Musings of a Foreigner

Pious Technology

2011-12-26T03:58:00.002-05:00

Dennis surprised me with a new cell phone for Christmas! I wasn't expecting it at all and he came up with the idea all on his own. We are fairly new cell phone owners; we never had any before moving to the Philippines. We had only been here for two days when our friends helped us each get one. It was a steep learning curve at first but since we only purchased the cheapest, most basic model available I managed to figure it out. We quickly discovered that cell phones are not really a luxury here- if you don't have one you could easily get lost amongst the 20 million people in our city or waste lots and lots of time looking for something when you could send one text and be on your way.

Well, this new one has lots of bells and whistles. I spent about an hour last night trying to figure out the new settings. I couldn't figure out how to put the time on a.m. instead of p.m. before I went to bed.

At midnight I awoke to a loud voice next to my ear. Disoriented, I couldn't remember where I was or what this voice could be! Then I realized it was my new cell phone and I managed to push some random buttons to make the thing be quiet.

At 3am the voice startled me awake again. I leaped out of bed and grabbed the phone, trying to shut it off. This time I took it into the bathroom and left it there on the counter lest I hear from it again and mangle it in my surprise.

This morning I took a good look at it trying to figure out what on earth was going on with it. Apparently my phone is Catholic. And likes to pray. So at midnight I was hearing the "Angelus," and at 3am I was hearing the "3 O'Clock Prayer." A very devoted phone, don't you think?

It's just too bad the a.m. and p.m. were so mixed up. I might have been a little more heavenly minded had it happened during the day....

2011-12-17T02:34:00.000-05:00

We are on our Christmas break now and boy, are we ever grateful for the time off. We have some very loose plans for our 4 week break.

- an outing with the girls (or two or three)
- making a craft (or crafts) with the girls
- getting our family picture taken with our 8 1/2 month old "new" addition
- baking some cookies
- catching up on some correspondence
- relaxing and reflecting

An important part of this vacation is giving our brains a little break from Tagalog in hopes that when we go back to it we will be able to absorb more. My brain is like a sponge. I didn't really know that before learning a second language and culture. Hands down this is the most difficult thing I've ever tried to learn. You can't just learn a few facts and regurgitate them at the appropriate time. A language is dynamic; every situation calls for a quick (or not so quick) mental assessment of what is the appropriate utterance at that particular moment. Most of the time I get it wrong.

So, since I'm fairly new at the second language thing I'm finally starting to see some patterns. My brain gets saturated after about 8 weeks or so of study and if I don't get a break then I have a very short attention span and I don't really absorb much of the new info I receive. In fact, it almost seems like I go backwards in comprehension and ability to speak.

Our last break was in August. It was wonderful and after we came back I was so fired up and ready to go. I had sort of hoped to take a break between August and Christmas but with Dennis' trip and Button ending up in the hospital I guess I just decided I couldn't afford to take any more time off. The bottom line is that I needed a break about 8 weeks ago but I didn't take one... should I be surprised that I have the attention span of a bird? No. It is not noble to not take a break.

So, we are happy for this Christmas break and I am going to go wrap a few presents with Winnie right now. Hooray.

Perspective

2011-11-17T22:36:00.000-05:00

It is easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. These past two months have brought me to a place where I am aware that I am in desperate need of perspective. It isn't that there has been tons of big things- it is everything, big and little, that wears me down little by little. I feel like I'm falling. The falling isn't the bad part, it is natural given who I am- frail, weak and needy. The danger is if I fall back onto my own strength or try to figure it out on my own. I need to fall back into the arms of someone who can provide the perspective I need.

Let me see... maybe a short rehash will help me put things into the right places. My apologizes if it seems like "stream of consciousness" writing.

-After a crazy week of preparations and late nights

-my husband takes a long trip with hopes of deciding where we will go after language study, which is cut sort by

-a daughter who falls ill and is hospitalized for 4 days which leads to

-a serious lack of sleep and weariness of body which leads to

-a state of mind that realizes how frail I am and how everything is so intricately balanced in my life.

-Termites, heat, disobedient children, knowing that it is a special holiday season back home that I'm missing, getting behind on correspondence, not getting my hours in of study, struggling to say very basic things in Tagalog that I learned a least a year ago- each incident feels like it carries more weight than it actually does.

-After this I unwittingly get myself involved in a couple of big cultural no-no's and that gets me to wondering about

-what the grander purpose is of all of this and throws me back onto

-What am I doing? Why am I here again? And that reminds me that maybe I'm asking the wrong questions. Maybe I should be asking...

-Who called me here? Who made me and knows that I am but dust? What is He capable of? Has He ever used failures before? Is He able to take a tired, worn out, blundering fool who dishonors Him in thought and action and use her for something great?

The Scoop

2011-10-14T00:27:00.000-05:00

Wow, so sometimes something has to move aside for other things and this time it was the blog. But things are going pretty well here. Dennis and I are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel in language learning. It is pretty great to know that all this work is paying off. We are able to communicate now in Tagalog although still at a very low level. Maybe like a 4-5 year old? I don't know. Anyway, it is still exciting and we are just so thankful for God's goodness to us in helping us get this far.

Today we had a little goodbye party for a few of the other students who are moving on to their next areas of work soon. One couple will be supply buying and maintaining the guest house in a smaller city up north for other missionaries in remote locations for the next few months, and the other couple are involved in the aviation program.

Another exciting thing was when I realized as I looked around the room that Dennis and I and one other classmate are hopefully the next people who will be finishing up! Maybe the next party will be ours!?! Woo hoo!

Dennis is going on a trip up north next week with a few other guys to check out a possible area for us to work in after we learn Tagalog. I'll try to post about that soon.

Oh, be careful little tongue what you say...

2011-08-30T19:46:00.000-05:00

For the past year I've happily been calling this

a 'plastik' which is just a Tagalog-ized English word, obviously. It seems to be the most common term used here. So, surely you can sense my excitement at discovering after another full year here that there is a real Tagalog word for it after all! I stumbled upon it during one of my language helping sessions. I happily started trying it out in a few difference contexts so that it would become part of my vocabulary.

Imagine my surprise when someone quietly told me that I should probably be careful- if the wrong syllable is stressed the word actually means "uncercomsized male."*

I apologize to my sensitive readers but honestly, what a funny mistake!

*word intentionally misspelled so as not to attract unwanted traffic to my blog.

Drawing with Winnie and Button

2011-07-24T22:28:00.000-05:00

Me: What are you drawing, Winnie, a T.V.?
Winnie: No. They aren't the same, Mommy.
She draws two examples on the whiteboard. One has a big screen that fills the whole box.
Winnie: Here's the T.V.
The second drawing has a tiny little box screen atop two dials.
Winnie: THAT's a television, Mommy.

Then Button explains how it is done.
Button: See, Mommy, first you draw a foreshortened square, like this.
I looked at her with a funny look on my face.
Me: A what??
Button: A foreshortened square!
She rhymes it off like everyone and their dog should know such a common word.

