The Daytecs: Salt In The Rice Bowl.
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Oceans of Grace

10/19/2021

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In the past few weeks, we've been called to the mountains several times, told that a baby was coming out and we were needed urgently. In each case, the women had no previous prenatal care or checkups. 
There is an old faded duffle bag near the door that is packed with instruments, Pitocin, suturing supplies, etc, and this bag.... it has seen a few things.

MaryGrace is a Mangyan mother who had a high fever and was scared to go the local health center for fear of being quarantined for Covid and separated from her family.
We drove over steep and rough roads until we reached the end, and then hiked through thick mud to their hut. It was dark, the air filled with smoke from their cooking fire.. we arrived as her sweet baby girl was sliding out, and quietly checked vitals, stopped the bleeding, and delivered her placenta as she brought  baby to her breast. Tears filled my eyes as I watched them; This miracle of life never becomes routine.
We started meds and vitamins for both mom and baby and left them as their bonding began. We did daily checks on them until they were thriving and healthy. Our smiles and joy are wide when one more mom and baby are safe and healthy.

This week, a Mangyan friend called us to come to the mountains to help his neighbors, Sandy and Larry, a beautiful Mangyan couple having their first baby. We were called to their hut two hours after baby was born. He was still laying between her legs, wet and cold. He was alert, eyes hungry. Her placenta had not yet come, and they were wise to call for help. Baby was dried and bundled against his mama's breast.

Upon examining Sandy, I realized that her uterus was now closed, the placenta trapped inside, and she was in imminent danger of hemorrhaging (the number one cause of death in the developing world in women of childbearing age is post-partum hemorrhage).
We gave Sandy an injection, stabilized her, and sent her to the hospital, 1.5 hours away. She began to hemorrhage when she was in the hospital, had surgery for a placenta acreta (A placenta that has grown into the muscle of the uterus), had multiple bags of blood transfused, and she lived.
We just hiked into her village and did a postpartum check, and praised Jesus for life... beautiful life.

Over the past twelve years, we have seen so many of the statistics. We have walked with, touched, held, cried, prayed, and worked hard to save, so so many.
We've fought an uphill battle to build trust, educate, and continually encourage entire communities to pursue wholeness, get early care for their families, to have a birth attendant at every birth, to come for help when something is wrong.
I've prayed through tears and clenched teeth countless times while holding a dead child.... NO. More. Death.
Slowly but beautifully, as we build relationship through respect and honor, we are seeing fruit growing on these trees.
 Others have come way before us, planting seeds of faith and wisdom in these communities, and many will come after us. We want to be faithful in every slow, small, steady step we take.
We are overjoyed with every heart that is transformed, every body that is healed, every family that learns to share love, every baby that breathes to live another day.... because it is all Grace and not at all my victory.

For the past month or so, our team has been diving deep into Grace; unpacking and searching-out the inner workings of this thing that is the pillar and tenet of our faith, yet so elusive if we're asked to pin down exactly what it looks like in our lives...
We started out pondering, and then plunged and plumbed depths we've never known, tasted, or understood before. This Grace cannot just be learned just through reading, but must be tasted, experienced, marinated-in.
This Grace we're offered comes in crashing waves and oceans from our Father, and we're invited  to enter it's depths and never leave them, but so often we think Grace is just how we come to Jesus for salvation.
We take this one-time dip in it's mysterious waters, dry off, put on our boots and take over from there with our own efforts and self-righteousness.. We turn this lavish relationship of Grace into a performance based, striving-filled, tenuous thing. We sing about it's amazingness while climbing mountains with a lead-weight load of our own burdens breaking us in half and stealing our breath.
I've come to realize that for so long I've had not a clue what it actually means to Grow in Grace and Continue in Grace as Paul encouraged us to... it's becoming really clear why there have been so many seasons of burn-out, emptiness, exhaustion marking my journey: I left the Ocean of Grace and walked a path of I-got-this, or God-needs-me-to-do-this.

I need His grace like air, and when I lean into Him and realize that nothing about this life is what I bring to it, I can begin to grow and continue in Grace because I'm resting in it. Our good Father is lavishing Grace on you today... He has a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light, and it's just the right size for you. Come on in....

For the past four months, we have had a beautiful 26 year old girl names Jessa living with us. She is from an island far south, has no immediate family, and we are honored and filled with Joy to be her family. She is in her third recurrance of Leukemia and battling for her life. We have found a doctor for her here, and are taking her to the hospital (1.5 hours away) several times a week for treatment. The doctor has flippantly said that she has a 1-2% chance of surviving more than a few months, so giving her care is pointless, but we are praying for miraculous healing, and life and know that she is worth fighting for.
In between chemo session, we are also doing injections and IV infusions in our home, as well as plant-based alternative medicine. We're battling for Jessa, and thanking Jesus for His healing that He is bringing to not just her body, but her heart and soul. The finances needed for her care are mounting, and we are peaceful, know that God has brought her to us and He always provides. If you would like to give towards Jessa's care, we would be so grateful!

