How much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Well, the 2 weeks before Christmas Chuck decided to see how much wood he could chuck, or well, plane down to size for framing!

There was a lot of wood to be sorted, cut to size and planed to the correct thickness.  As we have said before this wood is nothing like wood from Home Depot.  Some of this wood is very very hard and really wears down the blades on the planers and the circular saws.  Due to different circumstances, Erik was not able to make it back in to help Chuck in this process, thus his sharpening stone did not make it into the village either.  Chuck worked every blade he had until they could be used no more.  He was able to hire a neighbour of ours to help with all the work and it was such a blessing.

Here are some pictures of them working on the wood.

What happens after you run over the cord of the hand planer with the hand planer? Re-wiring!

It saves blades if you first clean off the mould and dirt that has become stuck to the wood.

This is the result of about 10 days of work.  Plus there is another pile on the other side of the house that has been ripped to size but still needs to be planed.

For all of you wood enthusiasts, it was almost 2000 board feet of lumber ripped and over 1300 of it planed to thickness.  Approximately 3150 linear feet of wood was planed, and the circular saws (He ran 2 alternately so he wouldn’t burn one out) ran over 5000 linear feet of cutting.  That’s a lot of wood, but we’re not done yet!

Baby Gifts

In those boxes our church sent us, they included several baby quilts and layettes for us to give to new babies in our village.  These warm clothes and quilts seemed so appropriate at this cold time of year here.  With the nights getting anywhere from 15-20C, it is quite cool in their houses at night.  The gifts were very much appreciated.  Thank you to all who contributed to these gifts.

This is Baby Mina Rose.  She is almost 3 months old now.  She was actually born here in town as after 3 hours of pushing she would not come.  The men rushed her on a stretcher to town to have the baby.  She laughs about the baby having such a big head.  The mom is Freda and she is a school teacher in another village.  Her husband is Dennis.  They spend most of their time in the other village but both are from our village and come back often.  They were very happy to receive the gifts.

It is culture here that they won't open the gift in front of the person giving it, so that is why you don't see the baby with the blanket or anything. 

We had a nice visit with this family and their extended family.  We even enjoyed a nice cup of coffee with them.

This is baby Francis Mark.  He is about 6 weeks old.  His mom is a school teacher in our village but is on leave now with just having had the baby.  This is their 5th baby and first boy!!!  Apparently it is the opposite of the dad's family.  They have 4 boys and 1 girl last.

This is Josilyn. She is the baby of our neighbour.  She is baby #6.  She is being carried by her sister, Chona.  She is about 9 years old now.  She carries this baby around a lot.  The baby is almost 3 months old now.  Whenever I talk to the baby I get really nice smiles from her!!!  Her mom is Itang and she speaks no English and limited Tagalog.  She didn't say much when we gave her the bag with the gift in it. 

But about an hour later she came around Christina's house with the baby in her sling, all wrapped up in the new quilt.  She gave me that beautiful smile!!!  I think she was very happy to receive the gift.

You can continue to pray for all these babies but especially for this last family.  The oldest daughter of theirs is 15 years old and married and now pregnant too.  This time we saw even more of the shunning that this family gets in the village.  Pray we can be a blessing and example to the rest of the village and show Christ in how we treat them.  It is very hard sometimes as the kids in this family are not very nice much of the time.  They are mean and rude and don't listen, even though they understand what we tell them. 

Gifts from Home!

Since we came to the Philippines 4 years ago, my good friend Becky has been my Canadian supply buyer.  I send her a list of what we would like, she checks the sales, boxes them all up, takes them to the shipping company in Mississauga and then sends me the bill. 

(She promises to get me some fun rubber boots like that someday!!!)

We can get a lot of things here but some things are very expensive.  Two examples are coffee and peanut butter.  For a 1 kg container they cost about $10 here.  That is about double the price in Canada.  Cereal is another item that is usually about double the price and boy do we eat a lot of cereal.  The kids haven’t grow to like rice and dried fish for breakfast like many Filipino’s!!!  The shipping of these boxes is only $45 and the weight is unlimited.  It takes about 6-8 weeks to get here and are delivered right to our mission office in Manila.  We now have them sent up by bus to our place, which takes another 12 hrs.  We get very excited when we here they have arrived in Manila.

Back in September our church in Wasaga Beach started collecting food items to send to us here in the Philippines.  They filled up a box with food and another with baby quilts and layettes.  We will give these quilts and layettes to the new moms in the village.