Sadly, Winnie swiped the board with that eraser you see in her hand just as I was going to take the picture. But you can still see Button's version of the "television" along with a table Winnie drew with a plate on it. If you look closely you will see a banana on the plate.

The book the girls are using for their drawing lessons is in the picture, given to us as a resource by a friend here.

Churches

2011-07-21T16:48:00.000-05:00

One of the things I often tried to imagine before we moved here was what church here would look like. I didn't even know what city life looked like let alone what churches were like here, but I tried to imagine it anyway. I think in my mind's eye I imagined a small group sitting in a circle or something. I don't know.

Our first Sunday in the Philippines we visited a church called Christ's Commission Fellowship, or CCF. They told us it was big. It was big. Super big. It actually reminded me very much of the big churches back in Canada or the US, complete with something like 6 services on Sunday, small groups, a lively children's program and excellent music. The pastor delivered a wonderful and convicting sermon in English and we thoroughly enjoyed the air conditioning.

CCF

We wanted to visit some different places so we soon went to a small place located only about 5 minutes from our house. It was small, around 50 people or so, one service before and after which there was much chatting and goings on, (by the way, can you tell I've been reading Robinson Crusoe which was written in the 1700's and now my conversational English is suffering for it), a homespun band with heartfelt singing and a sermon in Taglish, which is a combination of Tagalog and English that is commonly spoken around here. The people were so friendly and we loved it right away. However, since there were already two foreign families attending there we were advised that perhaps three families would affect the church's ability to minister to their own Filipino congregation because of its small size.

Then we visited yet another church. This time even the name of the church was in Tagalog, Kapatirang Kristiano sa San Juan or KKSJ for short. Friends of ours who are seasoned missionaries drove us there our first Sunday as it is located about 10-15 minutes from our place by car and off the beaten path of public transportation. We were welcomed there right away and we decided to attend there regularly.
The congregation numbers around (there's that old-English influence again, oh brother) 200 people, so it is quite a bit larger than the small one we had visited before.

The language spoken there is less Taglish and more straight Tagalog, although there was enough English mixed in that we were able to understand some things even at the beginning. The church is brethren in origin, so their meeting is patterned after that. They have three services on Sunday morning: first an adult Bible study, then a communion service, and finally the preaching service. We usually are able to attend the last two.

Right before I had the baby our family was asked to sing...

and one verse was even in Tagalog :)

We've really enjoyed attending there and although at the beginning it was a little hard to communicate we have started building friendships there. If you think of it, you can pray that our friendships will deepen because as those of you with small children know, Sundays are hard for little kids and their parents.

Squeaky attended DVBS at our church... completely in Tagalog!

The songs that they sing are a mixture of Tagalog and English. They have a whole hymn book there with traditional hymns translated into Tagalog which they sing to the tunes we are used to. They also have a song book that has more modern worship songs in English. Along with that they also use power point to display the words of the songs they sing and display the outline of the sermon. The sermon is always delivered in Tagalog, which is great for Dennis and I and our language studies.

Sometimes the girls get to sing on stage with their class

The older girls have a little Sunday school class that they go to. At first everything was in Tagalog and they mostly just played around and were shy. Then some people got together and decided to offer an English Sunday school for our kids along with several other children who either know or want to improve their English. So that has been super great for the girls and they enjoy going there now.

The little girl whispering to her friend in the picture on the right is the same age as Button. She and Button get along beautifully and each have said to their parents that they wish they could understand each other better. It is so sweet.

Blog Catch-up and Little Fish

2011-07-19T08:23:00.001-05:00

Wow, it has been a long time since I last blogged. Mostly my excuse is that we have been quite occupied with the business of living and learning a second language. Things are coming along, but my brain is so befuddled that even as I am writing this I am imagining the ways I could say it in Tagalog.

Over here Filipinos have a saying when they hear too much English. "May nosebleed ako," they say, which surprisingly means, "I have a nosebleed." In other words listening to too much English is overwhelming. They find it funny when I say, "May nosebleed ako" in reference to Tagalog. Sometimes I have tried to say that my brain is fried but it really doesn't translate too well... Nothing quite like trying to explain an English idiom in Tagalog to someone who doesn't really understand English.

Last week Dennis had a little culture event with his language helper. They decided to make rice and toyo, a small, extremely salty fish that they fry up and eat on top of rice for breakfast or sometimes other meals. Our whole family tried it for a snack.

It was oddly addicting, sort-of like super salty chips. First we popped off the head and scraped the skin off. Then we pulled the meat apart into small pieces and used our hands to pack some rice together with the fish and popped it into our mouths.

The kids were skeptical at first. Squeaky had a look on her face that said, "You've got to be kidding me," but to her credit she didn't say a word and even told us afterward that she actually liked it a little bit. Button didn't say anything, but after politely trying it she left most of it on her plate. Winnie gobbled the whole thing up and played with the fish heads like they were little toys talking to each other.

Ok, I really would like to blog more frequently but sometimes I can't think of anything interesting to write about. Isn't it ironic that two years ago I would have given an arm and a leg for some insightful information on the culture over here and now sometimes when I sit down to write I can't even think of anything that is out of the ordinary. Funny how that works. If there is anything you'd like to hear about, dear reader (if you do indeed exist), just let me know and I will try to blog about it. :D

One Hot Day

2011-06-19T22:33:00.000-05:00

June 19, 2011 was Father's Day and would have been my parent's 40th wedding anniversary.

My mom, Pat Van Essen, is my guest blogger today.

It is nearly 2:00pm and I think I should get started on this story. Valerie, with her techno-saavy ability, has said she will get it somewhere so that others can read it. She has always been a delightful little girl and I am thankful that she joined our family, even if she was the last. From here, I must back up.

This story began 40 years ago now with the wedding ceremony of John and me. Geneva Collins, playing the organ on the patio in my folk's backyard in Des Moines, Iowa gives the signal. Most of the guests are seated. The chairs closer to the "front" were the hot seats. Normally, the metal folding chairs would have been much preferred over the wooden ones at the back, but after sitting 4 or so hours in the sun, they were tried by the guests who would then move back. In 1971, mini-skirts were in style, so from my vantage point behind sheers of the dining room window, I observed some younger ladies sitting down and rising very quickly from the hot seats. Mind you, this was not a practical joke. About the only comment on the weather at this point was that it was 98 degrees hot! If you were there, thank you for coming.

I walked out my on my Dad's arm. The picture in my album shows me with a big smile and him more somber. I must tell you that a couple of years previous to this, he jokingly would say that he should put a ladder up to my window. He may have been afraid that I would live under his roof indefinitely. At 22 years of age, I had never dated. But I digress a bit. The Lord brought John into my life when I was 22. It was a very bittersweet story. He had "lost" his Dad in 1970 and we had met his mom through her months of coming to see her husband at the VA Hospital in Des Moines. John and I actually met at the Tulip Festival that spring. We were engaged in November. "Uncle Sam" laid claim to him a few days later. He left a month later, and our courtship was through letters, phone calls (he would have to stand in line hours at a pay phone on Sunday afternoons to get a chance to call me) and 2 visits that his mother Rose and I made by driving down to Ft. Leonard Wood, MO. One time he was very ill and ended up in the hospital with pneumonia for 2 weeks. I was doing my first year of teaching in Altoona, IA. I was teaching 6th grade. Between the testy-sixth graders who were "out of there" so to speak, and a teacher anxiously awaiting a wedding, it made for an interesting spring semester.