We continue to carry on with the beautiful relationships God has given to us; our living room home fellowship on Sundays is bursting at the seams, with growth and life. Francis is in the mountains daily, walking beside pastors and Mangyan brothers and sisters, and discipling, treating broken bodies,  encouraging hearts. He serves like Jesus..
We are still buying truckloads of rice to give away each week, because there are still so many that are hungry. We will continue until the need ceases. Our team is doing community health-care, checkups, education, and discipleship.

We are also asking for your prayers as we follow God's leading and choose which land to purchase so we can begin building our maternity and ministry center soon! We're excited to step out in wild faith and see what God is doing.

As I write this, two of our three children are sick with high fevers and body pain.. We are in the middle of the biggest surge of Corona virus since this pandemic began and we continue to treat patients every day. Please pray for healing and protection.

We pray for you all so often, and thank God for you- the team of witnesses, encouragers, intercessors, and givers that hold us up. We feel your prayers. Thank you.....we're so grateful for you! 

Grace and Peace,

Francis, Leah, Julia, Avea, and Justice Daytec
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Fresh Wind

8/13/2021

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Over on this side of the world, the winds and seasons are shifting and changing. Habagat, Monsoon season, is here. The air is hot and stifling, Close as we would say in Pennsylvania, and the rains and storms are moving in. 
Almost every night, lightening tears across the sky in jagged flashes, reflecting off the sea below our home. 
Across the Bay, we can see a thick haze that is settling low and dark over the mountains, a volcanic cloud of sulphur dioxide from Taal Volcano, that has been threatening to erupt since last year. Twice last week, small phreatic eruptions happened as magma rises.
The earth has been shaking, quaking, groaning. 

The last several months have been full. I look back and see, spilling and overflowing from the edges of our life, goodness. So much goodness.
Our team has been going deeper into the heart of the Father this year, learning God's love so powerfully. The Holy Spirit began to speak to so many of us individually that He was shaking things, moving, bringing in a new season where He would pour out His Spirit. We felt as the shaking began, and the excitement and joy was immeasurable. He began to forge in us a ravenous hunger for more of Him. 

At the end of April, many of our teammates as well as Francis and I, contracted Covid. My case was moderately serious, and Francis was severe. Most of our team felt mild symptoms and recovered quickly. 
Francis was in bed with high fever for 18 days, and did not leave the bed for 21 days...he cannot remember any of it. As I sat in bed beside him, treating him, watching him struggle to breathe, and saw the gravity of his condition, I heard the Holy Spirit say,
"Worship. Even this I am using for good. Worship."
Francis could not speak, and rarely could respond... when He made a sound, it was "Abba", 
God rescued, He brought us through, but before He did-- He held us and poured out His presence and spoke in the dark. He always speaks in the dark..
We are still weak, and having many residual Covid symptoms months later, but getting stronger.

For the past several months we have also been walking beside a beautiful family as the wife/ mom battled cancer. Rowena was a dear friend of mine, and when her breast cancer recurred, we walked through every part of the battle with them. Her children are 10 and 4. She was only 37. 
I had the profound honor of sitting with her and walking through inner healing of her heart, breaking of bondage from the past, and reconciliation with her husband, family, and the power of releasing blessing and love over her children. 
The week before her death, each day was filled with powerful times of connection, love, reconciliation, healing and freedom. She held my hand and shared that Jesus had released all the pain and heaviness in her soul and brought her freedom so miraculously.
We had been praying for healing of her body as well, but one day before her death, she looked at me and her face glowing, said that she knew Jesus was calling her home with Him. He had healed her in so many miraculous and powerful ways... He had healed the things that will last. He had healed things that were eternal. She was ready now... 
We provided palliative care in her home where her family could surround her with so much love.
A friend and I sat with her and provided oxygen, IV fluids, pain medicines, and facilitated an environment of worship, peace, and grieving together, blessing and releasing her to take Jesus' hand as she took her last breath. Rowena went with Jesus last Thursday. Our hearts grieve with peace and hope.

There is no palliative/ hospice care in the Philippines, and we are often called to help families as they walk through this difficult and sometimes frightening time. 
We provide medical care, but mostly offer Jesus... His love comforts, blesses, and holds us up. We cry, hug, pray, worship, and facilitate a space where nothing is left unsaid, where love and blessing are released. 
We feel profoundly honored that we get to be present and serve others as they go through birth, and some as they walk through the valley of death.

 As our team has been growing hungrier for God's heart, Holy Spirit began to pour out powerfully... Many people are coming to our fellowship each Sunday, and each Sunday, and throughout the week there are powerful breakthroughs, Inner healing, physical healing, deliverance from demonic spirits... God is taking orphans and making them Sons and Daughters, and people are walking in their identity as God's children. Many are choosing to be baptized.
We are in a season like no other... There is shaking, and new, fresh wind is blowing though this place.

 One pastor and his wife walked though powerful healing in their hearts and were able to experience God's love more fully in the past month. They sat at our table yesterday and cried, sharing that for the first time, they are now able to connect with their 20 and 18 year old children, and share affection and love. They are able to forgive those who have hurt them and walk in freedom. Their children are beaming, crying, celebrating the love their family now has.
The Holy Spirit is healing the hearts of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters. He is filling His children with His love and freedom.
There is nothing, nothing, that I love more than to see people set free by the love of our Father. Ever single thing He tells us is true... He has so much love and freedom for His children.

