Wednesday, December 29, 2010

A special honour!

Over the last 2 years we have been blessed with Christian friend that lives in the town near our village.  He has a multicab that he drives daily between the two parts of town bringing passengers back and forth.  He has blessed us by being willing to take us to the waiting shed we hike from or picking us up there when we hike out.  He has also helped arrange for jeepneys to take us in and out of the village with it was dry enough last year.  He has made special trips to the bus station to help us pick up supplies that have come up from Manila.  He has also given us free trips between towns from time to time.  Elias has been such a good friend to us.

When we came out of the village for Christmas break we contacted Elias to come pick us up as we always do, several days before we hike out.  He agreed to be there this time also.

When we got to the waiting shed he wasn’t there yet but texted us to say he was on his way.  He told us when he arrived that he had to take his wife to the hospital first thing that morning as she was almost 9 months pregnant and having pains.  But they had stopped and the doctor said she would deliver within a week.  He left a cousin with her at the hospital and came to get us.

I, Shannon, always get the privilege of riding in the front of the multicab with Elias because in the past I was either pregnant or now have a baby to hold.  This is always a challenge for me as his English is limited and my Tagalog is limited plus he talks to me like I understand everything he says to me in Tagalog!!!  This day we talked about kids and the way it is in North America and the way it is in the Philippines.  We also talked about his soon to arrive baby, a girl they told them.  He asked me again the names of our kids as they still hadn’t picked a name for their little girl.  It was one of my better conversations with him!

We arrived in town without trouble and Elias returned to the waiting shed to pick up all our cargo and bring it to us.  Shortly after he returned with the cargo, Chuck received a text from him saying that while he was gone, the doctors delivered their baby via c-section!

He was the proud father of a little girl.

Then came the honour.  Elias asked if they could give their new little girl the same name as our youngest girl, Jenna Lee!  Oh course we said yes!  What an honour it is.

The next day we were able to go visit the new Jenna Lee!  Here she is.

100_0888100_0890100_0891The two Jenna’s!

Junior

With each new baby being born in our village we get excited to be able to take a little gift from some ladies from Faith Evangelical Missionary Church in Wasaga Beach.  They have sewn many baby quilts and sent baby layettes for the babies in our village.

Here is the latest addition to our village.

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This little guy has a long name, that is Grandfather was proud to tell Chuck but all we can remember now is that they call him Junior!

We look forward to sharing many more baby gifts in the first half of 2011 as many babies are expected to arrive!

Some special ladies

Some of you may not believe me when I say that I don’t easily make friends.  It is hard for me to just get out an get to know people I don’t know.

I have been blessed though with some ways that help make it easier for me.  All of these ladies work for me.  Let me introduce them to you.

This is a young girl named Micah.

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Each morning this last month she spent a couple hours cleaning at Christina’s house and then came to my house for a couple of hours to look after Jenna as I began Ga’dang language study.  Jenna really enjoys spending time with her and Micah really enjoys spending time with Jenna.  The job of being Jenna’s “yaya” (nanny) was one well sought after by many ladies.  Micah gets teased about being Jenna’s yaya often but it is all in fun as those doing the teasing are jealous of her position.

In the New Year Micah will continue to watch Jenna in the mornings as I get more heavily involved in teaching our kids.  We have just been doing a light course load up till this point but we need to get more serious now that we are half way through the school year.

This is Jovilyn.

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Jovilyn has been such a blessing to our family.  She comes each day to do the house work for me.  She sweeps the floors, cleans the bathrooms, washes the walls, cleans Jenna’s toys and cooks us lunch (it is our main meal of the day) along with many other tasks.  I don’t know what I would do without her.  She is 28 yrs old and she and her family live in the house behind ours.  They have 2 children and are expecting their 3rd in April.

This is Amelia.

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Amelia comes 6 days a week, early in the morning to do our laundry.  With 8 of us we manage to make our fair share of dirty clothes.  We don’t have a washer or dryer like many of you have in North America.  We use a twin-tub washing machine.  Clothes are put in one side with water and washed for 15 min.  They they are put in the spinner beside the washing part of the machine.  Then they are rinsed in the basins seen here.  Then they are put back in the spinner and then hung on hangers on the clothes line.  Using the hangers makes it easy to hang the laundry under the house if it is raining or starts to rain or if it is just too cool and damp for the clothes to dry by afternoon.  Amelia then comes back in the afternoon to fold the clothes.  Amelia is just 19 yrs old and the mother of 2 boys.  She is carrying MJ in this picture.

Here is Annalyn.

