Back home in Charlotte.

Our flights from Manila back to the States went smoothly. We met up with Ellen's friend Ana in San Francisco, where she took us to a burger restaurant. I've come to appreciate a real American hamburger while I've been gone, and I devoured mine pretty quickly.

So, what's next?
Well, between now and mid-June, we will be presenting an in-depth slideshow about our trip at area churches and Bible Studies and working towards developing a partnership team. In June, we will pack our bags and head out of Charlotte to go to training camp in Orlando.

Time to go home...

Well, we've learned a lot on this trip, but it is finally time to pack our bags. We will be taking off at 5pm today, and we will be getting a debriefing from John and Tammy before we leave. As promised, here are some pictures from the NT dedication:


Here we are on top of a mountain that overlooks the rice terraces. We stayed with a family that lives in the village in the middle of these--some people refer to them as the "8th Wonder of the World".



To get between the different "sub-villages", we would walk on the tops of the walls of the terraces. Here, Ellen is following our hostess to her house, where we stayed for two nights.



The cermony begins. These guys are beginning the "Eagle Dance", where they bang out a rhythmic tune on these pans, and then all of the other people come out and dance.



The unveiling of the Bibles. The five ministers (one is partially hidden), a foreign translator, and a local translator unveil the crates of Bibles. Almost 300 Bibles were sold after the ceremony. During the cermony (which was in Finallig, the local language), they kept talking about "apple juice"; I found out later that they were actually saying "Apo Dios", which is their word for Lord.


We will see you all soon--thank you for your prayers,

Dan

We're back!

Well, the trip up to the Mountain Province of the Philippines was a long, windy, and very dusty ride, but we made it there and back without much of an incident.

The New Testament dedication was held in a tiny town called Barlig, which is nestled amongst some of the rice terraces that you might have seen on TV. (I wish I could show one of the thousands of pictures I took, but I can only be on this computer for a few more minutes--everybody else who went on the trip would like to check their email. I'll try to post some tomorrow.) We stayed in a house with electricity, and were quite comfortable. This family had actually hosted some Bible translators in their home before, so they knew a little bit about the "needs" of the Americanos; like hot water--some of our friends were quite jealous to learn that we had a heater hooked up to our shower head.

The dedication itself was phenominal--it lasted all day on Saturday, and was performed almost entirely in the local language--but some of the visual images (again, more pictures to come) were quite striking. One of the most prolific scenes was where the five ministers of area churches came together for the first time ever to bless the Bibles. Because of the disagreements between these denominations, these men had barely even spoken to each other, and now there were all coming together in a show their unified support for a Bible in their own language. Another striking image was the multi-cultural diversity that could be seen when scanning the crowd: Filipino, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Singaporean, American, and Canadian are the ones that I can remember off the top of my head.

Anyway, thanks for the prayers for my family member. He is still in the hospital, and Ellen and I are hoping to re-route our flight home to Florida so that we can spend some time with him for a few days. Continue to pray for his health.

His,

Dan

Preparations for the Mountain Trip

Today was a very busy day today--we met with a lady named Tresa, who showed us a hospital, the local market, and the homes of some Filipino families. All of these showed a great cross-section of the culture that we would have never experienced had we not spent the day with her. We capped off the day by having dinner with the high school principal at Faith Academy. He and his wife live in the same condo building that we think that we would like to live in once we arrive here next January.

Tomorrow morning, we will be getting up early to head off to the jungle for a few days. While there, we will be attending the much anticipated New Testament dedication. Many people who have been here for many years have told us that they wished that they could come to this event, because they have never had the chance to go to one of these. Ellen and I will be staying in the home of one of the families that will be receiving one of these new New Testaments. We believe that just staying with them in their home will be a pretty exciting adventure. Needless to say, this town does not have phone or internet access, so I will probably won't be able to post anything to this weblog until Monday afternoon.

Although we had fun today, much of it was spent praying and talking with family about a major decision that needed to made. We learned today that a close family member had passed out after playing tennis, and he is still in the hospital as a write this. Of course, we wrestled with the decision as to whether or not we should return home--but because we feel like we are in God's will, and because we feel like this family member was very excited about our trip to the Philippines, we felt that it would be best to continue with our trip as planned. I think we realized today that a missionary's biggest sacrifice is giving up the ability to "be there" in these kinds of situations. Please pray for us, that we will make decisions that will honor God, and more important, pray that the health of this family member would improve quickly.

Happy Birthday, Ellen!

Yep, we celebrated Ellen's birthday today--our hostess for the party said, "since Ellen was missing her family back home on her birthday, we thought that she would enjoy celebrating with her new family on this side of the ocean..."