As the earth shakes, the winds blow, we are setting our faces excitedly on Jesus, and so grateful that we get to live this adventure  and walk with Him.

Our children Julia, Avea, and Justice are growing and flourishing. They climb mountains beside us and bring so much joy to our hearts. 

We have been able to fund expensive medicines, medical tests, dialysis treatments, and hospitalizations for more than 100 people (like Rowena) who could not afford it on their own, in the past couple months alone, as well as provide home health care, and continue to buy truckloads of rice every 1-2 weeks to distribute to the hungry. We're thankful for all of you and your generous hearts that give-- God is using you as you pray and give, to fill hungry bellies, help sick bodies, and show people the love of the Father.

We're so grateful for you! 
Grace and Peace,
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July 16th, 2021

7/16/2021

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It’s been over a year now of lockdown and quarantine, of topsy-turvy and unexpected, of pressure and struggle. It has also been a year of tasting and seeing the deep goodness of a Father who does not let go of His children-- but draws us close and meets with us in the middle of the mess.
 
For the past year, our family has continued to walk beside our friends in the Mangyan tribal community by bringing medical care, medicines, prenatal care, teaching and discipleship and has added to that -weekly feeding through rice distribution, eggs, and vegetables.

As I finished my taxes this week, I saw the numbers all tallied up in front of me. It brought me to tears of overwhelming gratitude. In this past year of pandemic, we’ve been able to give over $42,000 extra towards rice and food for the hungry. This does not include any of our other expenses, medicines, or outreach. Just food. Holy Spirit led us to give, and we jumped to it with excitement. As hungry people came to our door, we gave. We loaded up our vehicle weekly with tons of rice and gave it to local churches to eat and distribute as they were led. As we gave out, you gave out. We are able to keep pouring out because you are.
 Holy Spirit spoke to many of you to give towards this feeding, and you gave so generously.  With every grain of rice, we have prayed that the Holy Spirit would pour out on dry ground.
Many of you have reached out and told us stories of how your children have given towards food and medicines and with each message, tears have flowed. I can’t begin to scribble the joy into words. We’re so grateful for every one of you. Thank you!

With every sack of eggs and vegetables brought to an empty table, we have prayed life, blessing, and the goodness of the Father to fill bellies, hearts, and homes.
I love the quote that says, "When you are blessed with more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence."  
I believe we are building a table that stretches into eternity.
We will continue to purchase rice and other necessities as long as there is such an urgent need for food.

Throughout the past year, we see new flickers of revival spark in a place where long-divided churches have competed and quarreled with each other. We have blessed and poured out love to every one of them and are seeing reconciliation, softening hearts, humility, and love begin to burn bright.

The situation in the Philippines changes in varying degrees daily, but remains strict and regimented. Masks and shields are worn everywhere, armed military guards stand at checkpoints on the roads, and now a personal identification QR code is needed to travel even within our island.

As health care workers, along with our beautiful team of midwives and medical assistants, we go into the mountains and surrounding villages to do house-calls, treat and sometimes transport patients, educate, and assess the situations in communities.

Because of the overwhelming fear that has come with Covid-19, people who are struggling with illness will not go to the hospitals at all.  Families are told to stay at home and not venture out. The Philippines is a developing country steeped in poverty where entire families often live in one small room and tuberculosis is rampant, so this year has brought a perfect storm- an explosion of tuberculosis cases. Covid is not at all the biggest threat.
In the past month we have been called to three more homes, where young boys were near death with end-stage tuberculosis. We had never met them. They had not been to a doctor during the quarantine, and the families were afraid to go. They all took their children to witch doctors instead. The children were reduced to skin and bones, barely breathing, unresponsive.
Francis took each of them to the Provincial hospital over an hour away, and boldly advocated for them. He educated families, broke-off witch doctor curses, fought for lives.
The hospital has tents on the lawn where patients wait, sometimes for weeks, to be treated. Appendicitis patients rupture while waiting. People are dying while waiting.
Every day, Francis drove to the hospital, praying in the Mangyan tribal ward (that looks and smells like a barn). He gently encourages the nurses and doctors to treat the Mangyan patients, to prescribe the correct meds, to give care. He does this over and over and over again.
He buys the medicines and starts the treatment himself. He feeds the families who wait, and He prays healing over unresponsive little bodies.
Last week I went in his stead and sat at the bedside of two little Mangyan boys, Willie and Jeffrey. They were both unresponsive from probable TB meningitis. I prayed for life and healing and held their parents hands as I sang “Jesus Loves me” while stroking their little faces. I told them that Jesus delights in them and sees them. I cried Mama tears over theses babies that could have been mine… Just last year, two of our children were treated for TB and are now flourishing and thriving. 
The next day Willie died. And the day after, Jeffrey died. Husband and I wept in each other’s arms. Then we went to weep with their families.
The other boy, Ashi, who had been paralyzed and unresponsive, is now recovering from TB because he got the medicine in time. He is home, and his family is learning about Jesus love for them.

Francis and I are being led to help motivate the local health centers and advocate to send health workers into every village and test for TB and we can distribute meds, so that no one else needs to die of this treatable disease.  

