“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is Faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” (I Corinthians 10:13)
During my first days in the Philippines I soon learned that mosquitos love white skin whether in the home or outside. The veteran missionaries were fortunate to have found a nice and spacious house already furnished for us. It was screened in to keep bugs out, which isn’t always a given in many Filipino homes. If a home isn’t screened, the Filipinos in Bohol may sleep under mosquito nets at night. So what do mosquitos have to do with cockroaches?
The first night that we were alone in the house we went to bed as usual. What seemed a few minutes later, but was really in the middle of the night, Jim turned on the light, saying “Did you hear that?” “No, What?” I said. “That buzzing noise”, “No, you’re dreaming, go back to sleep!” I impatiently responded, though I did take time to look around. Upon finding nothing we went back to bed.A little while later something flew into my hair, buzzing right past my ear. I threw my arm in the air, screamed and jumped out of the bed, immediately turning the light on and said, “You are right, there is something in this room!” I was convinced now. And whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t mosquitos. We waited a minute, and there it was, “Yuk! It’s a flying cockroach!” It was huge! Really! We didn’t see just one, we saw many of them! They were crawling down the walls and flying everywhere. Tons of them! I expected mosquitos in the middle of the night, but not flying cockroaches. “What should we do?” I said, panicking.
Jim, my brave one, got a tennis shoe and started killing them one by one. Yuk! I said again. I got the trash can and started scooping them in after him. We made a great team! Not sure this was what we had in mind when God called us there! (See my blog post, Me Lord? Go There?)
After what seemed an hour we were getting tired. Jim swore there were hundreds of them, though it was probably only about 20 or so. But as far as I was concerned 3 or more were too many. We gave up, left the room and slept on the other side of the house.
We stayed there for about a week. After checking out our room several times and finding nothing, we moved back in again. We couldn’t figure out what the problem was since the door as well as the windows all had screens on them. Maybe it was just one of those freaky things and nothing to worry about. Or so we thought.
It wasn’t… Two nights later the same thing happened! And again another two more times before we figured out what the problem was. All during this Jim and I were wondering: “If we can’t be comfortable in our own home, can we really stay in this country?” It was wearing on us.
“God, you have called us here, we need you to help us find out the cause of this.” I Corinthians. 10:13 says, there is no temptation common to man that God will not make a way out (paraphrased).
It was as though God was looking down and saying, :“I was just waiting for you to stop trying to figure it out on your own and call out to me.”
Just about the time we were exhausted and wondering if we would make it, we saw it, above the jalousie windows (we had 9 of them in our room). The plastic arch connected to the window frame was not sealed. Because it had not been sealed properly, there was just enough crack between the wall and the window frame for cockroaches to be attracted to the light.
They would crawl up the outside wall, through the crack and down into our room. The only time cockroaches fly is during mating season, which just so happened to be shortly after we moved into our house, of course. Once we sealed up the window frame on top that connected the wall to the plastic decoration above, the problem was solved.
If only all life’s problems could be taken care of that easily! The cockroaches never came back into our bedroom again. This trial, this stress of a new culture, did make us question our call to the Philippines. Glad we called on God instead! We ended up living in this house for the next three years, and it quickly became home.
Personal Refections: How might you relate to this story? Do cultural issues cause you to doubt your call? How did or is God meeting you? Do you have any advice to those who might still be going through a time period like we did when we first moved to the Philippines? Tell us your story.
From one woman pilgrim to another, journeying together,
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