the urgency and complete commitment he had.  Sometimes our countless meetings at the schools extended into the very late hours.  I would complain.  He would say, “You know, I used to work 16 hours a day for the Devil.  Why should I give God less?”   

January 2009-Mr. Barker at the lectern  performing Baby Espa's
 dedication  ceremony in Marbel, Cotabato.
He touched so many lives, in this case, 4 generations of a family.

In the time I worked with him, I watched him navigate criticisms hurled at him for one thing or another, meet financial crises that resulted in  near revolts, personnel dissatisfaction, mechanical breakdowns, stringent government requirements, staff shortages, and opposition that sometimes came from the very people he was trying to serve.  His family faithfully served with him, denying themselves of comfort and personal ambitions.  They were in this mission of serving God together. There were even some who tried to get him expelled from the country and some who attempted to physically harm him, but he was not to be deterred from what he was supposed to do.

My Special Assignment

My biggest lessons came the year he entrusted me with the leadership of the mission.  Their family had gone 7 years without going home to the US.  That particular year we had an extraordinarily good staff.  He felt it was a perfect time for them to take this break.  I was a young 24-year old who would be working with the faculty and staff, some of whom were twice my age and definitely more seasoned and knowledgeable than I was.  This was a difficult assignment, but God dealt with me and persuaded me to accept it.  Needless to say, there were also many others who questioned his judgment.  Sure enough, it became the most difficult time I’ve ever had in my life.  But it also brought me closest to God and into the rich experience of trusting Him.  The lessons were many; some had to be learned from very painful experiences.  I never understood this appointment until about 15 years ago.  I wrote a poem with a description of their old house in Marbel.  Their family was home in Kansas at the time, so I sent them a copy of the poem.  He called, complimenting me for my keen remembrance of details.  We had a long visit and finally after many years, I had the courage to ask him what made him take the risk of leaving the care of the mission to me in 1964.  His answer was brief, “Because I knew you loved God.”

On Personal Relationships

He cared for people and was always finding ways to help others.  If he could make things better for anyone, he would do it.  I remember how he used to wonder what kind of fish could live in the waters of Lake Sebu.  He thought it would help the people there not only with their food supply but also in making a living.  Years after I was gone, I found out that he did contact the Department of Fishery and tried to persuade them to stock the lake with fish.  I am not sure that the current thriving tilapia fish industry there is a direct result of this, but he definitely was among the first ones who envisioned it.

He was not one to coddle people.  He was known to practice tough love at times, but he was gentle, caring and protective at the same time.  When my good friend Nelly and I argued about our favorite colors (mine was blue; hers was green), he heard me say, "How can anybody like green, it is such a boring color."  He interjected and said, "God also likes green.  He made so many things green - the plants, trees, grass, the hills."

I remember being in the office with him one day when a student came in.  He was an older student in my class and a preacher.  He had the habit of showing up the young teachers.  He sat down and asked me, “Miss Reyes, what does 'mesmerize' mean?”  Mr. Barker looked at me, trying to see my reaction, then headed straight to the big Webster dictionary. “I believe it means ‘hypnotize,’” was my reply. By this time, Mr. Barker had looked up the word and said,” I will have you know that there is only one meaning for that word in this dictionary and it is ‘hypnotize.”  Touché.

Early on in our working relationship, he found out that I could be terribly stubborn.  This stubbornness coupled with a frankness that is so uncharacteristic of the Filipino culture has caused me to run headlong into problems.  When I would argue to defend my position on various issues with an “it’s the principle of the thing that matters,” he would say with a smile that it was also the way he justified his own bullheadedness at times.  We shared a similar lack of tactfulness on occasion. 

He has touched many lives, thousands, in fact.  From poor students who would have had no chance to pursue education to young teachers and staff whom he helped grow through his friendship, patient nurturing and modeling of what God’s faithful servant was like.

On the day I found out Mr. Barker had died, I posted this on his son John's timeline:

I can almost see them now – your dad walking through heaven’s gate; Jesus greeting him, saying, “Welcome, thou good and faithful servant.” That was all he lived and worked for- to be found faithful. And did he! Indeed. My eyes have tears, but my heart rejoices for he is now home. He has left his imprint on many lives; mine among the thousands.   Hebrews 11:32-38 “. . . the world was not worthy of them.”

Different But Much Alike

Learning from Justice Antonin Scalia

Among the many good things that have been said about the late Justice Antonin Scalia, the most impressive to me was that his closest friend on the bench was Justice Ruth Ginsberg, she who is as strong a liberal as Judge Scalia was a conservative.  Such a friendship is a tribute to the both of them.  Somehow they were able to see past everything that divided them and built a friendship based on acceptance of each other. 