Nearly every morning and every night, there is a small group of men from the Iraya Mangyan tribe who sit at our table. They come as friends, brothers. They see Francis as one of them, and it is beautiful to watch as he champions, encourages, teaches, leads, pours out, and fights for them. He models for them the truth that they are all equal Sons and there is no inferiority in God’s kingdom.
He helps them learn farming, sustainable ways to support their families, how to lead in the church and at home. They pray, worship, and learn Jesus’ heart together.

Day in and day out, we are met with massive waves of Joy, and crushing blows of loss. There is an amalgamation of beauty and pain; glimpses of heaven, reminders of dust. We see them all through the lens of God’s goodness, His heart of love for His children, His desire to pour out His Spirit and bring life. We’re caught in the tension of Kingdom living that is right now, and not yet; we get to pull the kingdom of God down into right here and see heaven break through so often. Tumors disappear as we pray, bodies, minds, hearts set free and healed, the impossible becoming reality. That is the normal we reach for.  And sometimes, the dead do not come back to life, and we do not see the healing we prayed for, and our eyes are blurred, our arms heavy with grief. On those days we push through,still holding onto Jesus as our anchor of Hope, knowing that His goodness hasn’t changed, it hasn't stopped, and it will not.
                                                                                                                                             
Here’s the thing: As Sons and Daughters, we are here for times like this-- to rise up in increasing unrest and chaos as beacons of hope, to not melt under the pressure, but become an intoxicating essence of life when we are pressed down.  We’re part of an upside-down Kingdom, one that is altogether different than the one you see, and we need upside-down eyes to look past the fear in this realm and see how God is moving. And He is moving. So look for where He is moving, and join Him there.
 
Thank you for partnering with us as we take these calloused feet to the mountains with the good news, and fill bellies, bodies, and hearts with hope, love, and lots of rice. We could not do this without you!
 
Grace and Peace,
 
 Francis, Leah. Julia, Avea and Justice Daytec
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Mountains high and valleys low

10/3/2020

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One of my favorite songs of the moment has a line that says,
  “The One who sung the stars into the sky is the One who knows every day of my life. The One who wears the heavens like a robe, is the One who chose to make me His home. You know my mountains high, you know my valleys low, everywhere that’s in-between, You will go.”
I’ve been singing it this week on repeat, sometimes with tears.
There are mountains high and valleys low, sometimes shifting from moment to moment.

Two years ago we met a little Mangyan girl names Karen, from Ambang village. She was brought to the local health center with high fever and seizures. She was unresponsive and hanging onto life by a thread. She was transferred to the nearest hospital over an hour away, and we, along with many others, prayed, and prayed, and prayed for her to live.
She was diagnosed with Meningitis, and miraculously survived.
We worshiped.

We began to walk beside her family, along with MAP missionaries, helping them to feed their children and to know how to care for them, to be able to discern when to come get help.
Karen’s father came to us the next time she was sick, even when the hospital dismissed them and sent them the long seven hour walk back to their village.
She was critically ill, but she survived.
We worshiped.

So many times we have sat with Karen and her loving father, as she vomited worms out of her belly, while she was seizing and unresponsive. We’ve watched her recover, run and jump, smile and laugh, play tricks on her siblings, bounce back. We sat back and marveled, and we worshiped.

Several days ago Francis walked back to the village of Ambang, a 45 minute drive and several hour hike through jungle and across rivers. He was going to meet our Mangyan friend Wilson, to deliver food and to bring coffee saplings to transplant in another Mangyan village as a new livelihood project.
When he arrived, he was told that just a few hours before, Karen had died. She is gone.

Months ago, her family had moved their hut even further up into the mountains, like so many other families, out of fear of Corona virus. One week ago, Karen began to have debilitating headaches, and her family chose to not come down the mountain or go to the hospital. The fear of Covid paralyzed them and decided for them.
When she began to become incoherent and unresponsive, they chose to stay. And Karen died.

Francis sat that morning with Karen’s dad, who we’ve rarely seen without his daughter on his lap. He is a kind and gentle man, his big calloused hands sitting still and useless in his lap. His head hung down. He had buried his daughter an hour before, just hours after she breathed her last breath.
There were no “You should have’s….” only tears as two fathers sat together and grieved. There are no words that help when a child has died.
There is presence. There is shared grief. There are groans that only the Holy Spirit can translate, and He responds with the comfort of the Father.

We’re grieving with these parents, and the ache and the weight are fathomless.
We’ve walked through more valleys of death that we can count, the vast majority of them being deaths of children.
The cycles of poverty, oppression, ignorance, and injustice in the developing world make it an uphill battle for children to survive to adulthood.
Through many of these deaths I’ve had to grapple and wrestle, and ultimately choose if I still believe God is good and merciful. That He is who He says He is.
My faith has gone from shallow, mountain-top, glittering in the sunlight, to rugged, tears-on-my-tongue, blood-streaked, tested.
There is a limp in my walk from the wrestling matches I have had with God.
My roots are growing deeper in the valleys than they did on the mountain-top and I have far to go.

I’ve seen Him raise the dead, heal the near-dead, do the impossible. And then sometimes He does not.
I’ve sat with dead children on my lap, screaming from my heart, barely able to whisper, “Why?! How is this You being good?”
So often I hear Him say, “You do not see now, you do not understand yet. I am good. Hold onto Me… Come deeper. Come closer.”
Do not back away. Come closer.

