All Set Up

Well, our house is now all set up! All I need now are some visitors and Dan to be home!

I have heard from Dan recently. He and the team are having a wonderful time! They have been in the village for the past week. The students (and Dan) are paired off and just finished their stays in different local Filipino pastors homes. This has been a huge blessing as they have gotten to know these different families and learned what it is really like to live in a small village. I am sure Dan will tell you all about it when he returns!

Elizabeth, our ethnomusicologist student, comes back today for her debrief. As I type I am awaiting her arrival and preparing to help her finish her time well here in the Philippines!

Making our house a home

These past few days have been an absolute whirlwind. We moved into our condo, and have been orienting the Get Global team. Getting to know these 9 students, and being reintroduced to their leaders has been a blast. (The leaders, Ed and Linda were two of our teachers at our training camp we went to in Orlando last June!)

Dan and the team are now headed to their village assignment. I am staying here to debrief our ethnomusicologist discovery student, who will be coming back to Manila in a few days!

Another perk of staying here is that I get to make our house into a home. This is something that I have really been looking forward to doing. And now, in our perfect 1 bedroom condo, I got to pick out the paint colors, and new tile for our bathroom! Our landlords were so kind to redo those things for us! Also, we have turned 1/2 of our glassed in porch into a small guest room if anyone wants to come and stay!

If I knew where the camera was in some of this unpacking I'd take it out and send ya'll a picture. For now, you can just imagine it in your mind until I send you the real thing!

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

The short term trips are really coming pretty fast now. Last week, Ellen and I finished our orientation with the Discovery team, and this week, we will begin our orientation of the GET Global team. So, we have a couple days to rest, right? Wrong. I am spending most of my time putting the finishing touches on the GET Global trip, while Ellen is busy packing up our apartment. We move into our permanent residence tomorrow!

Anyway, for those of you who are wondering what this has to do with ice cream; we were shopping for a dining table for the condo yesterday, and we were both pretty exhaused by the end of the day. We had searched through Manila's largest mall ("Mega Mall"), and had just found the perfect table at a great price at another shopping center. As we were leaving, we saw that one of the booths had mint chocolate chip ice cream! Which, if you haven't been around us too long, you'll need to know that is our favorite flavor. Problem is, we haven't had any in the last four months, because we didn't think anybody had it in the Philippines.

So, we drove home with our ice cream dripping all over the place, and relishing in how good something tastes when you've been away from it for so long. As we were driving, an a capella version of "Sweet Home Alabama" came on the radio, and I began thinking, "what country are we in again?"

Goodbye Bagabag!

Normally, we would have taken an eight hour bus ride to get back to Manila from Bagabag. Instead, we chose to fly back in less then an hour! The RP 43 is often used to bring translators in and out of their village locations. It can take off and land in a very small space, which makes it very useful to have up here!

Yes, I was quite nervous as we strapped ourselves in this six seater plane. Soon after we took off though, I could sit back, relax and enjoy the magnificent view we had the entire way. Shortly, we arrived home safely and began packing for our big move to our condo this week!


I look a lot calmer then I actually was!



Our magnificent view!

Monday Morning Prayer Time

Every Monday morning, everybody who works at the Manila center gathers together to pray for specific things that are happening within the branch. Recently, Ellen was asked to lead one of the morning meetings. She shook things up a bit by having everybody sit in a circle (rather than rows), asked everybody to give a praise item (rather than only requests), and we sang to a CD (instead of a piano).

The former Kindergarten teacher rounds up her new classroom.

Back Creek Video

Many of the kids at Ellen's former school in North Carolina have been doing some pretty inventive things to show their support. We wanted to show them just how much we appreciated all that they were doing for us. Thanks, guys!

Video length: 1 min, 26 sec (561 Kb)

Ever Met a Governor?

Today, we wrapped up our time with the Discovery participants by giving them their final assignment: they had to travel by public transport into the city, buy something, call me on the phone, and then return by public transport. Some admitted that they were a little intimidated at first, but they all passed the test with flying colors.

The day before, we gave them a break from the orientation by taking them into the capital city of the Nueva Viscaya province. While there, we were able to get an audience with the governor, who sat and chatted with us for about 15 minutes. We also ate some traditional Filipino food and visited some museums.

The Discovery Team in the office of the Governor of Nueva Viscaya.

My View of the Dedication

The past few days have been very busy as we have been leading the discovery team. I have been wanting to mention my view of the dedication time. The ceremony was very special as so many people now have the full Bible in their language, but my favorite parts were the people I was able to spend time with over the weekend.

Many of our center employees had never had the opportunity to see a Bible dedication. They support Bible translation in every way just like all of us who have been sent from all over the world. The employees have been some of my favorite people to spend time with in the Philippines. They are constantly smiling, encouraging, and having a lot of fun. I love them so very much and it was incredible to have them in Bagabag for the weekend of the dedication.

Mark was a little boy that Dan befriended. We were sitting near him at the dedication and at first he was a little bit shy. He soon warmed up to us. He didn't speak much English at all but his smile brightened our day. Even as young as he is, he sat patiently through the three hour Bible dedication service.

Before the dedication started, I was talking to some children on a playground when I looked up and saw Susan. She had been our host in Barlig, the place of the New Testament dedication we attended last year. She had traveled 5 hours to be at this dedication. We were thrilled to spend time with her and get to catch up on the lives of 5 of her children that we had been able to get to know last year!



Many of us posing before leaving for the dedication!


Dan and Mark hanging out during the dedication!

415 Languages Now Have Bibles

We took the Discovery team to a Bible dedication yesterday. Of the 7,000 languages in the world, only 415 have their own Bible, and the Tuwali-Ifugao language is now one of them.

Local pastors display their new Bibles after the unveiling. The translation team looks on in the background.

Just In Time

Logistical planning is something that I am still learning how to do. Today, I learned that despite my plans, things will go wrong, and God will be glorified through it anyway.

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One of the Discovery participants was delayed in Atlanta due to weather, which moved his arrival one day back. The really bad thing was that we had chartered a bus for that date, and he was set to arrive about 25 minutes after the bus's departure time. We asked people to pray that he would be able to make the bus ride, because it would complicate the trip for him and for me, because I was picking him up at the airport. If we didn't make the bus, then we would have to get a different mode of transportation.

As I was getting ready to pick him up at the airport, Ellen went on-line and found out that his flight was 26 minutes EARLY! Obviously, this meant that he and I could make the bus--depending on the Manila traffic. And, yes, we did make it--with 3 minutes to spare.

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For those who prayed: thanks.