New way to travel.

We headed into our village just the other day by a new mode of transportation, or at least it was a new for most of us.

Here we are all loaded up to in the first truck.  We drove for about an hour and then had to transfer to another truck.  The other truck was not able to go into town, just on the back roads in the mountains.

We then loaded into this other truck.  It took quite a bit longer to get into the village then usual as the truck broke down a couple kilometres from the village.  The kids, Christina and Jessica hiked the rest of the way to the village, while Sophia, Chuck and I waited for it to be fixed.

Stay tuned for more updates as we build our house over the next month.

Getting ready for the big build!

We have had a busy 6 weeks with Christmas, our annual field conference and then getting ready for Chuck and soon the kids and I to go into the village.

We enjoyed Christmas together at home with our family and co-workers.  We ate lots of goodies and had some great fellowship together.  The kids even made Gingerbread houses with candies sent all the way from Canada.  Thanks Miss Bobbi for remembering us.

Our annual field conference was a tremendous blessing to us.  The speaker was soooo good.  The kids had a great time with all their friends.  It is amazing how kids just pick up where they left off in their friendships, even if it has been 2 years since they had seen each other!

We returned home safely after some supply buying and doctors appointments in Manila.  We were very tired from all the busyness of those 2 weeks but we are thankful we got everything done.

Chuck, Erik and a fellow missionary Grant, went into the village at the beginning of this week.  They are finishing all the prep that needs to be done to start framing.  Chuck tells me they are getting a lot done.  Praise the Lord!

I also had the pleasure this week of organizing a last minute trip into our village for another missionary and one of our NTMC representatives.  We have known Ed Esau for years and it was a pleasure to give him the opportunity to see the work the Lord is starting amongst the Ga’dang.  They made it in and out of the village in less then 24 hrs and had a great time.

I have also been in communication with a guy we know about him and a friend coming in February to help work on our house.  The plans are still in the works, so please pray that all will work out for them to come.  What an answer to pray this is for us.

If any of you by chance are still interested in coming to help out next month, send me an email asap and we can help you work out the plans to come and help.

The more hands we have, the faster our house will go up and the more work will get done.

I hope to be able to put some posts on the blog while we are in the village, but am not sure how that will go.  So please keep coming by to see the progress we are making on the house.

Thanks for your continued prayers.

Shannon

January Updated House Building Needs List

We want to thank so many of you who have contributed to the building of our house in with the Ga’dang.  What a blessing you have been.  We have updated our needs list so you can have a better idea of what we still need to purchase.  If you are interested in helping out, just send us a note and we can head you in the right direction.

Materials

Corrugated metal roofing-– $1320—We have enough money for this.

20 sheets 1/2” marine plywood-- $510

foam insulation-7 rolls-- $840

4” nails-6 cases-- $135

Gutter-- $90

Spade & drill bits --$120

Utility knives & blades --$30

door knobs– 12-- $360

white caulking- 24 tubes-- $90

3” hinges --$285

Sewage & plumbing supplies-- $480

Hudson’s Floor Urethane-- $720

Laundry faucet--$30

Kitchen sink faucet -- $50

Double kitchen sink-- $240

Toilets, vanity sink & faucet – 2-- $240

Shower stalls -2-- $240

Showers head/hose --$15

Light fixtures, switches, face plates-- $85

Electrical outlets (220/110V) --$15

‘cigarette lighter’ outlets (DC)—$90

Wiring – 12/2, 14/2, 14/3 --$60

Pulleys – 34-- $150

Plywood for interior walls-$480

Sheet metal for window shutters-- $210

Plywood for window shutters --$425

Gas for generator-- $720

Labour- 4 guys for 36 days (6 weeks)—$900

Household
small wood stove
1 large kettle
Stove top percolating coffee pot
Pressure cooker
Cereal containers
8 ct. DC freezer or propane refrigerator- $1200
Gas dryer- $400

Total still needed--$7,870

Plus we need about $10,000 for solar equipment.

Thanks for partnering with us to see the Ga’dang reached with the Gospel.

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!!!