When I do not understand, I come closer. When I am filled with grief, anger, ragged and bleeding, I come closer.
When I wade through death and injustice that makes me want to look away and stop feeling, I catch glimpses of His heart and see that His pain and grief, His love over His children eclipses mine billions of times over.

I’m crying because He cried first. I’m hating brokenness and injustice because He hated it first. I’m loving beautiful people because He loved them first. He loved me first.
Instead of “Why?” I’ve begun to ask, “Show me your heart.”
He wants to meet with us in the middle of the pain.

When I come closer, I am met by the heart of a Father who is Love unimaginable. A Love that is more fathomless than the deepest pain.
I am feeling only a shred of what He feels; The grief, the pain, the joy, the love.
I want my heart to remain soft and compassionate, and not grow hard. I want to be strong but not tough. I want to feel deeply but not fall apart.
We want to keep going and not become shells of burned-out workers. The only way is to hold onto Jesus as our anchor, to run hard into His heart and listen to His voice, to let Him shoulder the weight of every heartache we cannot carry alone.

We will keep loving deeply, keep sitting in the dirt with the broken and crying as we share in their pain, keep on rejoicing with those who are healed, keep on hoping and fighting for life…… because He did first, He still does, and He won’t stop.
He's really, really good.

Today we grieve, and still we worship.
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He sees the one.

9/23/2020

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Meet Shierly, a beautiful and treasured friend.

Seven years ago, as I was greatly pregnant with Justice, husband and I conducted a medical mission with some doctors visiting from California, other missionaries, and local pastors.
We saw hundreds of patients who came from the nearby community and filled the basketball court.
From morning until night we did checkups, gave medicines, and prayed for masses of men, women and children.

Halfway through the day, I was handed a chart for a patient.
The assistant who had checked vitals thought she was pregnant.
I looked up at her and then felt the familiar whisper of the Holy Spirit, that voice that so often silences the chaos around me and shines a spotlight on the one.
He’s always interested in the one.

Shierly was emaciated, gaunt, sallow, with a massively swollen abdomen.
I took her aside and began to examine her, quickly realizing that she was not pregnant, but had a mass in her uterus.
I called an OB-Gyn over to consult. He concurred, eyes filled with concern.
He whispered over his shoulder to me, “I think it may be too late.”

I wrote an order for an ultrasound and medical consult to be done the next day, and sat down beside her. Her head hung down, tears dripping onto her clenched hands in her lap.
I asked if she knew Jesus, how much He loved her and wanted to meet with her in the middle of this.
“I’m a strong catholic,“ she said
“I read my bible and go to mass every week, I almost became a nun. I am good and help others.”

I told her that those things were good and wonderful, but none of them bring us into a personal relationship with Jesus. He wants to rescue her, save her, have relationship with her.
I asked if I could put my hand on her belly and pray for healing because I believed Holy Spirit wanted to heal her. She nodded her head.

As I invited Holy Spirit to come and heal her body and heart, I felt Him move powerfully.
Francis, several incredibly powerful pastor friends and their wives surrounded her, anointed her with oil and prayed healing over her.
Glorious things happen when we all join together and pray expectantly. The atmosphere was changing... from fear to life.

The next morning I was jarred awake by my phone ringing. The voice on the other end was sobbing and broken. I could barely make out the words.

Shierly had woken up to go get an ultrasound and her abdomen had gone flat. The tumor was gone.
She cried the entire way to the clinic, and saw for herself on ultrasound that the tumor was gone. Not a trace.

She surrendered her life into the hands of the One who touched her and her life has never been the same.
Shierly is now a force of love, passion and joy.
She loves Jesus and radiates His goodness. She tells everyone she sees about His love and how He’s changed her life.
She went on to Bible school and now does church from her home, partnering with local pastors.
She’s a powerful light in her community.
She’s a person of peace. A minister of reconciliation. A gift to everyone who meets her.

All because that day, in the middle of the crowd, Jesus saw and passionately went after the one.


I saw Shierly again this week, as she battled fear and anxiety, thinking the tumor had returned.
I reminded her of God’s love for her as we drove to the clinic together for an ultrasound. No matter what we see on the ultrasound screen, God is with her and fighting for her. Whether the diagnosis looks grim or not, she is held, and not hopeless.

I reminded her that all through history God tells his children to “Remember”.

Remember what He has done, how He’s always come through, all the miracles and every way He’s held us, how He’s fed us from His own hand, gently comforted us, split the sea in front of us. He’s moved mountains, led us with kindness, never left us alone. He creates hope out of desert sand, and He’ll never stop.

We forget... when the road is dark and pain-filled, when we’re at the bottom of the empty barrel, when fear comes against us like a tidal wave, and loneliness echoes off the walls.
We forget so fast that He’s the God of all hope.

Remember in the dark and dead of night what our God has shown you when the sun was shining. His presence is still with us when our feelings have gone numb, when the answer doesn’t look like we think it should, when brokenness look final.
He’s still holding us, filling us, anchoring us with His hope.

Shirly and I sang, cried, and remembered out loud, to ourselves and each other, all the ways He’s faithfully held onto us.

Oh, and this ultrasound was clear too.

