When God closes doors …

MANILA, Philippines—I went home from work that night with a heavy heart. I had just lost my job as a subeditor with the Saudi Gazette in Jeddah where I had worked for the past six years. I was 62.

Losing my job at the twilight years of my life with an eight-year-old daughter and a wife to look after was surreal. With only a little savings in the bank, we were not prepared to go home.

It was one of the most trying times in my life. How do I fend for my family? We came to Saudi Arabia to escape a harsh life in Manila and the prospect of going home unprepared was a nightmare.

At that time, we were planning to migrate to New Zealand. My wife, a nurse, 14 years younger than I, had barely started to scout for a job there. When I got my termination notice in January 2005, I saw that dream collapse. We had to use the money we had saved for that purpose for more immediate needs.

Tragic news

Though shattered, I told my wife about the tragic news as calmly as I could. “Don’t be alarmed,” I opened up as she settled next to me on our sofa in the living room to watch TV, “I got fired from my job and we have to go home by the end of the month.”

I saw shock in her eyes. Instinctively, I assured her that I could still work as a subeditor in Manila and, with our modest savings, she could open a bigger store than what we used to have back home before I went to work in Saudi Arabia.

My wife, who quit her job to take care of our daughter when the child was born in 1997, wasn’t convinced and pleaded with me to look for another job, any job, as a lifeline until we could move to New Zealand or any other western country.

Grace period

As I always do in my trying times, I prayed for divine guidance and later asked my editor-in-chief to allow me to look for another job instead of sending me home. I was buoyed when the company gave me a six-month grace period to look for a new job. But it marked only the beginning of a new travail.

After failing to get a job with the Arab News, the only other English newspaper in Saudi Arabia, I discovered that I could hardly find even an ordinary office job. My wife, who also started scouting for work, did not fare any better either. My problem was my age; hers was an eight-year gap in her employment record.

Since my family joined me in Jeddah in 2000, we have been holding our own private prayer sessions. Through our trial, my wife would occasionally feel a muted anger against God for “abandoning” us.

I told my wife that probably God was just testing our faith. We held on to faith. From my experiences, I learned to practice the counsel in Proverbs: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; never lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will show you the right path.”

Growing desperation

In June, as I grew more desperate after my applications for published job vacancies got no responses and the referrals of friends turned out fruitless, I got an unexpected call from a Filipino, a friend of our next-door neighbor, working in a construction company. He advised me to see another Filipino in a sister company, another construction company involved in power plants and related projects.

I got interviewed and was asked to report for work as soon as I could wind up my job at the Gazette. God has endowed me with genes that make me look 10 years younger than my age and I got lucky that the personnel manager who interviewed me did not bother to look into my curriculum vitae.

I was offered a clerical job that would pay a third less than my previous salary. I decided not to report for work at once on the pretext that the Gazette had asked me to stay for a while. I was still hoping to find another job with better pay. I did not find any.

By August, a month after my grace-period to look for a new job had lapsed, the Gazette cut my pay by half. It was time to go. I rang up Francis, my Filipino contact at the construction company but he told me that his boss had accepted a new applicant who was expected to report to work in the first week of August. My heart sunk.

Strange coincidences

What happened next was a series of strange coincidences I will never forget ever. In mid-August, I got an intuitive urge to give Francis another call, hoping for an unforeseen turn of event. The improbable happened. Francis told me his boss had a change of mind and was reconsidering hiring me if I would accept a lower pay. I bit the bullet.

I was happy but the euphoria did not last long. The day before I was to report for work, I called up Francis for a reconfirmation before I went home from the Gazette at five in the afternoon. I was dumbstruck to hear that his boss did not want to sign my contract anymore—for no reason at all.

My wife cried uncontrollably when I told her about it as soon as I got home. It turned out that she also failed to get a job she had applied for on the same day. We prayed for divine succor. I prayed to Jesus to touch the heart of Francis’ boss who was still at his office with Francis at that time. About 30 minutes after we said our prayers, my cell phone rang. It was Francis, telling me his boss signed my work contract at last.

My wife and I wept. We embraced and shed tears of joy. The next day, my wife called up a hospital where she applied for a job the previous week. She was told to go there to sign her contract. We got our jobs a few days apart in August.

A long hardship trail

End of our travail? No.

Seven months after I started working at the construction company, I almost lost my job in a new trial that would further strengthen my faith afterwards. That was in February 2006, shortly after we moved to a new office. I had a falling out with my boss, a man with fiery mood swings.

As early as two months into my job, I started telling my wife how unhappy I was, and that I wanted to quit owing to my boss’ temper. She pleaded with me to hang on until I could find another job. Her pay was not enough for us to live by. I took patience but it did not take long for my fuse to snap.

It happened one morning while he was ranting about my work without giving me a chance to explain. “I can’t take this anymore and I don’t care if you fire me,” I told him and turned away. As I went back to my desk, he called out to Francis, who was our payroll officer, to close my account.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you this time. You shouldn’t have talked back,” Francis whispered when he went over to my desk. Another Filipino, Gilbert, our IT engineer, offered his sympathy. I put up a bold front. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “God will take care of me.”

Deep inside I was devastated. How would my wife take this? I prayed silently, “Lord, I don’t understand all of this, but I trust you. Please don’t leave us in the midst of this crisis.”

Another coincidence?

While I was packing my things, Francis told me our boss wanted me to stay. I learned later that our Filipino secretary, who was left at the old office to take telephone calls and monitor the fax messages while the communication lines at the new office were being set up, did not report for work that morning. I was to take his place in the meantime. He never showed up after that.

Francis made it clear to me that it was a holdover job that may last only three months. I must start looking for a new job. When the telecommunication lines in the new office were put in place, I had to go. It was a week before March, the start of summer break for the Philippine schools in Saudi Arabia. I thanked God for the lifeline, hoping to get a teaching job in any Philippine school when classes opened in June, no matter if the pay would be smaller.

By May, Francis brought me good tidings. I was to be reassigned to the new office because the new secretary, an Indian, was not allowed by his previous employer to transfer. I moved to the new office within a week and worked as secretary to the newly hired executive manager, Ralph Lorenzo, a Filipino who proved to be an epitome of civility.

Answered prayers

I had been working with the construction company for exactly two years last August 30. My wife had moved to one of Jeddah’s two biggest hospitals. Although we do not see any silver lining to our dream of moving to New Zealand, we take the Biblical advice in Proverbs “Be still and know that I am Lord.”

I have had my own share of answered prayers since I returned to the Faith after losing God when I was a journalism student in Manila and I have come to believe that when God closes doors, He opens new ones. I believe in God’s mysterious ways.

***

In 2008, Saudi Gazette rehired me to help launch the Kabayan, a Filipino page, with a bigger financial package than my previous pay. The page was later abolished but the Gazette has retained me.

We have abandoned our plan to immigrate to New Zealand after my wife’s visa was turned down by its immigration office in Dubai in 2009 when recession hit the world. My wife is also 54 now, a year short of the age cap for immigration to New Zealand.

We are preparing for our homecoming in three years time when our daughter finishes high school here, but have not closed the door for other possibilities, knowing from experience that God oftentimes does things His own way.

This article is an abridged version of an article from the author’s book “The Gypsy Soul and Other Essays” available at amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. The author also runs a blog “Salt of Life” at http//salt-romblonwriter.blogspot.com