Finding Jane...

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the major perks of living overseas is employing “domestic help”, this is so wonderful but it can also be a real pain in the butt. Now I know why they offered a class for this back in CA! At the time I thought, come on- can it really be that hard? YES! Now I know you don’t feel sorry for my pain : ) but here’s our story just for fun (long story short). After several interviews with various people, we decided to hire Fina only to have to unhire her before she started because apparently she had quite a reputation among the other Filipinas. Since many of the nannies attend one of my playgroups here, I learned it is a small world because they all knew her naughty gossip- this was solidified by our neighbor who works for one of those dirt-digging secret three letter agencies. We decided that we had better listen to him as a professional dirt digger so; thankfully, we dodged that bullet quickly. Then there was Josie, who someone told us that our old friends here (who have since left) employed and just LOVED so we figured, how could we go wrong? The first time she was amazing so we were thrilled, until we talked to our friends later only to find that they didn’t love her afterall because frequently she wouldn’t show up for work. We learned this the next day when she cancelled her babysitting on Valentines night! However, our friends did love Tess so we gave her a call instead and she turned out to be great- except for the fact that her paperwork was a complete mess and she had severely overstayed her time in country. Not wanting to get in the middle of this drama, we found Dori instead. Dori was love at first sight thanks to the great recommendation we got from J’s coworker and perfect interview. She was supporting five kids back in the Philipines and hadn’t been home in 9 years because all of her money went to their care and schooling. (Incidentally, meeting these women and hearing their stories have really given me a new appreciation for the US, regardless of how you feel about welfare I’m so thankful that mothers there would never have to consider the choices these women have made.) Unfortunately for us, Dori had several jobs and had trouble keeping track of them all so she was forgetful about her schedule and very late to say the least. So… nearly two months in country we found ourselves back to square one.
Then we found Jane. Such a blessing she is- and of course, she was one of the first people we interviewed! I’m sure I’ll mention her a lot in the future so I mine as well introduce her because we have really fallen in love with her. Her husband is a pastor in the Philippines and she has a young daughter who is ill and requires a lot of medical care. She also had some debts from an earlier trip to China (deliviering Bibles) so she and her family decided that it would be best for her to come here for four years in order to pay off her debt and support her daughter’s healthcare and her husband’s church ministry. She lives with several of her cousins here and her parents take care of her daughter and husband back home. She is so good with K but it breaks my heart thinking about her own daughter that she should be with and it is hard for me to understand her choices but then have to remember that we come from such different worlds. What a sacrifice she is making now- when we heard she wasn’t planning on returning home for four years we started checking out plane tickets. We think that God brought her into our lives for a reason- while she blesses us (and boy does she!) we pray that we can be a blessing to her also. She works so hard, I was gone for an hour the other day and she did more in my home than I could have done in a week- not to mention shampooing a large rug by HAND. If only we would have listened to our first instincts about her we would have saved ourselves a lot of trouble with the wrong people – although, I must admit, I’d take all of that again just to find Jane.

PS/ Jane also cooks which is great- we’ve had some of J’s friends stay with us the past few days and I asked her to make dinner for all of us one night. I suggested something Filipino – In my mind, I was thinking Lumpia (yum) but instead she made us tilapia. For those of you not used to eating fish this way- it is the whole fish (skin, head and all) fried up. Then you peel the skin back to get the meat – avoiding all of the bones and trying not to look the fish in the eye. J and I don’t mind this but let’s just say I learned a lesson on what NOT to serve to company, ha! Thankfully, I made up some chicken at the last minute. The whole thing was so funny!