Tuesday, July 27, 2010

A teacher….just maybe!!!

It has been our desire since Bobbi Easton came to homeschool our kids in 2006 to have someone homeschool our kids every year while in the Philippines.  Having someone else teach the kids will free me, Shannon, up for language study and eventually ministry plus it keeps the kids at home with us instead of going away to boarding school.

Just this last July 4th, Jessica Wease left us to return back to Canada to attend Bible school.  She was a wonderful teacher for our kids and we will miss her very much.

Since February we have been praying for a new teacher for the kids for the 2010/2011 school year.

About 2 months ago we shared with leadership that Jessica would be leaving us and asked them to pray with us for a new teacher.  We were asked if we had contacted a young lady that was interested in coming last year but Jessica was already planned to come.

With life being busy, we didn’t get a chance to email this young lady.  But then 2 weeks later we received an email… It was from this very same young lady and she was asking if we had a teacher for this coming year yet!!!

From there we started communicating with her, our leadership here and the NTM office in Sanford, FL.  After several emails and phone calls everyone is in agreement that Dorothy would be a good fit for our family this coming school year!!!

This is very exciting!!!

It is not finalized yet as Dorothy still needs to fill out her application and raise some financial support to come.

Please pray with us and Dorothy.  Pray that things would be completed quickly.  Pray that she would be able to have enough people come behind her for support and to help with her plane ticket.

We don’t know when she will come but the new school year is just around the corner.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

The house…….

Here are just a few pictures of our house in the tribe.  I will let Chuck write more in a few days but I wanted to get some new pictures up of the house for you all to see.100_2500

The front porch was added.

100_2495 

The front door was built.

100_2484

Plywood was put up on the walls.

100_2488

Shutters were made for the kitchen and dining room.

100_2486

The walls and floor upstairs had a sealant put on it.

That is just part of what they got done.  We will put more pictures up later.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Babies, babies, everywhere!

Over the last several months there have been quite a lot of babies born in the village.

Here are just a few of Jenna’s future playmates:

Tribe in June 013

From left to right:

Charon with baby boy Ray- 2 months; me, Shannon with Jenna- 2 1/2 months; Helia with baby girl Love Joy- 3 months; Amelia with baby boy Marlon- 1 month; Mildred with baby girl Queen- 4 months.

As we stood and talked that afternoon, one of the ladies commented about how we were all “dancing” with our babies, as we rocked and bounced them.

There were a few more that we didn’t get to meet this time too.

Notice how white Jenna and I are!!!

How did we travel to the village this time???

We just returned from 2 weeks in our village as Chuck was preparing wood for a UK Summit Team to come next week.

We are still without a flight program on Northern Luzon so we had to travel by land. Here is just a little bit about our transportation:

We first flew domestic airlines north.

Tribe in June 066

Then another missionary drove us to a nearby town where we stayed for 2 nights as we finished packing stuff to go into the village and Christina packed up her belongings.

Tribe in June 055

Then we hired a jeepney to take us into the village.  Well, the rains have now begun in our area and the road is getting muddier by the day.  So we only made it 2/3 of the way in and then needed to hike.  When we reached the village we had to ask the men in the village if they could go to where the jeepney was and collect our stuff.  They were very glad to have some work to do and make a little money.  In the end 9 carabao went out that afternoon.  Plus the next day, several more went to get the plywood and even a young man carried some sewer pipe in on his shoulder.

 100_1029

When it came time to leave we knew that we wouldn’t be able to get a jeepney in to get us as it had rained every night for the last 6 nights. (We were praising the Lord that we didn’t have to haul water as the water barrels were always full.)

So we talked to the men to see if the kids could ride carabao again.  That was not going to be a problem. 

Tribe in June 036

With Sophia nearing 30 lbs Chuck really didn’t want to carry her out, so we tried her on a carabao with mom!!!  She didn’t like it as much as we had hoped she would but she did ride most of the way out.  The problem was that she doesn’t like to hold on to the person that is carrying her.  She is a little rag doll.  So when we went down hill, we would just keep sliding forward.  I am sure we would have had our knees wrapped around the horns if we hadn’t of gotten off and walked down the hills!!!

Tribe in June 038

Christina had heard that some ladies will hire a horse to ride out when it was muddy.  She asked around and found a … horse… to ride! It was rather small and didn’t much like the smell of a white lady!!!  But Christina has experience with horses and was able to calm him down and ride.

Tribe in June 047

Jessica figured she would ride a carabao too, if one was available.  At first there wasn’t one, but about 10 min out of the village, one of the men had another carabao and she was able to ride with the owner of the horse.  It was quite a lot of fun for her!!!

Tribe in June 046

From the end of the trail we road back by jeepney to town.  We spent the night there and hired a van the next day to go to town to fly back to Manila.

Tribe in June 050

It was a lot of different means of transportation but it all worked out!

Friday, July 2, 2010

A teenager in our house

On July 1st, our oldest son turned 13 years old!!!  It is amazing that we now have a teenager in our home.  It seems like yesterday that we learned that we were having our first child.  I remember like it was yesterday what it was like to hold him in my arms and watch him sleep.  I wanted to stay awake to watch him sleep to be sure he was still breathing.  And now here he is a young man.  He is taller then his mom and anticipating the day he is taller then his dad. 

Eli is a young man who loves to study his Bible, learn about history and learn all there is to know about the countries of the world.  He loves the challenge of math and does very well at it.  Eli is loving every minute of having a baby sister in the house.  He is eager to hold her and help in any way he can.  He has learned that a 7 km hike really isn’t that bad and keeps in pace with his dad without a complaint.

It is truly amazing to see how the Lord is growing this young man.  We are proud to call him our son.

Tribe in June 039017 002 006  Happy 13 th Birthday Elijah!