Into a Foreign Culture

City Hall at Surakarta, Central Java, Indonesia

Many years ago, Don and I lived in Indonesia, a country so different from the US – Asian, Moslem, third world, with the fifth largest world population.  It was quite a learning experience for us.  Very early on, we recognized that our effectiveness in what we were attempting to do, and in fact, our very survival in this foreign culture depended on a deep respect for the people we lived with, different though we were from them; our own teachability; and acceptance of what we couldn’t change.  Each day brought a better understanding of the country, her people and their ways.  I found out how much I could learn from them.

   

I’ve had to let go of some very western concepts such as that of my protectiveness over private property. Complete strangers sometimes came into our yard and helped themselves to the mangoes on our trees totally ignoring our presence.  I soon found out that community sharing was a strong value in this culture.  They shared what they had with one another, however little they had.  They shared fruit trees, music from their radios, television and sometimes, even the electricity that powered their lights, etc.  Westerners may be apprehensive about this, but I soon found out that underlying this was a strong spirit of generosity.  My tenacious clinging to my privacy had to be shaken loose as I got more attuned to what community was about.  Needless to say, this was difficult to accept, but again there was something for me to learn from my Indonesian friends.  When they admonished me in many different ways about how to take care of my baby, I soon realized that they had taken us as their own.  As family and as surrogate parents, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers, they were expected to give us advice and help us treat this baby right.  

           

Learning from our Community

A typical neighborhood in our city of Surakarta

When Don came down with hepatitis on the second year of our term, he was prescribed complete bed rest for six weeks.  I will never forget the love and warmth that our community extended to us, orang asing[1] as we were.  Each day, I mean every day, a neighbor or someone in our community would bring us fresh fruit for Don for all the weeks he was sick.  It didn’t seem to matter that some of them really didn’t have much to spare.  They kept tab on how he was doing.  They made sure our 5-month old baby and I were fine.  It was no wonder that we fell greatly in love with our adopted community which included the ladies who owned the warungs[2] across the street, the pedicab drivers who parked their vehicles by our fence, our neighbors whose children spent a lot of time in our home, our landlord and his family, the patrons who borrowed books from our little library, the university students who studied English with Don, and even some “ladies of the night” in our kampong[3] who had become our friends.

The longer we lived in our adopted country, the clearer our vision became of the people to whom God had sent us.  They were not just 135.6 million people, 90% of whom were Moslems.  They were our community.  Our lives and theirs intersected increasingly.  We found out that though divided by culture, religion and life practices, we had many things in common.

A Mosque in Batu, Malang in East Java

Meet Our Friend, Pak Nasrukan

When we moved from Central Java to East Java, we met Pak Nasrukan and his family.  They owned the  chicken farm where we bought our weekly supply of eggs.  Don, who couldn’t get used to Indonesian breakfast, would have his American breakfast at home before he left for the quarter of a mile walk to Pak Nasrukan’s home.  As soon as Don got there, Pak Nasrukan’s wife would have an Indonesian breakfast ready for him.  It would not be gracious of Don to say “no” to this kindness, so he would then have a second breakfast.

 

Pak Nasrukan was very serious about his Moslem faith.  He had just become a Hadji, one who had been on the pilgrimage to Mecca.  He wanted to learn about Christianity as compared to his own faith.  He would engage Don in long and countless discussions over breakfast.  Both men wanted to learn from each other.  There were times when Pak Nasrukan would invite his Imam[4], so they could have a 3-way discussion about their faith.  One time Don was invited to attend a Moslem worship service in the Hadji’s home.  We invited them to our home for dinner and they invited us to theirs.  When they found out we had been married a couple of years, they worried that we hadn’t been blessed with a baby. They promised that they would come to see us when our first baby was born.  When we moved back to Central Java, we were sad to lose this friendship. 

A little over a year later, we were surprised to see them come through our gate at Jalan Honggowongso.  They made good their promise.  They had heard about Kristy.  It took them a day’s travel by bus to get to our home. They told us how happy they were at Kristy’s birth.  They came and stayed for three days in our home.  We felt greatly honored.  There was no better way they could have communicated the value of our friendship with them.  It didn’t matter that we were foreigners, that we both spoke broken versions of each other’s language, that he was a Moslem Hadji and we were Christian missionaries.  It only mattered that we were friends and friends shared life experiences.  They came to share our joy at being blessed with our first baby.

The Royal Palace in our city of Surakarta where Princess Mangkunegoro VIII gave us an audience.  We went there in a "betchak" (pedicab) just like that one in the foreground.  The Princess sent us home in her air-conditioned Mercedes Benz!

---

[1] Foreigner

[2] Small street side stalls selling produce, fruits, staples, etc.

[3] District

[4] Moslem priest

A Valentine Day Rambling

What do the long-wed folk do?*

What do the long-wed folk do
To pluck up the heart and get through?

