For us, the events of 9/11/01 happened late in the evening, after we had gone to bed. Jeff had to get up about 3am the morning of the 12th to make a trip out of Manila. He turned on the news. Wham! He woke me up to tell me and then cancelled his trip out of town. Whenever something happens like this in the US, we American missionaries are on high alert in Manila. We had actually received a warning from the US Embassy a few days before hand that Osama Bin Laden was planning an attack so we were alerted to be vigilant. The typical "lay-low" and "change your routines" protocols came into effect.
When Micah got up at 4am, ready to go jogging, we told her she could not go out. She was bummed but had prayed that the Lord would make it clear to her if she ever was not supposed to go out running at that hour. It was particularly dangerous for her to jog in the dark, alone, as a foreigner and as a female. Around 5 I found her crying as she was getting ready for school. I told her she did not have to go if she didn't want to. The impact of what had happened had not fully hit her. She was not sad about the attacks but that she had to miss her normal morning run. She wanted to go to school so she left. Little did she know how much her life would change because of 9/11. She has a bar on her uniform commemorating that she joined the National Guard after that date.
I feel sometimes that I didn't do a very good job of teaching our children American patriotism. That is a topic for another day but when they grew up seeing extreme poverty, hunger and children-at-risk on a daily basis, it is hard for them to grasp how America can be so prosperous and consume so much of the world's resources yet so many complain that they don't have enough. They don't know America like Jeff and I do but we wonder the same thing.
A little later in the morning, we had to go to the bank and cash a dollar check. We got there when the bank had just opened. I sat there for a hour waiting for the bank to get news of what the exchange rate was going to be. I had thoughts of this is how we anticipated Y2K might turn out to be, a breakdown in international banking. I panicked as I sat there but eventually they got the exchange rate and it was the same as the day before. I was able to cash our check.
In church that Sunday, I was full of sadness. The pre-planned worship service had not been changed any due to these serious events. It was a worship service of lots of happy, upbeat, joyful music. I became so overwhelmed with grief during the songs, I had to sit down and cry. No one noticed. The disaster was mentioned briefly in the pastoral prayer. I remember having a distinct feeling as if I was in mourning over losing a family member but was not able to go home for the funeral. I knew America was grieving and the churches would be focused on prayer for our nation, the victims, protection, calling out to God, repentance. But I couldn't mourn with my nation and I was surprised at how painful that was. I was in church thousands of miles away singing happy songs. My heart was breaking beyond words.
There were actually 2 people (non-Americans) who offered their condolences to us and it meant so much to me. One was Patrick McDonald, the director of Viva Network in Oxford, UK. He is actually Dutch but he sent us an email and expressed his sincere sympathy. The other was a Filipina named Nerie who is a secretary in our ACTION office.
The rest is a blur. I felt weak for several days. I could only manage to do little tasks at a time and then had to stop and weep and pray. Micah went to school, Jeff went to work. I felt very alone in my grieving. Americans didn't get together here. We don't fly an American flag here because we don't want to draw attention to ourselves as Americans. It can make us a target, especially at times like this. When the US started attacking Afghanistan and then Iraq, missionaries living in countries like this have to be very careful and strive to stay out of sight.
We had just returned from a difficult 13 month furlough in July. I had to say goodbye to Amos at the airport (that was the last time visitors could come in to the waiting area to send us off on our return to the field). We spent several weeks looking for a place to live and striving to get resettled. We finally had moved into the apartment where we now live but it needed to be painted. I had work crews here for the previous 3 weeks and September 12 was their last day of work. I was glad to see them go, but I was an emotional wreck. I had very little energy to get our family settled and set up a home.
A couple weeks later, I was talking to a friend on the phone. She asked me 3 questions and I couldn't answer any one of them. But her questions sent me on a search for the answers and gave me a hope and future to look forward to. She asked me: What are your spiritual gifts? What are your talents? What is your passion? I was on a quest to find the answers.
Now 5 years later, I can answer those questions. The grief is over but there is definitely a more seriousness about life. We've had Philippine typhoon and mudslide disasters, Tsunami, Katrina, War on Terror, Jeff's mother had cancer on top of her other physical sufferings from brain damage, it has been 5 long years separated from our son and a couple years from our daughter. Micah served a deployment in Iraq in the army. I've suffered from thyroid problems that made me emotionally precarious for a couple years. Jeff has been the field director which has been a huge and challenging responsibility. Life moved on.
"I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD." Psalm 27:13-14
Note: Today a man came to clean our air conditioners and he was telling me that today was his daughter's 5th birthday. I don't remember his daughter's name but they named her after one of the survivors. He told me they had been watching the events of 9/11 while in the hospital and were deeply affected by what happened. I was blessed that some people still remember.
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