The banner photo is from 1982 my kids Gregg and Trinity are in the center.

Facing the Challenges

When I rotated back to the U.S. Nympha and I drove from California to North Carolina where I completed my four years in the military. We attended church each Sunday and lived a relatively quiet life renting a mobile home from a farmer. During the transition my service pay records were misplaced and I was not being paid. I had owned a motorcycle which I sold in California prior to driving to North Carolina. The monies from the motorcycle enabled us to live for awhile. .

The challenge of living without a paycheck required borrowing cash from friends and selling a banjo I had bought in Okinawa to sustain Nympha and I. After three months I had ran out of patience and made a ‘request mast’ to speak with a General. My C.O. was a Lt. Colonel and he wanted to know the purpose of my request mast; he assured me he could take care of any problem. I asked, if he could not solve the problem immediately that I would want my request mast to continue. He told me, “Young man, I assure you I can take care of any issue you have and if not you may continue your ‘request mast’ to the General (I do not remember the name of the General).

I explained that I had not been paid in three months and had resorted to borrowing money from friends and selling my guitar and a banjo in order to support my wife and I living off base. He called the disbursing office and spoke to the officer in charge. After being frustrated by the disbursing officers lack of assurance that I would be paid, my C.O. told him, “I am not requesting that you look into this problem, I’m ordering you to pay this young man today for the time he indicates that he has been without pay.” When I arrived at the disbursing office the officer in charge was angry and attempted to take it out on me by ordering that I get a haircut first. I had not gotten a haircut regularly as was my habit because financially I was struggling to survive. I borrowed a dollar from one of my friends and got the haircut. When I returned to the disbursing office a female clerk, a civilian had been told to issue me a check.

She was very kind and had overheard all the conversations between the disbursing officer in charge and how he spoke to me when I arrived. She said to me, ?I suppose they did not pay your wife’s plane ticket from the Philippines to the U.S.” I said no ma’am they did not. She said, “ They pay for the officer’s wives and so today they’re going to pay you for her flight.” She knew that enlisted men were not granted the benefit of payment for flying home your wife if you were married abroad. The average cost allotted was over $800 I do not remember the precise amount. So I left the disbursing office with three months pay plus the bonus of being reimbursed for the purchase of Nympha’s plane ticket. Just another of the many moments when God’s grace used other folks to bless me.

On July 8th Nympha gave birth to our first child, our son Gregg. My parents flew out to be present when their first grandchild was born. In March of 1978 I received an honorable discharge from the USMC as an E-5. I left the Marines and drove to California . I would attend church and work for my father for many years. At the same time I obtained a ministers license from the Assemblies of God, went to college at night and earned my first degree; an A.S. degree in simplified engineering.

In 1982 I had put down $5000 on a home to purchase for my growing family. I was at work when the Lord touched my heart and I felt the need to use the downpayment to go to the Philippines and help my extended family. Michael had not yet been located, Teresita (Trinidad’s sister) was not in touch with the family. I prayed to be able to get my down payment back without any complications or fines. Once I received the monies I purchased tickets to take my family to the Philippines for a few weeks. While we were there I built the family an addition on their small bahay kubo (house), bought Artemio a guitar and helped the other brothers with their needs. After I left the USMC and moved to California, Nympha and I sent packages of gifts often and a monthly check without fail to bless the family.

When we arrived in Sagkahan at the family residence, I was busy chatting laughing and thinking. My first thoughts were that staying downtown in a hotel was not an option since the need of Nympha’s family was so great. I thought, “I’m going to have to make this place livable for Nympha and I and our kids.” I took Milly and Artemio with me to buy tools to work with and ordered the materials we needed at the local lumber yard to be delivered. The foundation posts had to be a certain type of tree that was resistant to rotting in the wet ground. Milly (her brother) borrowed a small cart with wooden wheels that we pushed by hand for a couple of kilometers to buy the posts.

I planned out the addition in my head and built the walls separately, leaning each wall against a coconut tree. This was not how Filipinos built their houses so my building style garnered a lot of attention and laughs.

Nympha was busy evangelizing the ladies. She had bought an abundance of hot pandesal and began teaching the women. Itay had begun roasting his little pig and entertaining his grandson Gregg. Trinity stayed close to her mom for a few days before loosening up and enjoying the company of her cousin Lucy.

In the excitement I had not seen Nympha. She had removed her makeup, changed her dress, and her high heels for the traditional clothing of the women in the barangay. I was calling for her and everyone began to laugh. She was standing near me but blended in with all the women so well that I missed seeing her.

Initially I was unhappy with Itay because he had not used the additional monies I sent him specifically for purchasing a pedicab so his sons could gain some income. A pedicab is a bicycle with a side car for transporting people. However, when the poor of Sagkahan began telling me stories of how he shared with them each month from the monies I sent and how it kept them from hunger, my disappointment was accepting of what I later learned is referred to as the ‘subsistence ethic of the poor’. Basically the ‘subsistence ethic’ of the poor is to share with their neighbors whenever they have a blessing so that the neighbors will likewise share with them.