(Photo and story used with permission)
Picture
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Mountaintops and leeches

9/14/2020

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Today our family hiked into the mountains, high above the clouds, where we could see the islands below us, floating in oceans of blue.

We were making our way to where some of our very favorite Mangyan friends were moving--higher into the mountains to plant their crops of rice, corn, ube, taro, and coffee.
They are building a new hut, as they often do, for their family of 16 and we were bringing wood to reinforce the thatch roof and walls for this typhoon season, and sacks of rice for them to eat.
Their baby, Aldrin, has been under our care for around nine months, as he has been malnourished, sick, and infested with parasites. He just turned one year old last week, and is finally beginning to thrive.

On the way up the mountain, Justice led the way…he hikes this path with Francis several times a week and knows it well. He leads with sure feet, puffed out chest, a walking stick, and a song.
As his strong voice echoed off the rocks and trees, his hand skimmed the rice fields beside us, and the rice stalks swayed in time. Verdant green as far as the eye could see.
Justice stopped suddenly as we reached the edge of the rice field, where the sun dazzled and warmed our faces, and birds swooped and played. He pointed ahead of us to where the path narrowed and dipped sharply downward. Trees hung low and close, and the path was shrouded in shadows. The air turned cool and damp, the sounds of the insects grew louder, mud made the path slippery and squished around our feet.

His voice grew serious. “Mama, girls, watch out. We’re entering leech valley.. they’ll get on you every chance they have.”

We kept walking, and watching. The moment you stop, leeches jump from the path or the low hanging branches and you don’t even feel them. They attach themselves, inject an anti-coagulant, and fill up on your blood.
It has become a warped fun family past-time: pull off the leeches before they sink-in their teeth.
I laughed a little, and replied mostly to myself, “That’s right, they will.”

The enemy is like that. He has been since the beginning.
We go from breath-taking mountaintops where the sun warms our face, and we have all the feels, where our hearts are bursting with all that is good, and we feel the immeasurable joy that is ours, where we feel the mercies that are piling up at our door by the truck-full, straight into a valley, in what seems like the next breath.

The valley is dark, shadowed in death, draped in paralyzing fear, and we can’t see where to put our foot next. We fumble. The light has gone out and we find ourselves on the under-side of joy, trying to get a hand up, but the path is slippery and the pits are deep. The valley echoes with whispers that we are alone.

Sometimes Holy Spirit leads us into that valley, like He did with Jesus, and there in that desolate wasteland, He teaches us to walk with our hands gripped onto His. He sustains us, holds onto us, keeps us close, comforts and consoles. He does not, however, deliver blows to our soul. He does not turn His back. He tucks us under a spread of wings that stretch beyond the valley.

That enemy of our souls is an opportunist. He crouches in the shadow of every valley and looks for pause. He waits to sink his teeth in and draw blood. He waits where he thinks our foot will slip. He knows our wounds because he gave them, and as they gape and bleed, he pours into them the acid of lies: You are alone. You are unloved. You are hopeless. God does not listen to you, and He will not come through. This valley, this wasteland will never end. There is no way out.

A lot of you are in the messy middle of a valley, a desert, so deep and long and high and wide that you can’t even lift up your head to see how far it stretches. You’re carrying a load so heavy that your legs are buckling and your grip is white. The anxiety in your chest is robbing your next breath and you just want. This. To. End.

Hear this: There is a Love that is deeper, longer, higher, wider than this valley. A Love that is more powerful than death and can break through a fortress of desolation. A Love that bleeds for you, and wraps up your shattered pieces and makes them whole again. A Love that takes that load and hoists it onto His own broad shoulders. A Love that holds you as you cry, and resurrects the dead places that you’ve already buried. A Love that breaks down walls and unlocks chains.

He sees you. He is beside you. He’s all around you. He is holding up your head and whispering to your soul that you are His, and you are not alone. He knows the way out of this valley. He took the beatings, the shame, the death, the brokenness, the hopelessness, so that you don’t have to any more. Not for one more arduous step.
Hold on…. Even if you feel you are empty on hope. Hope has you. Hold on.
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I want to be like You.

9/12/2020

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Recently, while we were holding hands and walking together, our eldest daughter Julia looked up at me and said, “I want to be just like you, Mama.”
Tears blurred my next step.

It jarred something in me, sobering and humbling me all at once. I felt a millisecond of pride, followed fast and entangled by anxiety that caught my breath. I thought of the lists of things I did not want my daughter to carry on.
A desperate cry rushed from my heart in that moment, “Holy Spirit, help me. Help me lead these children well. Pour out wisdom. I need more... make me more like You.“
This is a big job. We want to be healed and free from brokenness so that our children only inherit and imitate the good things.
We’re constantly crying out to Jesus to heal our hearts and make us more like Him so we can parent, lead, love well.

I know that the key is knowing my Father, coming in close to His heart and resting there... listening to His heartbeat, learning His whisper, learning from Him how to love better because He is Love, inviting Him to uproot the broken and destructive things.
Paul tells us in Ephesians to be imitators of God, to imitate Jesus.
He wants us to look into our Father’s face and say “I want to be just like you.” And then to do it.