We chose to get married at the end of his first week on leave, so we could have a honeymoon the last week. There wasn't too much wiggle room as far as choosing a date. The players on this hot day were John (22 years), Pat (23 years), Mark--the best man (not counting John :), Jean Zimmermann--my "bestest" sister and matron of honor. My Mom and Dad of course, and Rose, John's mom.

My brothers Jim and John did some important things!?! Jim gave me some encouragement and advice the night before. Preachers: John Elliott, from Springfield, MO married us, and Milo Vande Krol and Joe Balsan both prayed. (long prayers). Harris Van Essen, a cousin of John's sang. We had a congregational hymn as well. Other aunts, cousins, friends helped us too.

After a long message, we pledged our vows. Now as soon-to-be newly weds we took these very seriously. When we vowed to love, cherish, honor... for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part, there was no question in either of our minds that we meant exactly that. Our times together before that day were not spent on lots of entertainment, though we had done some of that, but mostly taking long walks and having long talks. We had very similar backgrounds, loved the Lord, and had similar dreams. We did have quite different personalities. Those made for an interesting marriage.

Getting on with the story. There were about 120 people who suffered through the long, hot ceremony. "Love suffers long and is kind." Our refreshments were typical of that era. Our cake was significantly unique. We had petit fours arranged on glass layers with a small cake on top. It was topped with small yellow roses. My colors were yellow and white. John discovered that many years later while browsing through our wedding album. Jean so thoughtfully made "dainties" to go along with the cake, ice cream, nuts and mints. Guests went in my Dad's office door, through the dining room and out the kitchen door--both to the patio.

The gifts had been opened by someone who put them all out on display on the ping-pong table in the yard. Such displays were most common. The wind picked up a card and blew it into the neighbor's yard. Poor Rose spent most of the reception time hunting for that while the rest of us were eating and chatting. We didn't know about that until later. After awhile, we got ready and left in my (our) 1970 Cutlass that was "hidden" in the neighbor's garage. John would not tolerate any foolishness concerning the decorating of the car. I had purchased the car new the summer before. I wasn't engaged at that time, and my Dad had thought that as a teacher and perchance to be "an old maid" I should get something new instead of used. Now, forty years later, I think it would be safe and interesting to say that I paid $3,000 for the car. I was making $7,000 as a first year teacher and paying Dad off $100. /month. You can do the figuring, but John was a man of integrity and he paid my Dad off for the rest of the debt so we could go into our marriage debt free. That was the way he liked to live life.

The drama splits here. John and I drove to Albia, IA for the first 2 nights, and then we went to Lake of the Ozarks to a cabin which had been rented out to some newlywed Van Essen's from MN, the week before. We continued to add to our wedding day sunburn that week.

The ones left at 4005 Plainview Dr. (my folks' house) were forced to put on the speed, because a thunderstorm came up about 5:00 pm and the organ, gifts, chairs, tables, etc. had to get taken inside.

John left to go to Ft. George G. Meade at the end of our honeymoon. I stayed with my folk's a month. He had to look for a place for us to live since Ft. Meade was the place of his new assingnment as a Chaplain's assistant. The first two weeks, I had somewhat of a pity party. Then I realized that I wouldn't be seeing my family in Iowa for a long time and decided to enjoy being with them. I finally got the call from John that he'd found a brand new apartment in Low cost housing near the Meade base. Does anyone remember those?. Anyway, we packed all my earthly possessions into a small U-Haul (life was simpler) and Jim drove me out to Ft. Meade. We met John at the chapel on post and we went to move into our apartment.

That was a wonderful beginning. We were there a little over a year. That was the Viet Nam War era, so things were not necessarily stable. We had the Lord. We had each other. We had wonderful Christian fellowship in Silver Spring, MD assembly. AND in May of 1972, we had David. He brought a whole new dimension to our lives. At 2 months he went with us on our first vacation. It was a 2 day trip to the Smokey Mountains.

John was discharged after 21 months, so we came back to Iowa where he found work in Ottumwa. He was a service repair person for Burrough's Corp. and later was the boiler room operator for Hormel and Co. We lived in Ottumwa, IA from 1972 to 1982. Our other children, Matthew, Daniel and Valerie, were born there. Daniel lived 5 days and is buried in Shaul Cemetery there. We have great comfort knowing that he is with the Lord, and one day we'll be with him too.

My Dad approached John about taking over his half of the Harry Ferris Co. business. My dad and brother Jim owned this business. They were sales representatives for several companies. All the stuff they sold was highly technical. In other words, if I had a hard time getting to sleep, I could just ask John about something like that, how it works, etc. and I would be asleep in no time. John agreed to get into the business so my dad could retire, and in 1982 the Lord led us to move to Lincoln, NE where we would be more centrally located to where John would be selling. It was very hard for me to leave Ottumwa, my friends, etc. I would say it took a full year for me to feel like I was "coming home" when I pulled into our driveway here. Now that Lincoln has been home for 29 years, it is hard to imagine it differently.

They kids grew up SO FAST!!!! All those little things, little decisions, little arguments, they just go by SO FAST!!! John and I prayed that each of the kids would find godly spouses if that was in His will. David went to college at UNL then went to TN where he found his wonderful Southern Belle. Desiree is a wonderful wife for him. They have tall-Bailey, red carpet-Ben and sing-along and rhyme with Abby. Living in TX now, they give everyone who visits them a warm welcome.

Matthew went to UNL and then to Emmaus Bible School for a year. He taught elementary school in Lincoln, then went up to Kawartha Lakes Bible (bridal) School to find his bride from half a world around. After marrying up in Canada, they came to live in NE. I can't say enough about how blessed I am to be a grandma to Caleb, Timothy, David, Lilias, Linia, Nehemia, Miriam, and Jeremiah. They're Gr8!! Sarah is one busy and loving wife and mother. She is my on-site (Lincoln) daughter.

Valerie informed John and me that when she grew up, she "didn't want to live with us, but just aways down the road." We took her the first "ways down the road". That was to Peterborough, ON. I think she sung her way into Dennis' heart and they were married up there, had 3 of their darling girls: Lael, Aria and Quinn. and then one day last year...they went to be missionaries in the Philippines. Thank you, Lord. This spring, they had another daughter, Cambree.

