Davis's First Swim!

Summer has hit the Philippines! We may think it is warm all year round, but lately it has been really hot! Today we decided to take Davis for his first swim. We are trying to prepare him especially for enjoying water and not being afraid to swim in the lake where my parents live! He did very well. :)

Dan eased him into the water. After just a little cry he seemed to be enjoying it. :)

I had the fun part of holding him after he was used to the water!


All dry and tired after his swim!

Expanding the Isnag Church

We recently had three teams in as many months travel to the remote Isnag language group with the intent of physically expanding the size of their church. If the name "Isnag" sounds familiar, it's because we actually visited the central community of Dibagat during a Bible dedication last summer with the 2006 Discovery Team.

And when I say that the Isnag language group is remote, I mean remote. To get there, first you have to take an all day bus ride to Tugegarao. Once there, then you fly on a small airplane that lands on a grass airstrip situated on top of a graded mountain. If the weather doesn't cooperate, then you go back to Tugegarao, take a half-day journey by van over some pretty bumpy roads, and then take the motorized canoe up the river until you finally arrive. Don't forget the hike up the mountain.

The logistics of getting the teams in and out of this kind of situation can be pretty tough, but fortunately, the person organizing all of this is an Isnag who was adopted by one of our translators! He now lives in the USA, and travels the country promoting Bible Translation. He also had some great guys who helped him out in leading the teams.

If you want to read some of their testimonies and see some of their pictures, then head on over to www.isnag.org!

Blogging:Busyness (The Inverse Ratio)

I'm sure that someone else in the blogosphere has already waxed eloquently on this phenomenon, but there seems to be a principle emerging based on this theory:

"The number of posts one puts to his/her blog is inversely proportional to said person's amount of spare time."

In other words, if you don't see a post on someone's blog for a long time, then this means that it is because he is too busy with life to post anything!

Unfortunately, many blog readers feel just the opposite is actually true. That is, if they don't see anything posted for a long time, then that means that the person's life is so incredibly boring that there is absolutely nothing worthwhile for him to post.

This assumption could not be more wrong. For instance, the last post that I put up was on January 1. Almost three months ago! Fortunately, Ellen has taken up the mantle in putting up some posts about Davis and motherhood, which has greatly contributed to our site ranking! Go Davis! I've since then come to the conclusion that if you REALLY want to generate a lot of hits on your website, then you need to start putting up more pictures of babies. Trust me. This is the way to go.

I'm hoping that my Blogging:Busyness ratio will start to balance out a little bit and will allow me to put up some posts of some other neat things that have been happening here in the Philippines over the last few months. Of course, I'm sure that the number of hits will drop off dramatically once I do this...

Perhaps there is a ratio between the number of baby pictures and the number of hits on a website?

QED