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.

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.

The front porch was added.

 

The front door was built.

Plywood was put up on the walls.

Shutters were made for the kitchen and dining room.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

 

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. 

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!!!

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.

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!!!

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.

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

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.

  Happy 13 th Birthday Elijah!

 

Where credit is due

Particularly on the last two trips into the tribe, I’ve realised that there are several ‘skills’ or ‘tricks of the trade’ I’ve learned from people who have crossed my path in life and been using quite a bit.  Without knowing these things, my tasks could’ve been much more frustrating and time consuming.  So without further ado, let me share four of them that I’ve learned and give the credit where it is due.

First, and foremost, I’d like to give credit to my Dad and oldest brother, Richard.  Ever since I can remember, I’ve enjoyed working with wood.  Taking a piece of rough lumber and creating something useful and/or beautiful with it is something I hope to never tire of.  I used to watch my Dad as he would work on making things in his spare time, and he would take his time putting so much attention and detail into it, so it would turn out just right.  My brother Richard, hired me to work in his wood shop after I finished high school and then off and on through our missionary training.  It was he who taught me how to inspect each piece of lumber, examine the grain and then work the wood with the grain in order to have it come out straight and smooth.  He showed me how to think and plan through the process of creating things I’d never done before and were sometimes unconventional. This has proved to be very valuable as all the lumber we’ve been using for our house comes in a very raw form.  (Just ask my Dad!)  Each piece has to be inspected to figure out the best way to mill it down into lumber that is being used for everything from framing to kitchen cabinets.  Thanks Dad and Richard.

Second, I’d like to recognise a couple of friends from our home church, who I had opportunity to work with at various times in between our phases of missionary training.  Ron and Frank are two men that used to operate custom stair and railing businesses.  It was while working for them that I learned the principles involved in laying out and building a set of stairs and railings.  This has been so helpful to remember as I just built a temporary set of stairs to get up to the front door of our house.  I’m also planning out the stairs for both the porch and inside the house, so it was helpful in knowing how to calculate the length of the stringers by knowing the height of the rise of the stairs and the width of each tread.  Thanks Ron and Frank.

Third, I’d like to say thanks to Robert for showing me how to re-sharpen the blades of the thickness planer.  Robert came with Adam from one of our supporting churches to work on our house back in February.  I had commented to him how it seems to not take very long for the blade to get dull, because the wood we are using is extremely hard.  He proceeded to explain and show me how to use a sharpening stone to simply put the edge back on the blades.  What a difference it made!  We are now able to get much more use out of them before needing to take them to Manila to be sharpened at a machine shop.  Thanks Robert.

Fourth, let me express gratitude to Alistair for showing me a simple, little method of removing stubborn little screws.  Alistair came with the New Zealand guys to help us on the house back in March.  On one occasion he noticed I had the grinder out and I was standing over the thickness planer about to grind a slot into an Allen key screw (used to hold the blades in place).  He showed me how to use a crescent wrench as an extension on the Allen key to give it more leverage.  Amazingly, it worked, and has made a world of difference and saved me a lot of grief since then in changing the planer blades.  Thanks Alistair.

Finally, (I know this actually makes five) I’d like to show great appreciation to Bethel Evangelical Missionary Church in Lion’s Head.  It is because of them that we have been able to repair 2 pumps and replace 2 pumps in our village.  One of the pumps, located near our house, which we were able to replace had been broken for years, and now it has become a main source of water for all the neighbours.  They are thrilled to not have to walk to the other side of the village to fetch water anymore.  So on behalf of all the people in our village, thank you everyone at Bethel EMC!

by Chuck

Rain, rain… Come again another day

The rains are returning to Ga’dang land, for which we are very thankful, as it means our tribal friends have been able to get busy planting.  It was so good to see the green sprouts of corn and rice  in

 

all the fields as we drove along and then hiked into the village.  The river is coming back to life and all the wells are beginning to give water again too.

 

 

This trip into the tribe was a productive one for me as we were able to get a lot accomplished.  There were things to be done in preparation for our next trip as a family as well as getting ready for the U.K. Summit team coming to help us work on the house in July. 

To get ready for our next trip as a family, all of our belongings, which were being stored in one of the rooms at Christina’s house needed to be  moved down into our house.  This meant closing in and securing one of the rooms to do so.  Thankfully I brought a Filipino friend along this time to help me,Lito, as he did most of this for me while I continued on with other jobs.  Lito was a great help to me, both as a ‘kasama’ (companion) and in all the work he did for me, no matter what it was, from moving boxes to cleaning out the water barrel before we hooked it up for water collection.

As some of you have heard, we have been blessed once again with a group of people who are willing to come over and help us get some work done on our house.  This team, mostly from the U.K. will help me in getting the house completely closed in so we can move into it in August, after our annual regional conference.  I have been blessed with a Ga’dang friend, Zaldo, whom I been able to hire and train to use the various tools and machines.  Zaldo has been great as he helps me prepare all the lumber for the next phase of building on the house. 

This time we were also able to replace one of the water pumps as well.   One of our supporting churches agreed to purchase some new pumps to replace the ones that are broken (more on that in the next blog entry).  Nothing like the missionary getting grubby dirty to draw a crowd!  Before installing the new pump we needed to remove the old one, which turned out to be a slimy, mucky job in itself.  But we got it done, and in the end the new pump was on. 

By Chuck