But upon this diagnosis, Mommy Esther exclaims, “I read in the Family News that if you eat only coconut for three days, it will cure you! This way we don’t need the System medicine!”
The adults are always pulling natural healing remedies from the testimonies that arrive in the Mo Letters and Family News.
When we all came down with the measles and were stuck in bed, covered in red, itchy spots with a high fever, our parents didn’t take us to the hospital. “There is nothing the doctors can do. Just drink your onion-garlic broth and I’ll pray over you again,” Mommy Esther said as she dipped her finger in canola cooking oil and drew an oily cross on my forehead. “Now don’t wipe it off.”
According to Grandpa, doctors and medicine are as likely to kill you as help you. He won’t even go to the hospital for his bad heart. He does admit, though, that there are a few mechanical fixes that doctors are useful for, like setting broken bones, stitches, and some surgeries. For other things, we need to just trust Jesus. So, when someone gets sick, we follow the biblical prescription to gather the elders of the church (in our case, our parents) and lay hands on the afflicted person, anointing them with oil and praying over them, “Dear Lord, You are the greatest doctor in the universe. Please touch and heal Faithy and take away the measles. We command healing in Your name. Amen. Praise God!” In a week, we were better.
So, when we get pinworms, the adults are eager to prove they have no need to rely on System doctors when God has provided a natural remedy. For the next three days, seven kids are force-fed chunks of dry coconut for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
“I can’t eat any more coconut!” I wail, real tears coming now. My jaw aches from trying to chew the dry husks that make my stomach hurt. No wonder this is supposed to cure pinworms. Is it supposed to starve them out, so they leave to find food?
After seventy-two hours of starving, crying, hungry kids who can’t face another square of coconut, natural medicine is forced to give in. We all still have pinworms.
Our parents finally admit defeat and pick up the medicine at the pharmacy in Coloane Village. Never have I been so eager to swallow a nasty-tasting pill and get back to real food. But the adults are disappointed. They think that needing to go to the doctor shows that their faith is not strong enough for the miracle of God’s healing. But there are some things they haven’t found a natural remedy for, and pinworms, it seems, is one of them.
During the spring monsoons and the summer typhoons, the whole village struggles with flooding. The water rushes from the sky as if the house is sitting under a waterfall, and sometimes I swing my legs groggily out of bed to land ankle-deep in ice water. My father, brothers, Uncle Michael, and Uncle Jeff, a tall American who has come to stay with us, are working with Cap San, the local village elder, and his laborers to dig ditches and drains around all the village houses to protect us from the worst of it.
Our friends in the Portuguese government agree to supply us with culverts, pipes, and materials if we will do the installation. So, our father decides to fix our water problem at the same time. We dig ditches along the side of the dirt lane and lay the water pipes from the village to the main road, so the municipal government can finally hook up the village to a clean consistent water supply from the reservoir.
Our joy at getting connected to public utilities is temporarily dampened when everyone’s water pipes explode. The city water pressure is too strong for the ancient pipes compared to the village catchment that we’ve been using to collect rainwater from the mountain. We pitch in with Cap San’s workers to get plumbing pieces and water pipes to replace the broken ones in the villagers’ houses.
Despite our cheery waves, Cap San has been rather cool toward us, but after months of sweaty labor installing new pipes for half the village, even Cap San reluctantly thaws and now greets us with “Sik fan” when we pass. Our parents praise Jesus for softening his heart. I’m just glad that when I try to wash my hands after a rainstorm the water doesn’t spurt red with mud anymore.
We know we’ve made good headway with our new neighbors when on my fifth birthday the villagers invite us to their annual village dinner for Communist Labor Day, which the villagers stubbornly celebrate despite Macau’s status as a Portuguese colony. The event is held in a makeshift square surrounded by red light strings and colorful banners painted with Chinese characters. Eight or nine huge round tables are set out in a square, with ten to twelve people per table. Our family, Patrick’s family, and Uncle Jeff and Uncle Michael, who did much of the construction work, have been invited. We all sit at different tables, mixing with the village families and stuffing ourselves on the delicious fourteen-course meal, until even my brothers’ bottomless-pit stomachs can’t hold another bite.
My father’s laugh booms louder. Mommy Esther’s face is less pinched. Our goal has been accomplished. Now we don’t have to worry about nosy reporters following us home; we can drop our pointy hats and secrecy. Once the closed villagers accept you, they are fierce defenders of their own. The village is our home, their children our playmates. When I see white tourists climb off the bus at Hac Sa beach, I point with the villagers and laugh at the strange gweilos.
4
Don’t Work for Money, Honey
Before the persecution that sent us into hiding, we performed regularly in Hong Kong and Macau—restaurants, holiday festivals, prisons, the refugee camp for Vietnamese boat people escaping the Communist regime, schools, orphanages, anywhere we can share Jesus’s love—to witness and raise money.
While my father receives a small stipend of $1,000 per month to pay for the property rents and some basic food, it’s not enough to cover all our expenses for two families and renovations, and no one in the Family would ever work at a System job for filthy lucre. I can hear my father’s preacher’s voice saying, “You cannot serve God and Mammon.” That would be selling out to the World. We raise money by passing out literature and asking for donations. God provides what we need if we pray and stay in His Will by being obedient to His Prophet, Grandpa, and witnessing.
The public has a short attention span, and my father feels the bad publicity has died down enough for us to return to some of our regular weekend busking spots to earn some needed money.
At breakfast today he tells us that we are going into Macau to sing.
“Do you think it’s okay?” Mommy Esther questions, concern creasing her forehead.
“We will just be very careful that no one follows us home, no different than what we’ve been doing whenever we go into town for shopping,” he asserts.