Well, back to the vow..."in sickness and in health". John and I had many, many years of joys in good health. He was a very intelligent man. He was a good father and very loving husband. He loved the Lord Jesus Christ. He taught the word in our home not only by reading, but by living it. I will abbreviate the last six years we had together. After having diabetes for 20 years, things deteriorated. He first went blind, then the kidneys declined and finally the heart. He taught me a whole lot as I watched his losses. The Lord taught me even more--His sufficiency and faithfulness. We had 6 years with many visits from family, since we couldn't go far, a couple of trips by ourselves early on, and continual support from our children and friends. My underlying comment concerning John during those 6 years is that he never complained. I don't remember him having any pity party that I was aware of. He got to "see" (meet) 12 of our now 15 grandchildren.

John went to be with the Lord, April 6, 2008. "...'til death do us part'..."

Life goes on and I daily see God's faithfulness to me as a widow that I never would have dreamed. There are quiet and lonely times, but there are joyful times and times of new opportunities. I want to be doing the Lord's will as I watch and wait for His return.

Funny how "One Hot Day" just led to so many more. I just want to say how much the Lord has blessed me. First in my salvation: "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift." And then in His promises: "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

The Saga of the Glasses

2011-06-16T09:53:00.000-05:00

Some of you may be wondering what's up with Winnie's eyes. After all, it isn't too often you see a tiny girl sporting some specs.

It all began in February when my mom noticed Winnie's eye crossing in some pictures I had put up on facebook. I had never noticed it. I started looking back through pictures and sure enough, it did look like her eye was crossing a little.

I had no clue about crossing eyes but I made an appointment at an eye clinic near us. Sure enough, the doctor noticed it too and also discovered that Winnie wasn't really using her weak eye to see. It was as if her brain just turned that eye off since it was only delivering a confusing double vision picture of everything she looked at. She also is farsighted, which is not uncommon in small children. The doctor wrote the conditions on a slip of paper for me to take home:

1. Esotropia- Accommodative esotropia

2. Amblyopia, or lazy eye

I walked out of the office with a prescription for eye glasses for my little 3 year old and a sinking feeling in my heart. I hadn't gone in thinking that she'd have to wear glasses. I don't really know what I had been thinking, but I suppose I had anticipated something along the lines of, "Oh, she'll just outgrow that. It's no big deal." But here I was, looking for glasses for my little girl and it really was a big deal.

The prices were what I considered to be outrageous at the first store we visited. They had a very nice pair of Swissflex glasses with 'C' ear pieces that hook around the child's ear to keep the glasses on. They are also designed to be virtually unbreakable. Pshhh. No way was I going to fork over North American prices when Dennis had been able to purchase a pair of glasses for himself for about $65. So I looked around at all the other stores at that mall and finally found a cute little pair of yellow glasses that cost what I was willing to pay. I bought them and they were ready to pick up the very next day.

They were so cute on her but I couldn't help thinking as we walked through the mall that my cute little girl's face was now covered up by an ugly pair of glasses. I felt like all people could see were those glasses. It was all I could see.

The very first Sunday she wore her glasses to church someone stepped on them. They got scratched and slightly bent. That next week they started slipping down her nose. I started nagging her to push her glasses up. She'd look at me over the top of them.

I took her in to get the glasses adjusted. It took a long time and they still didn't stay on her nose. A few weeks later I took them to a different place, not the place where we had purchased them. They took forever and a day and finally told me, "Ma'am, these glasses aren't made of the right plastic for adjusting." I quietly left the store but was so frustrated that someone on this earth would even make a pair of glasses out of plastic that wasn't good for adjusting. But it was true. The glasses were no better. They slipped, I nagged.

A month later, in March, we visited the doctor again. The doctor said that usually there is noticeable improvement in as many weeks as the child is old. But after 4 weeks there was no improvement and she prescribed a patch for my daughter to wear two hours each day. Now not only did my little girl have an ugly pair of glasses but she also had to wear a big patch part of the time. At least that is what I thought until one day I was walking through the mall and a girl about 8 or 9 years old ran past me. As she passed she looked up at me with one good eye; the other eye pointing in a different direction. She wasn't wearing glasses. I felt so badly for her and was resolved to get over my pity party about Winnie.

At her appointment in April there wasn't any more improvement. In fact, her eyes seemed to be getting worse. Her weak eye was still not being used even with the glasses on. The doctor gave us a stronger prescription and told us to continue the patching each day. She talked about the next step being surgery to tighten the muscles around Winnie's weak eye.

We went in and got a different pair of glasses for Winnie. By this time I had done tons of research on the best frames for kids and knew what I wanted. I also knew by this time that the yellow pair were completely huge on Winnie and didn't fit her properly at all. Somehow in their eagerness to make a sale none of the salespeople informed me, the naive mother, that the glasses I was picking out for my little girl were nearly 10 sizes too large.

It seemed like none of the stores carried the brands that I had researched. I looked all over the place and visited so many stores I lost count. I was frustrated and finally settled on a little wire pair from a place very close to our house- an ideal place for the inevitable adjustments.

Within a few weeks of getting her new pair of glasses they were met with an unfortunate incident involving a metal swivel stool, a flight of wooden stairs and a sister. They were unrecognizable. Twisted, missing lenses and screws. I nearly lost it. I spoke quietly to said child and waited for Dennis to get home to meet out the judgment.

We put Winnie back in the large, slippery yellow glasses and laid the shards of the "new" pair on my desk, preparing them for burial. Dennis decided to take them in to the glasses store for the final verdict. Who knew that frames damaged that badly could be repaired? I didn't. Dennis returned triumphantly with an intact set of glasses.

A day later they were in pieces again. Apparently their tragic fall down the stairs had stripped the little screw completely. We tried unsuccessfully to put them back together but once again the slippery yellow frames came out and the shards of the metal pair lay on my desk. Dennis took them in again and discovered that they make teeny, tiny little nuts just for this sort of occasion.

The metal glasses have since stayed together but now they too slip down her nose. Oh. my.

Recently we visited the eye doctor again and this time Winnie's eyes are finally showing slight improvement. We were thrilled.

Our childrens' doctor suggested we take the older two girls in to get their eyes checked, too. Perhaps you will not be suprised to hear that when we discovered Squeaky needs to wear glasses for farsightedness, astigmatism and a slight lazy eye, I marched right into that very first store I had visited back when all of this began and ordered the fancy-shmancy pair. Yes, I did.

Not Exactly What I Meant... (take 2)

2011-06-04T00:54:00.003-05:00

Language Helping

Here is a glimpse into my language helping session recently. First I told this story to my language helper in Tagalog. Then she repeated it back to me, sentence by sentence, with corrections and I recorded that. I put the story into my listening collection so I'm able to listen to it over and over. (Earlier I also had her record her version of the story which includes more advanced Tagalog for me to listen to.)

But just for fun, I decided to put my story (in correct and very simple Tagalog) into Google translate to see what it thinks I said. The story you see below is the translator's final product. I don't think I'd use Google translate for anything too important! ;)

I also drew pictures of this "culture event" so that I could use them to learn the Tagalog nouns, verbs and other phrases that are associated with taking someone to the doctor.

Helping language session on us, we go by the guesthouse to pick Quinnie We Ate Beth. Then we rode the FX. We cross across the street and there we rode the FX onto the Megamol. But before we come down we have Megamol St. Francis Square and kinarga Ate Beth was pregnant because I Quinnie.

