Tuguegarao

I'm sitting in a crowded Internet Cafe right now as I write this. It's a little cramped, but it has A/C, which I really appreciate.

The reason why I'm not at our normal computer is that Larry asked me to accompany him to the little town of Tuguegarao (tuh-GIG-a-raw), which is a 12 hour bus ride from Manila. He has a Filipino friend named Alvarez who broke his arm a few months ago, but the so-called "doctor" didn't set it right. So, Larry's church in Virginia raised money to help the guy have his arm reset, and they wanted Larry to supervise the handling of the money.

So, after a long but uneventful bus ride yesterday, we were able to get a pretty nice hotel room. So we've been hanging out here in town, waiting for the surgery to finish. We wanted to go to the hospital, but we thought that the presence of two Americans might suddenly make the price of the surgery to increase. So, we are staying out of sight until it's time to pay!

Pray that Alvarez's surgery will go well, and that our trip back to Manila will go as smoothly as our trip up!