When we love deeply, we emulate, imitate, become like the object of our love.
We don’t want anyone to try to be like us, nope- not at all. We do want others to see Jesus in us and go be more like Him.
Imitate how He loves, and do it right where you are.
When we love like Jesus, it means getting our hands dirty, wading into the messy, touching the lepers, walking in dark places to shine the light, allowing inconvenience, focusing on people over schedules, sitting in the dirt with the broken, crying with the grieving, giving a cold cup of water, inviting someone to come and stay, releasing the love of The Father by smiling big, speaking blessing, when someone is rude or unkind.
Sometimes it means hugging someone tight, even when they smell badly and have head lice, knowing some will get on you. Do it anyway.
( I wonder how often Jesus had head lice? )

You don’t need to move across the ocean to be Missional; Just look across the table, just look at the little hand holding yours, just step outside your door.

Go love deeply today, in a million little ways, because you’re deeply loved by your Father.


Addendum: for anyone coming to visit or who has hugged me recently- this is an old picture. I do not currently have lice. Probably.
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Loving in times of Covid

4/30/2020

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Hello from Mindoro, on our 48th day of lockdown quarantine.

To all who have prayed for Christian, thank you. Around 8:00 Sunday night, Jesus took Christian by the hand and brought him home.
Our hearts are grieving and battered for and with his family, and so we sit with them and let the tears come.We had the honor and profound joy of sitting beside Christian every day this past week, worshiping and praying with him and his family, as we provided palliative care.
Two days before he died, as we sat in their hut with them, I told Christian that hundreds of people were praying for and loving him, from all over the world...all of these strangers becoming one to storm heaven for him.
He held his face in his hands and wept when he heard of this love.
He leaned back and looked at the sky with tears on his cheek and said, “I belong to Jesus and whatever happens is in His hands.”
I asked him if there was anything he really wanted.
“Ubas at Mangga!” Grapes and mangoes. His mom said he hadn’t wanted to eat in so long and these fruits were too costly for them to afford.
When we brought the fruits to him, he smiled big, and ate them slowly.
 As the sun came up the morning after his passing, Francis and I sat again inside that hut. This time, the oxygen tank was shut off. There was a body wrapped in dirty sheets on the bamboo slats and we all sat around it, crying, processing, still.
Sometimes the most powerful ministry you can do is being-with and grieving alongside... Jesus shows us the way.
There is peace here, wrapped around the sadness, and we are held.
Christian is not here. He is whole now, even as we grieve.

We have the beautiful honor of loving and being loved by a lot of incredible ones.. of having deep and lasting relationship with so many who are pushed down and over to the margins of society.
Our days are not measured by how much we did or gave, or by who sees or does not see it, but by the moments we related deeply and shared love. We are who we are and do what we do because we were loved first and want to overflow this great Love.
We sat with our Mangyan friends in Anilao village and Baclayan mountain village this week. We prayed and chatted, squatting together on the ash-covered ground where they had just finished slashing and burning the land and are now planting corn and rice, as their ancestors have done for so long before them.
They were so overjoyed to receive multivitamins, vegetables, and sacks of rice.
None of the women are coming down into town at all for their labors or birth. Pray for them and for us as we may be called for home-births in the remote and mountainous places, with no electricity or running water. My birth bag is packed.
Finally, Thank you to each of you who have given towards continually feeding hungry bellies and hearts, and providing medical care. We are so encouraged, blessed, and blown away by the generosity being shown to our people through you.  We are so grateful!

Grace and Peace,

The Daytecs

  


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Holding Fast

4/2/2020

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​  It’s evening in Mindoro, and the mosquitos are out in swarms, beating against the screens with lusty fervor. Sounds of barking dogs and crowing roosters fill the silence. The roads are empty.
A mandatory 24-hour quarantine has been in effect for our province for over two weeks now, but the rules change almost daily, the guidelines becoming stricter. 
No one is allowed out of their home unless it is for food or medicine, and then only when approved for a pass, once a week, and just to travel within their immediate barangay/ township. There are armed military and police guards at every checkpoint, and threats of prison or even being shot if people do not comply.
Francis and I have government-granted passes as we are health-workers, which allows us to come and go more freely, and for this we’re so grateful. 
The government has supposedly empowered each Barangay Captain to distribute food to each family, but only a small fraction are actually receiving goods. It has become a political power-play that is punishing those who have not registered or voted. The health care situation is similar, and in many ways our hands are being tied about how we are being allowed to care for our community. It is only driving us to pray harder and become more creative in the ways we serve.
We’re not surprised by the corruption, but we wrestle with anger,  are grieved, and pray we can be instruments of change at the root level of these issues.

We have been having meetings with local leaders, trying to love them well, challenging them to serve without agenda, and coming alongside them to get food and care to every family.
We are personally buying rice, soap, and other food in bulk, and taking them to local pastors to distribute, as well as bringing to Mangyan tribal families, many of whom have escaped high into mountains to rebuild their huts and have no access to food.
This week alone we bought 900 pounds of rice, that will be gone in days. Yes… 900 pounds. 
We’re being called to homes to do checkups and provide medical care as well.