Then we walked over to Megamol Clinica Manila. And there I signed informatiyon concerning Quinnie. We waited there for the doctor's chair. But the doctor came there long. So, Ate Beth returned to school because she has class.

So, I Quinnie and just waited there. The doctor looks at the wounds of Quinnie and he prescribes medication for his wounds. Then, we bought prescription drugstore. And then we buy the prescription the doctor we go inside Megamol.

But, tired with so complaining that he Quinnie. So, we went and we tricyle and get home, we rested because we are tired.

This is the real translation of the story I told:

Awhile ago when we had our language session, Quinnie and I went to the guest house to fetch Ate Beth. After that we took an FX. We crossed to the other side of the road and there we took an FX going to Mega Mall. But before we arrived at Mega Mall we got off the FX at St. Francis Square and Ate Beth carried Quinnie because I was pregnant.

After that we walked inside Mega Mall to Clinica Manila. And there I registered Quinnie's information. We waited there on the chairs for the doctor, but it took a long time for the doctor to arrive. So Ate Beth returned to the school because she had class.

So it was only Quinn and I waiting there. The doctor looked at Quinnie's wounds and prescribed medicine for her sores. After that we bought her prescription at the drugstore. After we bought the doctor's prescription we walked around inside of Mega Mall.

But Quinnie was very tired so she complained. So we took a taxi and went home. When we went home we rested because we were very tired.

Munch, Munch

2011-05-28T08:13:00.006-05:00

This evening I made a discovery. It began with a small pile of reading material that we had in our bathroom. Oh, come on. Don't tell me you've never done that.

So, I was getting the little baby bathtub ready and went to fill it with a little water from the tap in the tub. I noticed our pile of books sitting there and decided that I really didn't want them to get wet, so I moved them an inch or two.

As I moved them I noticed something dark and weird behind it. I nudged the books over a little more and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw hundreds of tiny larvae wiggling between the books and the wall of the tub! They were happily ensconced in a layer of dark brown stuff reminiscent of other things you might find in a bathroom.

So, that discovery taught me a thing or two, or three.

1. Termites will eat books and paper.

2. It is very gross.

3. Dennis will go to great lengths to save a beloved baseball magazine.
The End.

For Mother's Day

2011-05-06T01:58:00.003-05:00

I love my Mom. There are so many great things about her, but I'd like to highlight a few in honor of her on Mother's Day.

1. My mom is a teacher by profession. She taught full time for only one year before she was married, but she has spent her whole life since then working with kids. She is a true teacher in the sense that there has never been a time that she hasn't been teaching in some capacity, whether it be Sunday School, outreaches, substitute teaching at the Christian school, tutoring for English as a second language students or helping out with her homeschooled grandchildren.
My mother often complains to me that she feels she doesn't have any creativity when it comes to home decorating. Her perceived lack of ability in that arena is more than compensated by her creativity with children. She is always coming up with fun activities, games and crafts. If you need a cardboard elephant complete with cloth trunk, cloth patch matching game, water-color painting books, Easter egg object lesson, counting toys or really any other supply you can think of you need look no farther than her stash. There is something for everyone in there.

2. My mom has a servant's heart. I loved having my mom visit when we still lived in Canada for a number of reasons, but one great perk was that when she came my house was immaculate. She effortlessly put meals on the table, kept the dirty dishes out of the sink and the floors clean all while humming a merry little tune. How does she do that?

My mom has always had a soft spot in her heart for the elderly and disabled. While growing up I accompanied her on many visits to friends living in nursing homes or who were shut-ins. We would often bring a treat for them to eat or sing hymns and pray for them.

In 2002 my father's health began to decline and my mother became his full time care giver for 5 years until he passed away. What a precious example she was to me as she sacrificed her freedom to care for him. What a wonderful gift for my dad to have her by his side.

3. My mom has an eternal perspective. She is fearless when it comes to telling others about Jesus and what He did for them on the cross. Her example has taught me a lot about what a true love for others looks like- it manifests itself in a concern for a person's well-being in body and soul. My mom prays a lot. By God's grace the spiritual discipline of prayer has been honed in her life so that the first place she turns is to the Lord. I'm sure it hasn't always been that way, but she's been cultivating that field for a long time. I remember seeing her kneeling by her bed in prayer many times when I was young, and then as her knees starting hurting she moved her daily prayer times to a chair in the living room. It reminds me of that story about Susanna Wesley who with some nineteen children still had daily prayer times in the privacy of her apron thrown up over her head. My mom didn't have to deal with nineteen kids, but her youngest was quite the rambuntious loud-mouth! I love you, Mom! I hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day and realize that there is someone all the way across the world who appreciates you very, very much.

Love, Valerie

Gone

2011-04-29T08:27:00.003-05:00

Now who has more hair? Or perhaps she had more hair to begin with? This change has been five years in the making, but even so I spent several minutes scraping my jaw off the ground when Dennis came home today.

Not Real

2011-04-25T07:37:00.004-05:00

Every once in awhile I am freshly reminded that we are not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
Here's a little story that made me realize again how different cultures see things differently.

We interact with our neighbors daily as we come and go from our house. It all seems fairly normal with a lot of smiling at each other and saying hi and sometimes we try out our Tagalog with them.

Our helper, Rona, loves the baby and likes to take her out in front of our house sometimes in the evenings. But recently Rona told me that the neighbors had been asking her questions about the baby.

Apparently there had been some discussion on the matter and finally the neighbors asked Rona in all seriousness if our baby ever cries. After all she looks just like a doll, they said.

The Secret

2011-04-04T01:17:00.005-05:00

Last Sunday the baby and I stayed home and the rest of the clan went to church. They ran into a friend there who was delighted to hear all about their new sister.

The girls talked and talked, but Winnie had one concern that she whispered into her Aunt Bee's ear: "We won't tell him about her belly button thing, will we?!?!"

One, two, three... no, four times blessed!

2011-04-03T23:02:00.011-05:00

One thing we've made very clear to our daughters is that each of them is a precious gift from God, a blessing directly from Him. The older two are especially fond of reminding me, "Mommy! You've been blessed THREE times!!!"

Well, we are thrilled to announce that now we've been blessed FOUR times!

Cambree Joy Easton entered the world on Friday, March 25, 2011 at 5:16pm.

We've had so much fun gazing at this fresh face created so beautifully by God. We are so very thankful for her health and strength after a rather tumultuous pregnancy. She is delightful and sweet.

Shoeless in Manila

2011-02-14T21:26:00.005-05:00

This morning I headed out for language helping. I was meeting my teacher at a nearby Jollibee (sort of like a Pilipino McDonald's) for breakfast and then I had planned to go with her to the palengke (market).

