In 1991, Lorraine and I arrived in Urdaneta, on the central island of Luzon, Philippines, where I was to teach a class of thirty or so bible students. The senior pastor led us to our bedroom and told us that a shower room was located outside the building. When I slid open the wardrobe door, a cloud of mosquitoes flew from it into the room and out through the glassless, barred window! More mozzies than we had seen in one place anywhere.
Then we discovered that the shower room was about the size of one of those old outdoor toilets and standing on its own, roofless, next to a large, smelly pigsty. No tap, no hot water. Just a bucket of cold water, a sponge, a plastic dipper and a bar of soap. The cold water was not a problem — the temperature outside was the usual 32C degrees. So, I ‘showered’ and walked back to the building, only to find Lorraine in tears due to the only mirror, a free-standing one, having a full-height warp in its glass that reflected a twisted vision of herself like one you would see in a crazy fun parlor.
This last of so many weird aspects was a bit too much for Lorraine, who broke into tears. It wasn’t just the swarm of mozzies or the open-roofed shower ‘room’ next to the pigsty: the warped mirror was the final straw after being thousands of miles away from home and family on Christmas Day, her birthday on Boxing Day, and New Year’s Day.
Then a sense of the ridiculous hit us both as we stood together and looked at our twisted, whacky apparitions on display in the mirror — and doubled up with unrestrained laughter! And with that the gloom lifted, and we were back to our true selves: A Christian couple on a Mission for God!
During another, later visit to that same bible college, the Spirit of God came upon the students, who fell backward to the concrete floor and lay unhurt, despite not being caught and gently lowered. But that first visit, which had begun with such a weird sequence, was different from anything we had experienced on the island of Borneo or in Australia.