Thank you to everyone we sent stuff in these boxes.  We will enjoy every granola bar, chocolate chip cookie and bite of Kraft Dinner.  Thank you to all the hands that prepared the baby quilts and those who put together the layettes.  I am sure the ladies will love these.  I have 3 new moms to give them to later this week when we get in the village.

How can YOU help us???

   We had planned and hoped for a fellow missionary to be able to help with the framing of our house in the New Year but with the hangar needing some work before the helicopter arrives, he will need to spend a lot of time there. So we are asking YOU to pray with us to see some people come to help us get all this work done in January and February. We need skilled framers, other builders and just some general labours. Can YOU come and help us? For 2 weeks or up to 6 weeks? Can YOU pray that the Lord would bring just the right people along to help us? We are unable to have people come to help us from March till June because of Federal Elections in 2010, so January and February are the only months we can have the extra help. We know that we can get a lot done in those 6 weeks with help. Please pray with us in this. If you are interested, please send us an email ASAP so we can get working on the plans for this.

January and February is a beautiful time of year here on Luzon.  The weather is in the mid-20’s and even cools to the upper teens at night.  What a wonderful break from all that cold and snow!!!

YOU can be a part of seeing this foundation become a home!!!

Smile!

When we’re working in the tribe,it’s always nice to be able to sit out on the porch in the evening and visit with people.  They come by to charge their cell phones and flashlights while we’re running the little generator for the lights, etc. inside our house.  Often there are no lack of tribal kids hanging around too.  One of their favourite things is when we get out our cameras and start taking pictures.  They love to look at themselves after the shots are taken. 

 

Bob (a fellow missionary who came to help on our house for a week), Erik and I had a little fun of our own this time around as we were snapping pictures.  They didn’t realise we were in the pictures until we showed them afterwards.  It made for some good laughs.

On a more serious side, we were able to get a lot accomplished this past week:  Christina’s water tank was installed  

The floors in her house were finished being urethaned

We built a bodega (storage shed) under the one corner of our house to put all the supplies and tools as we start working on our house next

We poured a concrete floor in the bodega

As a bonus, we were able to move all the lumber in under the house to keep it dry while we mill it down

In December Erik and I will begin milling my wood to prepare it for building in January.  Please pray that we are able to get it all done without tools, machines, generators etc. breaking down.

By Chuck.

How many girls can we have in one house???!!!

This week I was able to go to Manila to see the OB and do some shopping.  Jessica had planned to go with me but was sick so I went with Christina, who was also sick.  Then I did much of my shopping alone.  Praise the Lord I was able to get everything done.

Monday I went to see the OB and then for an ultrasound.  The technician was very surprised to here that this was my sixth baby, as are most people.  We joked about having 3 of each boys and girls and then she began the scan.  All looked great with the heart and everything else. 

When it came time to look and see if the baby was a girl or boy, this is what we saw.

The lady chuckled and said, “the baby is sitting on its sex organs!!!”  She again continued to look over everything and tried again to look.  But we saw just the same thing.  She showed me how the baby was curled into a ball but that there was more then enough room for it to stretch out.  So I asked if I could poke around, so I did.  I got some good kicks for that.  She then looked again and finally the legs were spread out and as soon as I looked, I knew what we were we having.  The lady said, “you wanted a boy, right?”  I said, “Yes, but that is a girl, right?”  She said, “Yes!”

Wow, what a shocker that was.  I so thought she was a he!!!  But we laugh as every time Chuck and I would talk about the baby, we would end up saying, “she or her!!!”  So I guess our brains already knew what we were having.

On the bright side it is much cheaper to have another little girl.  We have all our stuff from Sophia still.  So we are thankful.

Don’t misunderstand.  We are not sad at all about another little girl.  We love our girls so very much.  Chuck told the boys that now he doesn’t have to change what he calls them. He still has his big boy and his baby boy!!!  Kyle is not so keen on the baby boy title but I think he likes being the youngest boy.

So thank you for your prayers.  Continue to pray for this little girl as she grows inside me.  I will be half way through the pregnancy on Monday.  Wow, it has gone by so fast.

Tribal Treats

Sometimes we tend to forget the simple things God has given us to enjoy eating when we live in a ‘pre-packaged’ society.  Living in the tribe has opened my eyes to some interesting ‘delicacies’ that I would not have otherwise experienced.  Some are very good and delicious, others I will simply say I’ve been there, done that and prefer a Big Mac instead.