I hopped on a jeepney (that, by the way, didn't slow down enough for me to get on without lurching, grr) and got off near the Jollibee. I don't think that particular street corner sees many foreigners because I found myself the center of attention. This is fairly normal and not at all shocking or embarrassing unless... you are like me and somehow manage to trip in front of the crowd on the uneven sidewalk, breaking your flip flop right off your foot. At eight months pregnant. In a bright red shirt. Yes, I think I would stare too.
I aligned the broken sandal with the sole of my foot and shuffled over to the side of a building. Leaning there casually I tried to act like this happens to me everyday. What to do?! Stores here don't open until 10am and this was before 8am. I texted my language helper/knightess in shining armor and asked her to come across the street and meet me. She came, but now there were two of us who didn't know what to do. Finally I mentally calculated the risk of infection ("do I have open sores on my foot? No.") and took the broken shoe off to cross the streets to go to the restaurant. It is amazing how much more aware I was of the little piles of spit, loogies and various trickling streams of liquid of unknown and sketchy origin when barefoot.

We made it to the restaurant and I put my cheeriest smile on to distract the guard at the door from my bare foot. I was afraid he wouldn't allow me inside without shoes!

Beth (my language helper) rescued me by ordering breakfast and making a quick run down to the palengke to buy me a new pair of flip flops. :) I had her record the whole story in Tagalog for my continued listening pleasure over the next year or so.

After I was happily shod we both went back to the palengke where I bought a little baby bed and grass banig mat for about $4. We have a playpen but I was wanting something smaller I could move around from room to room when the baby is tiny and napping. I'm so happy about this little "duyan," or baby hammock. It will do the trick and makes me feel like this baby is definitely entering a different culture than Canada. And that is great, because it reminds me of the mix of culture that now defines our lives.

(Disclaimer: I'm sure this wouldn't pass safety standards in Canada or the U.S. I shall take necessary precautions, don't fear. However, most baby things sold in Canada and the U.S. eventually don't pass safety standards either, right? I'm pretty sure I won't find this basket on a recall list.)

This is the Stuff

2011-02-10T20:15:00.004-05:00

What has been driving me crazy?

-a leaky pull-up in the middle of the night

-a family of homeless people looking for food in the dumpster

-a jeepney that doesn't slow down for the 8th month pregnant woman to get on safely

-weather that is heating up and making me sweat constantly

-trying to say in Tagalog, "It is hot" and saying "It is little" instead- and the confused look I get

-two dirty little kids with dark eyes and reaching hands and somehow I decide it is better to look the other way (Lord, forgive me for my hard heart!)

This is my little mess. This is what I have to trust God with today.

A Pleasant Surprise

2011-02-08T22:23:00.003-05:00

This morning I set out on a mission to pay a bill. This was my first time paying and I wasn't sure how to do it. I went first to a nearby supermarket to a payment center but they couldn't accept payment for this particular bill there. So I asked where I should go and they mentioned a payment center in a mall not too far from here. But with public transportation it would have taken me about two hours to pay at that location. The guy in front of me in line was still standing there and offered another solution- there was an office nearby that he thought could take the payment.

I walked over to the office with my umbrella up. No, it wasn't raining- using an umbrella as a sunshade is a common way to combat sunburn and heat exhaustion here. Things have been fairly warm this past week as we get closer to hot season.

When I arrived at the office I found the line for the teller. There were at least 35 people ahead of me and I have heard lots and lots of stories here about people waiting for hours to pay bills. I resigned myself to my punishment because I knew I had left this bill payment to the last minute.

A guard came over and asked me if I was waiting for the cashier. I said yes, and then he asked to see my bill. I was flustered but did what he asked. I thought he was going to tell me I was in the wrong place. He surprised me by taking the bill from my hand and escorted me past all the people to the front of the line. As they gawked at us he explained, "Kasi buntis siya," which means, "Because she is pregnant."

I was embarrassed as I paid my bill but so very grateful not to have to stand there and wait for an hour or two.

Date with Daddy

2011-02-08T07:04:00.004-05:00

Dennis took Winnie out for a little date to Krispy Kreme the other day while I took the other two girls to get a hair cut. He didn't reveal anything about their conversation, but he did say that she happily drank all the juice and took one little nibble of her donut before asking Daddy to put it away for later. When I pulled the donut out of the fridge later she proceeded to lick all the icing off and declined the donut. Is this my child?

Divertive-ness

2011-02-01T07:46:00.003-05:00

Button got a doctor kit for her birthday. It wasn't until a few days later that we noticed the writing on the box. I and my child in the future from now on just had to share it with you.

Iatrology: rarely used term for medical science. (according to online dictionary)

Did I mention that this set is extra special to me? It is, because it is children design.

INFINITE pleasure- did you catch that? If my child is not infinitely pleased tomorrow, I will sue the makers of the doctor set.

New Glasses

2011-01-21T00:19:00.007-05:00

We had a cool experience this morning. The longer we are here in Manila the more I find myself dragging my feet at going out and "experiencing the culture," especially if it involves meeting new people. I am not generally a people person and have to fight the urge to sit at my desk all day rather than live a real life. :)

For the last few days Dennis has had an idea to check out an eyeglasses place located just behind our house. He needed new frames. He asked me to go along with him and for a couple of days I said no. But this morning I just decided to bite the bullet and go.

As we left the house and got out onto the street Dennis realized he hadn't brought along his wallet. I tried to convince him that he didn't need it but he told me to go talk to some people on the corner while he went back to our house. I protested for awhile but soon found myself all alone. I walked to the corner. Our local newspaper vendor was there as usual with her cart. I squeaked out, "Kumusta kayo?" (how are you) and smiled.

I tried to remember a new verb we just learned this week, "to wait." I could remember the verb and it's various forms but not how to properly put it in the sentence. They use the verb here to differentiate specific or non-specific objects, tense and who or what the sentence is focusing on. So the one verb "to wait" has 12 forms and I was trying to figure out which was appropriate in this case as I currently waited for my specific husband on the street corner. By the time I thought maybe I had figured it out he was back and that saved me from having to say anything.... ahem.

So we walked up to this little store that is right behind our house. The lady working in there let us in the door and I noticed an open Bible that she had just been reading on her desk. She was more than happy to speak Tagalog to us and since it was just her and us and not an intimidating environment we were both more than happy to try some of our Tagalog out on her.

We discovered that she is a Christian and was the last one in her family to get saved. She had grown up a Catholic but began her relationship with the Lord 11 years ago. She somehow already knew that we were missionaries and that we lived in the townhouses right behind the store. It is a little scary to discover things like that- it reminds me that people are watching!

Anyway, right on the spot she examined Dennis' eyes, gave him a prescription and we picked out the frames. She said they would be ready this afternoon at 3 or 4pm. Dennis picked them up after class. Can't beat that for service! And she gave us a discount too!

Monumental Event for 2011

2011-01-08T02:38:00.004-05:00

This is the only picture I've taken on our camera so far this year. Squeaky got this little game from her grandma for Christmas. It is the little triangle game you see at Cracker Barrel where you jump the pegs and see how many you are left with at the end. She spent an entire day playing with it this week and whittled her score down to only two pegs left. As you can see, she was over the moon.

