I’m very sorry how late I am in getting out this blog. Two things: Thank you to everyone who was praying about my health. My test results were completely normal! Second thing, we made it to the Philippines a couple of weeks ago. Why the Philippines you may ask? Well this month is a little bit different. We were instructed by our squad leaders last month that we were supposed to pray as a team and ask God to show us where he wanted our team to go. As I was praying the Philippines kept coming to mind. We weren’t really sure how it was going to be possible as tickets were expensive and this month our budget is a little bit less. We kept praying and God provided cheap enough tickets and a friend of Holli’s, who are missionaries, opened up their house for us to stay with them.
So here we are in the Philippines. On the day we arrived we had no idea what to expect and already time has flown by and we’ve seen God’s hand of blessing on us in ways that we never expected. We have been able to work with a few different ministries through connections that the Burk’s have. The first week we helped with a VBS. During that week we lived with some families from the church that lived near the church. We helped with VBS in the mornings and a few afternoons we were able to go with a ministry of the church to the slum areas and observe them teach the children the Bible. We enjoyed playing with the kids. The thing I loved about helping with the VBS was that the children spoke English. I didn’t realize how much I missed actually being able to talk with the children about what they were learning. The other highlight was that the theme for the VBS was The Chronicles of Narnia. At the end of the VBS they had a graduation ceremony for the kids and asked us to dress up like the characters. Nate was King Peter, Chris King Edmund, Jessica was Queen Lucy, and I was Queen Susan. I’ll post pictures later if I can track them down.
Last week we went to an Island and stayed with a Filipino pastor and his family. We helped them with construction of their new church building. They enjoyed having us and loved showing us the island. They took us to a couple beautiful waterfalls and we saw several amazing sunsets on the beach. We stayed with them for five nights and were able to be a part of their church service and encourage the believers that lived there. During the time we were there they also finished a volleyball court and we played volleyball with the people who lived in the area. It was lots of fun and was mostly made up of laughing and trying to play the game. Jessica would have preferred it to be a little more serious as she was one of the very few players who knew what they were doing. After we left the island we took a few days off to go to a volcano. It was quite the adventure as we hiked down into it as there is now a lake in it. After a hike that lasted much longer than we thought as we got lost a few time we finally made it into the crater. We set up camp and slept there one night. We also got to swim in the lake. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it in my life.
This week is our last week here in the Philippines. We on purpose have not set anything up for us to do. We will be praying over the whole week and we may end up taking it day by day asking God to show us what he wants us to do for the rest of our time here. Today we were substitute teachers for a Christian school. Tomorrow I’m not sure what we will be doing. Please remember us in your prayers and pray that we learn to hear from the Lord about each day this week. This sounds funny as we normally do this yet it is a little different as we don’t have something already arranged for us to do.