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Annalyn was helping Amelia do laundry this last month as we had extra people in the house, making more laundry.  Annalyn and Amelia’s husbands are brothers.  They enjoyed working together each day.  Annalyn is the mother of 2 children, a boy and a girl.  Dennis Junior in this picture, is the youngest.

This is Crynalyn.

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She helps Amelia every Monday doing laundry.  She is 20 yrs old and is expecting her second child in May.  This is her son, Nardz.  He is 3 yrs old.

And here is my newest helper, Mildred.

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Mildred has been so kind in helping Christina and I to learn to speak her language, Ga’dang!  She gets to laugh with us and at us many times a day as we forget words and make a mess out of words we are trying to say.  What a gracious lady she is.  She is 24 yrs old and the mother of this little girl named Queen.  She is also Crynalyn's older sister.

All of these wonderful ladies are very eager to make friends with me.  Most days when they are done with the work I have for them they stay around on the porch just to visit with me.  Now that I am learning their language they are eager to see what I know.  Often they say things with a glint in their eyes, waiting to see if I understand them.  They also like to ask me where my nose is or my eyes are!  It is rather funny when I point to the wrong one!

Please pray for all these ladies.  I pray that I can be showing the love of the Lord to them each day.  Pray that His light shines through me.

December Update on Josilyn

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When we came out to Manila in October I was feeling rather discouraged with our attempts to help Josilyn gain so weight.  We left food for her with another neighbour hoping that maybe she would be able to get more food into her.  We had been only able to get very small amounts of food in her.

When we returned we learned that our neighbour did not spend time feeding Josilyn.  This made us sad but we figured we would try to see if anything had changed for her anyway.  Her mother commented that her appetite had increased in the weeks we were away.

We weighed her also and she was amazingly up about 100 grams.

So I mixed some formula in cup with baby cereal and tried her on it again.  She gobbled it up.  Each day I would bring this cup out and either go to her house or her mom would come to our porch.  Sometimes I would feed it to her while her mother pounded rice or her mom would visit with me while feeding her.

To our amazement she was eating more then double what she was in October!!!  And in just 4 weeks she gained 700 grams!!!  She is now 7.1 kg!!!  They are small steps but there is improvement.

The best part of it all was that each day I brought out the cup, she would look at me and then start reaching her hands out to try to get the cup!  What a joy it was to see.

This time we left food with another young lady in the village for her to try to feed her.  She seemed very eager to try to help them out.  We shall see if she was able to feed her in just a couple weeks when we go home.

Thanks for praying for Josilyn.  Please continue to pray for her and her family.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Melagros

Please be praying for this little girl.  She is about 19 months old.  Her family lives just 25 min away from us in a neighbouring village.  She is the youngest of 8 children.  Her mother brought her to see us just the day before we left to come out for Christmas break. 

Her mother says that when she was 5 days old she died.  Then she was alive again!  But she cannot sit, roll over, follow you with her eyes, reach for a toy and so many other things a normal 19 month old can.  She has had a poor appetite for a long time so she weighs just 9 1/2 lbs.

Thankfully we had deworming medicine on hand for the whole family plus formula and baby cereal.  Her mother was very happy to get these things to help her out.  We are seeking advice from a doctor friend here in Manila to see how we can best help her.

Please pray that we would be able to help her to get the right nourishment that she needs and any other help that we can give.  Pray also that we will show the love of the Lord to this family.

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Friday, December 24, 2010

2010 Reflections

Dear Friends and Family,

With Christmas just 1 day away and finally a spare moment to myself to sit at the computer, I figured it was time to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR

I also wanted to take a few moments to reflect back on this last year.  So much has happened and so much of it is hard to explain in words, but I will try.

At the end of 2009 we were looking ahead to a big year in front of us.  We had finished getting much of the building material ready for our house in the the month of December, with hopes that we would have help building our house in the New Year.  In the first week of January it was just going to be Erik and Chuck doing all the building.  With a few days a fellow missionary volunteered his time for a couple weeks to come help.  We also had confirmation that 3 guys would be coming from New Zealand in February.  Within a couple more weeks two more guys from one of our supporting churches had booked tickets to come help build in February also.  Then another missionary that was en route to the Philippines said he would be coming too.  It was so amazing to see the Lord bring all these people together to help us build our house.  By the early part of March our house had a roof and was closed in on three sides!  It was truly amazing to see the work accomplished.  Chuck spent nearly 8 weeks in the village during that time, while the kids and I spent 4 weeks there. 