Yes, that is the most exciting thing I have to report about 2011 so far. :) Our life has sort-of ground to a halt due to a bout with dengue fever. Dennis came down with a headache, fever, nausea, flushed face and difficulty breathing on New Year's Eve and is still sick in bed more than a week later. The rest of us have been battling a nasty cold so this last week was pretty much a write-off for all of us. The girls recovered more quickly than the rest of us and are ready to go- but sadly their parents aren't.

I'm so glad this illness happened before school started up again. It made things a lot easier knowing that we were able to take the time we needed to recover. We have one week left of our Christmas break and I'm really hoping to be able to do something fun before plunging back into the language studies on the 17th!

Caroling

2010-12-18T01:21:00.005-05:00

We were surprised a few days ago when the little gaggle of neighborhood girls invited Squeaky and Button to go around with them and carol. Now, I'm sure that for most of you Christmas caroling conjures up some images:

people of all ages

boots and mittens and scarves

stomping to warm up feet

standing on dark porches or outside front doors

singing while your breath freezes in the air

carols set way too high to reach those high notes

a few cookies and some hot chocolate afterwards... perhaps?

It's a little different here. Aside from being in a tropical climate where the normal caroling attire is shorts and flip flops, caroling here is typically only done by children and they do it every night- sometimes for the entire month of December until the 25th. Our neighborhood children started it just over a week before Christmas instead of on Dec. 1. Here, it seems to be a little money making venture for the kids. They expect candies and pesos after they sing. Usually one person will collect the money for the group and it is divided up amongst the carolers at the end of the night.

I've noticed that they basically sing 2 or 3 little songs, the most popular being "Joy to the World," "Jingle Bells," and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Most of them carry little plastic instruments of some variety and joyfully play along. At the end they sing a little thank you song before they run off giggling to the next home.

Thank you, thank you

Ang babait ninyo

Thank you!

"Ang babait ninyo" translates into, "you are kind." Kindness is based on whether the person at the house gave them candies and money or not. If they don't give enough then the song goes like this:

Thank you, thank you

Ang babarat ninyo

Thank you!

...which translates to... "you are so stingy."

That's not garbage

2010-12-16T09:44:00.004-05:00

I have a thing about pieces of loose paper floating around the house. My kids love paper. Their favorite activity is to cut little pieces of paper into even smaller pieces of paper which are then labelled "tickets." If a piece of paper has passed through their hands at any point in time it is deemed precious and if I try to throw it away the whole house breaks into pandemonium.

I often find myself on paper rampages. My kids know the rule- "If you don't want it enough to put it away properly it goes in the garbage." So, yesterday I was on a throwing spree when I grabbed this piece of paper off the floor, crumpled it, and hurled it into the garbage. Then in my mind's eye I recalled seeing little words on that paper... some niggling feeling made me go retrieve it.

tO Quinn

I love you you

Are Little

I think you love

your trtLE FROM

ARiA

Catch up

2010-12-14T00:20:00.004-05:00

Well, November is now long gone and somehow I got derailed with my "Trip to the Ga'dang" story. I may get back around to finishing that story one of these days. Life moves on and the things are piling up that I want to write about.

Not everything that happens in life is big, and not all require reporting... but sometimes I like to talk about the little things because it is what we all have in common. It is also easier on the eyes to see only a couple of pictures and a little text, right? :)

For now I want to just mention that we are alive and getting ready for our Christmas break here. It is so weird, getting ready for Christmas in a tropical climate. I've never done my Christmas shopping while sweating before. I got a pair of socks in a white elephant gift exchange last night and could barely fathom the idea of putting those on my feet. I'd like to do some Christmas baking but the thought of turning the oven on for significant periods of time is a bit deterring.

Friday is our last day of class and I am so very ready for it! This past month has been more encouraging to us in our studies and I feel like perhaps I've moved past the plateau I was on in Sept.-October. Dennis, as always, is faithful at just plugging away and avoiding the emotional roller coaster that I manage to find myself on. He's doing great but will be glad for a break as well.

Visit to the Ga'dang, Part 2: the hike

2010-11-19T08:20:00.006-05:00

Early on Monday morning we got up (early as in 4:30am), ate breakfast and loaded up into a couple of vehicles to make our way out to the "Waiting Shed." The Waiting Shed is a little shelter with a roof and three rough wood benches that makes the trailhead for the trail to our friends' village. It took an hour to get up there. I would have really enjoyed it had it not been for the nervous twisting of my stomach as I anticipated the long, arduous hike ahead of us. The mist was lifting off the mountains as the sun rose. We were praying for an overcast, cloudy day rather than a sunny one... but it sure was beautiful.

When we arrived at the waiting shed a bunch of the guys from the village were there to meet us. They had brought their carabao (water buffaloes) out earlier that morning and the guys loaded them up with all the supplies to be taken into the village.

The hike into our friends' village generally takes them about 2.5 hours. It took us 4.5 to get in and 3.5 to get out. This was due to a number of things: lots of mud, lots of kids (we have 3 and our friends have 6) and some out-of-shape adults....

So, soon after loading the carabao we set off down the trail- double socks pulled high, rubber boots on and water bottles slung around our necks on straps. Squeaky was able to climb on a carabao right away. The other girls were a little scared at this point but soon warmed up to the idea after slogging through the mud. It only took them a few steps to be convinced but unfortunately it took a little longer to hail a carabao.

Button surprised me the most. As our most dramatic child I had anticipated a struggle with her on the trail. I thought that she wouldn't handle the mud very well and would be terrified of the carabao. I failed to remember that her strong character could also serve her in a positive way. From the very beginning she was convinced that "It will be hard Mommy, but God will give us the strength to take each step." She was my little motivational speaker and encouraged me by her good attitude and perseverance.

The first obstacle of the hike was the mud. After the typhoon and torrential rains of the proceeding weeks the hike was like trying to walk through a knee high chocolate cheesecake. Our boots kept slurping and slucking and getting stuck. Button and Winnie lost their boots many times. We were covered in mud after the first few minutes on the trail.

(An interesting sidenote: I was able to witness some of the locals walking this trail on our way out. They were not covered in mud and managed to emerge at the waiting shed looking nice and put together- ready for a day in town. I do not know how they do that.)

The second main event was the crossing of a river. It was about 15 minutes into the hike and the water was higher than usual. It actually felt good and refreshing as we waded across and carried our boots high above the water. The men from the village helped get the kids across so that none of the little ones had to wade. The water was up past our hips.

On the other side of the river we all put our socks and boots back on and prepared for the main challenge of the hike: the BIG HILL. I'd say the Hill is 1/3 of the hike. So if the whole hike is 3 hours, you'd spend an hour of it going up this hill. We spent 4.5 hours on the hike so you do the math. It was a killer mountain. We're talking slippery mud, sharp incline and never-endingness.

This is where Button surprised me the most. By this time Winnie had hopped on a carabao and was riding up in style, but Button was determined to climb her mountain. She stayed by my side and climbed that thing. Finally, when we were about 5-10 minutes from the top a guy came by on a carabao and offered to give her a ride. We encouraged her to take it, but she said, "But I have to go to the top! Mommy said I had to climb the whole hill." I released her from that commitment and she finally got on the carabao.