Also, today was a big day for Ellen as we explored Faith Academy. She met with many teachers, administrators, and students in the Elementary school. One of the most interesting stories that we heard was about a man named Tine, who was a basketball phenom in college, and was recuited by the L.A. Lakers. He declined because he was committed to serve God, and so he came to work at Faith Academy. He has been a part of the school for 46 years, making him the most "tenured" staff member at the school.


One of the more unique forms of transportation for the Philippine people is a vehicle called the jeepney. These originally were refurbished U.S. military surplus jeeps that were refurbished to use as a bus. The great thing about these is that bizzare paint designs show off the distinctiveness of the drivers. It is very common to see a jeepney completely covered with some sort of mural.


Thanks to all of you have sent emails--you are very encouraging to us!

Dan

Getting situated.

This morning, we commuted with Tammy to Wycliffe's main office in the Philippines. The complex features the administrative building, a short-term guest house, and some other buildings that we haven't yet explored. (But we will get to; we are staying at the guest house next week). The entrance to the complex (pictured below), is typical of most other businesses in that it has a guard stationed outside (on the left in the picture) that allows only authorized people through. Most communities are also gated with a posted guard, and most houses also have a wall posted around the perimiter of their yard, usually with broken glass imbeded into the concrete to discourage any unwanted visitors from climbing over.


Once at the center, we were given the grand tour by John, who I will be working with when we come here next year. He really has a heart for short-term groups, but isn't able to devote much time into it like he wants to. Needless to say, it was very good to meet him--John is apparently quite a kidder, and anybody in the office is fair game to jokes. It's almost as if my current co-workers have been preparing me for working with this guy.


At the end of the day, we had dinner with some of Ellen's future co-workers. Sarah, Michelle, and Tiffany had prepared a full Philippine feast for us, our first since arriving in the country, which consisted of rice, pork, noodles, and mango ice-cream. Mangoes are a popular fruit to eat, but I found out the hard way at breakfast that you aren't supposed to eat the skin. Probably the first of many cultural faux-pas that I will commit over the next couple of weeks. Anyway, these three ladies are teachers at Faith Academy, and they shared with us many of their stories of where they came from, and how they have adjusted to teaching in a foreign country, something that Ellen is already accustomed to.


Tomorrow we are going to be touring Faith Academy, where we will both find out more about the school, and Ellen will observe some classrooms.

His,

Dan

We get by with a little help from our friends...

We made it! The trip from Charlotte, NC to Manila has been a long journey, and we wouldn't have been able to get here without the help of some of our dear friends. Ellen's friend Ginny graciously took us to the Charlotte airport very early on Friday morning, where we boarded our flight to San Francisco.


Once in San Francisco, we were picked up by Amanda, who is an old friend from Auburn. She took us on her exclusive Bay area tour, which showed us every major site in about 3 hours. Included in the tour was: Robin William's home, the crookedest street in the world, the Golden Gate bridge, the beach, the house in "Mrs. Doubtfire", the "Full House" house, the seals at Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown, views of Alcatraz, a park where a scene from "The Rock" was filmed, and of course, Golden Gate seminary, where she is a student.


We then said goodbye to Amanda, flew to Taiwan, and caught our connecting flight to Manila. After our arrival, we were picked up by Dave and Tammy, two missionaries who have been here in the Philippines for 15 years. We will be staying with them for the next couple of days, and they will help us to get acclimated. They are very gracious to allow us to stay in their lovely home (pictured below).


Tammy and Dave have planned a complete itinerary for us to get to know the greater Manila area, and to meet some of the 250 Wycliffe staff that serve here. Last night, we had dinner with another missionary family, who used to work in the remote area of Bagabag (pronounced: buh-GAH-bug), which is where we will be staying on Wednesday night as we head up to the NT dedication. During dinner, Ellen and I both had to apologize for nodding off while we were talking because the jetlag was overwhelming us. Even so, we seem to be adjusting well--our bodies are probably only about 2-3 hours off from our normal routine, which alright, because the Philipines are 12 hours ahead of what we are normally used to.

Today we will be going downtown to Wycliffe's main office in the Philippines where I will meet my future boss, John, for the first time, and where we will undoubtedly meet many more support-staff missionaries. Along the way, we will also get to experience a rite of passage for people who live here: the dreaded Manila traffic. Tammy (who works in that office) told us that it usually takes her about 1 hour and 20 minutes to get to the center. Ouch--that's about 3x my current commute to get to Premier in Charlotte.

We are learning a LOT and are well taken care of--thanks for your prayers!

A few hours of sleep, and then we depart!

We just finished packing up everything, and so in a few hours, a friend of Ellen's will drive us to the airport. By the way, many have asked how long the flight will be. Well, the longest leg is from San Francisco to Taipei, Taiwan, which clocks in at around 14 hours. To pass the time, I'll be reading a book my Dad gave me called "Heroes Among Us", which is a collection of short stories about real-life, but relatively unknown heroes.