In mid March we all headed to Manila to await the arrival our baby #6.  During the time we waited for Jenna to arrive, we spent many hours in meetings with our field leadership regarding our team and our co-workers.  By the end of all those meetings it was decided by the Petersons that the Lord would have them move to Manila and be involved in ministry there.  This saddened us very much but we also could see the Lord working in all of us and we know it was what He wanted for us all.

On April 6th, six days early, Jenna Lee Talbot arrived.  She weighed in at 6 lbs 8 oz.  She just had a very little bit of blonde hair.  She was named after my mother, Jennifer, and myself.  My middle name is Lee.  She is a perfect fit to complete our family.  She has been a joy for the whole family.  As her hair gets longer, it gets more and more red.  I just might get my red headed little girl after all!

By the end of April Chuck started to make trips to the village to continue to work on the house.  In mid June we went as a family to the village for the first time since Jenna was born.  This was also the last trip that Jessica, our kids school teacher, would make to the village before returning to Canada to attend Bible School.  We had a good 2 weeks in the village.  The people were very pleased to see Jenna.  It was the end of a 6 month drought in the Philippines so it was very hot and dry in there.

On July 4th Jessica flew back to Canada and just days later a group of 12 people on a UK Summit trip came to help work on the house for almost 2 weeks.  Chuck had a great time with them in the village.  They were able to get a lot of work done on the house.  It got to the point that we were able to move into it.

In August we made the final move into the village, into our house!!!  It was very exciting and very scary at the same time.  There was so much packing to do in order to move and so much unpacking once we got there.  The house had many things not done on it so it was a challenge to get organized.  Plus the school year needed to begin for the 4 older kids.  There was so much to be done but we made it through our first 7 weeks living in the village.

We were encouraged by leadership to take a short break about 7-8 weeks after moving into the village as it can be stressful for the family to be in there for the first time for so long.  So in mid October we came to Manila for a rest plus to get some immunizations for Jenna and a check up for Hala.  After 10 days in Manila we were to head back home with visitors, a family that is in Tagalog language study.  But just days before we were to fly north Typhoon Megi/Juan came right over our village.  It caused much damage to the trees and rice in our area.  We still don’t know exactly to what extent the people suffered lose of rice.  They only plant once a year, thus harvest once a year.  So this crop it supposed to last them till next October.  Many have said they lost up to 75% of their rice.  Typhoon Megi delayed us 2 weeks in our return to the village.  Finally in early November we returned home with our visitors.  We almost didn’t make it as there was heavy flooding in the north.  But we finally did get home.

The Eastons spent a week with us and when they left a single lady came in to visit for a week.  Just days after she left, the Linscotts came in for almost 4 weeks to help work on the house.  What a blessing it was to have all these visitors.  I was able to start language study with our co-worker Christina.  What fun it is to be able to learn to speak their language.

A lot of work has been done on the house this last year.  There is still work to be done but it will be Saturday projects.  Chuck will begin full time language when we return in mid January.  We expect it to take Chuck about 2 years to learn to speak Ga’dang to a level where he is able to translate Bible lessons and teach in their language.  We look forward to that day with great anticipation.

This year Hala turned 11 yrs old in January and is soon to turn 12!  Chuck was next in line with his 35th birthday.  Then came Jenna being born on April 6th.  Eli became a teenager on July 1st, turning 13 yrs old.  Kyle turned 10 yrs old in September and Charlotte was right behind him and turned 8 yrs old.  Sophia had her 3rd birthday in October.  In November I turned 33 yrs old and then we celebrated 15 yrs of marriage.  Where have the years gone to?  We have been so blessed.

This year was filled with so many blessings and a big one was in the gifts that so many of you gave towards the building of our house and the regular support we receive so we can stay and work here with the Ga’dang people.  Thank you so much for your prayers and your giving.

What does 2011 look like for us???

It will be filled with a lot of language learning.  This will be our main focus this year.  Chuck will spend his days learning to speak like they do.  Along with that he will being learning their culture, how they think.  I, Shannon, will be homeschool the 4 older kids and also doing some language study.

We are looking to the Lord this year to bring along some new co-workers to join us in the work of reaching the Ga’dang people.  There are several families in Tagalog language study right now but none will be done until at least the end of 2011.  We are also seeking the Lord to provide a school teacher for the kids sometime this year.  Having someone else teach the kids will free me up to be involved in language study.

Thank you so much for all your prayers for us in 2010.  Please continue to pray for us in 2011.  It is going to be a challenging year.

In Christ,

Chuck and Shannon Talbot

Eli, Hala, Kyle, Charlotte, Sophia, & Jenna

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