One of my favourites is buko, aka fresh coconut.  I even learned how to use a bolo (machete) to open it, once I bought one.  Until then, I had to use my hatchet.  Having said that, I think I’ll always be reliant on getting someone else to cut them down out of the tree for me.  

 

 

When we arrived in the village last time, we decided to ask one of the neighbours about getting some bananas.  We were thinking maybe one stock would be sufficient for our time there.  The next day he showed up with 3 stocks of bananas! I guess he figured we really like them.  We learned to be more specific in what we ask for.

 

 

One of the favourite village past times is to enjoy a cup of local coffee together.  My dad even enjoyed that one.

It is typical here in the Philippines to have some sort of ‘ulam’ (meat) with rice at your meals.  In the tribe, that means not just chicken and pork.  One day, while on the trail our tribal friend killed a cobra.  Needless to say, it didn’t go to waste.  I didn’t end up tasting that one, although I was invited to dinner at his house that night.  I politely passed. Our neighbour, Itang wanted to share her ‘ulam’ with us one day.  It was a nice gesture, and the frog legs didn’t actually taste too bad.  Others advised us not to eat the fresh water shrimp though.  I didn’t complain about it.

 

By Chuck.

Home made toys

Something we saw most of the boys with this time was a home made, bamboo type, spit ball gun!!! They would cut a piece of bamboo just to length to fit inside another piece of bamboo. Then would chew up little pieces of paper and stick it inside and fire!!! We think the boys like it so much because the sound is similar to an air gun.

Soon after Kyle saw his bamboo spit ball gun, another boy made him one. Then just the next day, Kyle came home with another type of toy. This was a bamboo papaya shooter!!!

Here is a video of Kyle in action.

Are we done yet?

The goal for this last trip into the tribe was to finish up on Christina’s house so we can get moving onto milling the wood for our house next.  But, as it so often goes here, things don’t always go as planned.   Kids get sick, tools break, unexpected visitors come by, etc.  For me, it can be a little frustrating when I’m attempting to accomplish something and it just seems like it’s never going to get done if I don’t stop getting interrupted!  Such was the case this time too.  Then the Lord gently reminded me that HE is really the one in control of our time and nothing comes our way to ‘interrupt’ me unless He allows it.  I was also reminded that it would be foolish to think that it would be all easy, because we are in enemy territory.  Satan doesn’t want the Ga’dang people to hear the message of salvation and getting Christina’s house finished puts us one HUGE step in that direction.  Having her house done allows us as a family to stay in the tribe for much longer periods of time as we continue building the rest of our houses.  Pray for me as I hope to be able to finish next week what I couldn’t last time. 

Having said that, we did get a lot accomplished in the last 3 weeks in the village.  I’m very thankful for Erik’s willingness to be away from his family in order to help me, and for the girls’ being able to lend a hand as they were able to.    We were able to build and install a screen door and all the window screens, and seal up the entire house around where the walls meet the roof.  We also built the upper cabinets for the kitchen, urethaned half the floors and finished up some other little jobs as well. 

I could not have gotten that much done without their help.

By Chuck.

All creatures great and small

Here are some of the critters we came across in the tribe.  It’s amazing to see the beauty and detail God put into each one of them.

 

 

 

Eager to Play

The kids are really making Paradi their home.  Each day they would get up, eat breakfast and get ready for the day and then head out the door until they were called to start their school work. 

The last week we were there, the village kids were on school break but our kids needed to continue to do their school work.  It was very hard for our kids to concentrate as they would hear their names being called throughout the morning.  Most days the village kids would stop by to say hi on their way to school themselves. 

Most of the kids in the two neighbouring villages also know our kids by name.  As we hiked out past one of those villages, we heard a little girl call Charlotte’s name.  Then another little girl saw Sophia and said “Hello Sophia!”  This village is about 45 min hike from our village.  Amazing!!!

We hope you enjoy looking at these pictures of our kids playing with the other kids.

 

My theory is that she is teaching them what to do with Duplo, not taking them away from them!!!

 

They had a great time sharing the umbrella.

 

No matter where our kids went, there was always a following of kids.

The night before we left, it seemed that all the village kids came by to visit.  They played in the dark together until it was time for our kids to go to bed.  There were many hugs and sad goodbye’s.

Amazing what can be fun to play with, so long as you have friends to play with you.

Kyle loved riding carabao every day.  His friend Ariel was in charge of moving the family carabao to different locations to graze.  Kyle was thrilled to go along and help.  He says he is even learning the noises to make to get the carabao to do what he wants.

Eli was eager to take pictures of the kids as he hung out with them.  These are just a few he took.