The seniors and gray-haired folk
With thoughts that oft wander to and fro
Have ways known to their own folk

That young weds don’t know

When all the doldrums begin
What keeps each of them in his skin?
What ancient native custom provides the needed glow?
Oh, what do long-wed folk do?
Do you know?

(*The verses above are a take-off from “What Do the Simple Folks Do?" sung by Richard Burton & Julie Andrews in the Broadway play Camelot.)

A Thrift Shop Find

It was about 8:00 in the evening and we have just finished dinner. The quiet swishing of the dishwasher could hardly be heard. Our usual routine has been to settle down to watching “Death in Paradise” which is our Wednesday night BBC whodunit. But tonight is special.

Over the weekend, I managed to drag Don to the thrift store I regularly go to in Burlingame. Rummaging through the bottom shelf in the kitchen section, I spotted a box that said “Espresso Coffeemaker.” In it was a brand new, never used, still in original packing Espresso maker. Not quite a Sierra Madre treasure find, but pretty close to it, as far as this cheapskate was concerned. I paid all of $15 for it, took it home and within an hour I was figuring out how it operated. A few minutes later that night Don and I had our first, heavenly, home-brewed Cappuccino. We were in our glory!

Here we were sipping our frothy coffee and in between sips we were talking as if we were 20-year olds on their first date.  I spooned some froth and savored the white stuff that hinted of the espresso underneath. I threw a forward glance at the kind face of this man I’ve been sharing my life with for the last 41 years. My little pea brain reminded me of how Don and I have become so much like each other through the years. He has always told people he learned to drink coffee from me. I would counter by saying that I had to convert from being a coke to a Pepsi drinker when I married him. As we talked over our cups of coffee, I realized how far he has come. He’s become somewhat of a coffee connoisseur. He can tell if the coffee is French pressed or drip brewed, and whether it is Sumatra, French Roast, or one of his favorites – Starbuck’s Blonde. I get a kick out of hearing him give his order for “a tall Blonde.” Through the years we have changed, compromised and learned new things about and from each other. Learning to drink coffee and enjoying it is one of his; learning theology and getting acquainted with men named Tertulian, Athanasius and Polycarp is one of mine. There have been many other trade-offs between us through the years.

What do old married folk talk about?

A close friend asked us one day what Don and I talked about, having spent so much time of our lives together. This has been specially true after our children married and left the family home. Nowadays we’re all by ourselves in our little condominium which we share with a 32-year old turtle, a 12-year old gold fish and Hank the Cat that we “inherited” from Matthew and Helen. (You know about parents “inheriting” pets from their children, don’t you?)

What was going through our minds as we sipped our cappuccino together? Shared memories. The cups of cappuccino triggered memories of learning how to make espresso coffees about five years ago when we were volunteer interim directors of a Christian library in Berlin. We learned how to

make gourmet coffee and how a public library operated. We met wonderful volunteers who worked with us, putting in unpaid hours making coffee, lending out books, reading to little children, talking to people, listening to their stories. We remember sitting in a classroom with 9 other students from 8 different countries taking a 2-week intensive course to learn the German language. They were mostly in their early 20’s. Don and I could have passed for their grandparents. We were bonded by the common torture of the very difficult declensions, pronunciations and conjugations of the language. When the course was over for us, the young folks said they were saddened to lose us. A couple of months later, Diane, who was from France and Carlos who was from Columbia, came to see us in the library to bid goodbye. They were going home to their countries.

Don and I talked about how we found the quaint, little café that had parlor-like sofas and dainty little curtains on one of the side streets off of Haupstrasse in Berlin. That was a time when Don and I would wake up feeling like we couldn’t face another day. We had work-related problems and tension that seemed insurmountable. We took one of the sitting areas and ordered our cappuccino. When the clerk came back, she had a tray with our coffee cups complete with little doilies on the saucer and cute tiny cookies. I felt like I had been warmly welcomed to an old friend’s home. We sat there for a while and between sips of coffee and bites of cookies, we tried to sort out our thoughts and calm our nerves. Somehow by the time we had to go back to work, we felt much better.

Sometimes I read Facebook posts of wives and husbands extolling the virtues of their spouses. They say wonderful, romantic things that starry-eyed lovers say to each other.  Don and I have never been able to say such things. In fact, when we got married he asked me how I wanted him to call me.   I said, “Raquel.” That’s my name.  So, we have always been Don and Raquel to each other. We are both so unromantic; we deserve each other.  But we spend a lot of time talking over coffee or walking in the Botanical Garden at Golden Gate Park discussing Kafka or the Gulag Archipelago or Calvinism, Armenianism, Tertulian, Chesterton or Augustine and still share the wonder that a newly-read book brings or the serene picture a flock of ducks gliding in the waters of Stow Lake offers.

A Happy Valentine greeting to you lovers, young and old!