Over fifteen doctors in the Philippines have now died from Corona virus, some of them from PGH, the Covid-Center Hospital in Manila, and also Francis’ Alma mater. Francis has received an email beseeching alumni to come and help in the overflowing and under-manned hospitals in manila… we have grieved, cried, prayed together much over the devastation and loss of life, and asked for clarity of where best he could serve. For now it is here in Mindoro, as we are not only providing health care, but helping to be a voice for the tribal and overlooked peoples.
Our hospitals here are all overflowing with untested and undocumented cases, and all medical personnel are stretched thin. 
At the moment we have a friend staying with us as she recovers from surgery and is also in early labor. Please be praying for a safe and beautiful birth, as transport to a hospital would be very difficult.


No matter where we are in the world, our prayers are rising up and mixing as one as we face the same battle. I realize that right now, we as the church have a powerful opportunity to be of one mind and heart-- to take our collective pain, the unknown, the raging global virus of sickness and fear, and with laser-focus turn it all to breakthrough, fervent prayer.
We get to join our heart-cries, become a tidal wave of power, bind and loose things, and see glory break through. We get to release hope and peace where there is none, into places where people are desperate and dying for what we carry.


I hope this changes us forward and forces our roots to depths we've never known, that the power and pressure of this storm reveals the power of The Spirit within us that many have never begun to understand. I hope we will never be the same
More than ever before, it is crucial that we be intentional about our focus; for what we focus on, lock our gaze and hearts on, will fill and change us into its likeness. We become like what we behold. If fear is your compass, you will be consumed and devoured by it. Fear, control, self-preservation is the low-hanging fruit that temps us when evil and danger press in close. 

In this time of crisis, as we quarantine and wait with breathless prayers of protection over our families, I pray we rally and rise up to find our eyes glued to Jesus, that we cling to Him like a rock in the tempest.  He is making paths in the wilderness, rivers in the middle of this desert and wasteland, doing new things, and I can see it. (Isaiah 43:19)


My prayer for myself is that my love for Jesus be measured by how I love those around me, by how I pour myself out as He does.
We want to be found at the end of this pandemic to be carrying out the radical love and generosity of The Father. We want to be found thriving and advancing with faith and hope in the One who holds all things together. He is still holding on to us.


Look for how He is moving, for the new things He is doing, and look for ways to join Him in loving others well.
We are so grateful for you, and are praying for you as you pray for us!


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He's still with us

12/29/2019

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  We’re five days post-Christmas and my heart and mind are still overshadowed and full, nearly overcome with collisions of emotion. I’m filled with peace, gratitude, joy, and also feeling an aching weight that is not my own, but carried by those I love.

There is a stillness in my spirit as I think of and pray for the many people I love who are walking through shadowed valleys of grief this season, thick in the messy middle of life-altering pain, hardship, loss.

When you’re on the under-side of joy, just waiting to surface and breathe again, you want to back away from the offensive jolliness of this season and be woken when it’s over. Like treading water in a sea of grief, the only focus is keeping your face above surface and surviving.

This Christmas Day a massive Typhoon tore up many homes and lives very close to us in the Philippines. Our family is still muddling through grief at the too-soon loss of our sister from cancer. Friends have lost children, are walking through broken marriages, being consumed with fear as Cancer is devouring their bodies, and many are locked in prisons of soul-crushing loneliness and they long that someone would see, know, and understand them.

If this is in any way a variation of your story, then Christmas in its deepest, truest form is for you right here, right now more than ever.

My mind is on The Father, and what the conversations, the emotional climate, of heaven must have been that first Christmas Eve between He, The Spirit, and The Son. They had always been together…. until now. This is a Father who intimately understands what it feels like to say goodbye to His child, to watch his beloved suffer, to be gutted by grief. And He did it for us.

Jesus’ coming to this broken, dark place was not an afterthought, a last-minute ditch effort after the Law, the prophets, the other plans didn’t work out. This was the plan since that dark day in the garden when the bottom fell out of perfection, when death dug his nails into all of us and decided to re-write our story.

Genesis 3:15 tells of the coming One who would undo and destroy the works of the Serpent and death-bringer,

“And I will put enmity (hostility) between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

That snake-head-crusher? He is The One who came to make untrue all of the deepest pain, the filth, that has defined us, and to take the pen that writes our story back again. He wants not to distract you from your loneliness and grief, but to be with you in it and walk you through it.
He is The rescuer who came to bring you freedom from your prisons, take your burned-out ashes and give you beauty instead, who came to take your coat of heaviness and soul-shattering grief and exchange it with Joy that drips off of you like oil.

To the head that is so far bent-low with heartache that it feels it cannot be held high again, He will lift your head up and hold it there. He is not a religion, a theology, an idea, but a SomeOne who came to be with you in the middle of all of this. Emmanuel. God stretched on skin and came into your world to be with you, for you, in you, to taste and know and meet with you in the depth of your heartache and be the remedy.

He offers all that He is, and asks for the gift of our broken shards and pieces... He asks for us.

“There will be no more gloom for those who were in distress..….
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. -Isaiah 9

Peace. Shalom. Literally meaning “Broken pieces becoming whole”. Jesus came to undo the works of the snake, to crush his head, to take death and give us life, and to exchange our shattered pieces for wholeness.

Let God With You sink in to the darkest, most gated-off places in your soul and remember that pain and death do not have the last word. Emmanuel does.
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