Here are some beautiful pictures from that hill.

Some of the rest of us: I can hardly believe I'm including this absolutely horrible picture on here. See my little trooper girl? She's wearing her daddy's socks pulled up to her knees because she was getting some blisters.

My poor little Squeaky. She had to walk up part of the hill. It was about at this point that she started getting sick to her stomach. She'd walk a little way, then throw up. Walk a little, throw up some more. When she finally was able to climb back onto a carabao she was so weak she could barely lift her foot over a rock on the trail.

She continued to get sick over and over while the carabao driver gently patted her back and helped her lean waaaaaaaaaay out away from his carabao. She told me later that she knew he wouldn't understand her English. "I didn't know what to say to him, Mommy, so I just kept saying "Para, po. when I needed to throw up." Para, po means "Stop, sir" in Tagalog. She also felt bad for him because he had a lot of difficulty getting his carabao to stop each time. It always took a long time for the carabao to listen. So Squeaky said, "I just kept saying to him, 'I'm so, so, so, so, so pasensya.'" Pasensya means 'sorry' in Tagalog.

Here we passed some people working in their rice fields.

After that hill we just kept plugging along the rest of the way, stopping when we needed a rest. That's probably why it took us a million years to get there.

I don't have a picture of the funniest thing that happened. Right as we were entering the village we crossed a section of the road that was horribly muddy. It was always a guessing game to know which side of the road to walk down. Which side would lead to getting stuck and which side had a way through? So at this particular section I definitely picked the wrong spot to go. I got stuck. Mud up to the top of my boots- stuck, stuck, stuck.

I tried to pull my foot out but was unsuccessful. Not only that, but I lost my balance and fell down in it. It is pretty hard to get up out of mud like that. Dennis stood beside me, partially stuck himself and yanked on my arm. At this point several girls from the village trotted by in their bare feet and didn't seem to have one single problem with the mud. They were laughing. And it was funny. I can't remember how I finally managed to get up but I know it included walking in the mud in my socks.

Stay tuned for the final installment of our adventure.

Visit to the Ga'dang, Part 1

2010-11-16T00:48:00.006-05:00

Last week we embarked on a Philippine adventure. For months we've been planning to visit our friends who are living in a tribal village in Northern Luzon. At first our visit was up in the air due to my various illnesses that kept me out of commission for over a month. Eventually we went ahead and booked our plane tickets but a huge typhoon interrupted our plans once again. Finally we rebooked our tickets for November 5 and prayed that things would work out.

Funny, it wasn't exactly the smooth sailing trip we had in mind. For one thing it started pouring rain, we're talking monsoon rains, up north in the area where we were planning to go during the few days before our flight. Our friends who live there had been in Manila for a month and were planning to fly up the day before us. They'd be there to help show us around since we'd never really been outside Manila. Sadly their Thursday flight was cancelled due to flooding on the Tuguegarao runway. By the next day the runway was fine and our flight went off without a hitch, leaving us to manage the new territory on our own, sort-of. The people at the NTM flight base took us under their wing and helped us out.

It was amazing to fly over the area on our way in. The place looked like a bowl of muddy soup. I thought maybe I could see where a river wound around the city, but mostly it just looked like some houses floating around in a sea of mud. As we came in closer for the landing I could see neighborhoods full of water and people wading in waist-high water.

Most of the hotels in the city were flooded and the ones that weren't flooded were completely full. Happily, there was the home of a furloughing missionary family that hadn't been flooded and we were able to stay there. Our kids enjoyed the books and toys at the house!

The next day our friends were supposed to fly in early in the morning. Their flight was delayed and they ended up arriving in the afternoon. They picked us up and we all climbed into two vans with all our stuff and set off on the hour drive up the windy mountain roads to Tabuk. We were all very happy that the contents of our childrens' stomachs stayed within them.

We arrived at a very nice hotel in Tabuk in time for a delicious supper and a little romp (for the kids) around the pool area.

We stayed at the hotel for an extra day to ensure drier roads and trails into the village. Our girls enjoyed playing with their friends and swimming in the pool at the hotel. It was relaxing. We also paid a visit to the local palengke (market) to buy some fruits and vegetables and a pair of bright blue rubber boots for me.

There had been reports of the river on the trail being too high to cross on Saturday, so we waited until early Monday morning to make the long hike into the village.

Church Picnic!

2010-10-21T22:44:00.005-05:00

Last Saturday our family enjoyed our first trip outside the city. We went with our church to a retreat center in a little town about 1.5 hours outside of Manila called Los Banos. I thought the name was funny the first time I heard it too. It is called Los Banos because of an abundance of hot springs there.

It is a beautiful area surrounded by green, rolling hills and mountains. From a distance the mountains reminded me of the Smoky Mountains in the States, but as we got closer we could see that the trees were nothing like the Smokies- these mountains are covered in palm trees!

After living in the city for seven months our kids were definitely not used to riding in the car. I couldn't believe it when I heard, "Are we there yet?" in a distinctively whiney tone after only 45 minutes or so.

The retreat center was hidden down at the end of a little dirt road but when we went inside it was beautiful! A huge pool beckoned to us to jump in. When we did we were startled to discover that it was a hot springs pool! What a wonderful idea for a cooler climate! One nice part was that when we got out the air felt cool. The girls love to swim and didn't complain once about it being warm.

We hadn't been swimming in about 2 months even though we have a pool at our apartment complex. I never thought I'd say this, but swimming isn't too attractive during rainy season here! It isn't that it is cold outside, it is just that it is coldER and it doesn't seem fun to swim. Saturday was sunny and warm so the conditions were right for a swim.

In between dips in the pool we snacked on our picnic food. It was fun to see what Filipinos eat on picnics! I did see some sandwiches, but it was mostly bbq-ed meat and rice. Our church friends were so generous- they kept bringing over their food to share. At one point Button asked me, "Why do people keep bringing us food?!" And it really was fabulous to see how much they shared with each other. It definitely was different than North American culture.

9th Anniversary

2010-10-07T08:25:00.004-05:00

Dennis took me out for our anniversary last night. We went to a Greek restaurant and had gyros and Greek salad. So delicious. Afterward, we wandered around the mall and enjoyed a Wendy's frosty and a Jollibee dipped cone. Jollibee is the equivalant of McDonald's here in popularity. They have McDonald's too, but Jollibee is even more popular. They serve burgers, fried chicken and rice as well as some uniquely Filipino cuisine- fast food style.

After having our ice cream, we went to an interesting yet somewhat bizarre 3D movie about fighting owls and a lute. The pop and popcorn came with our tickets, but we were pretty full by then and brought a lot of popcorn home.

Thanks for the fun date, Dennis. I'm so glad you are my husband!

Funny things are everywhere

2010-10-02T07:41:00.003-05:00

We enjoyed some spectacular examples of "maybe you pay your translator too much" today when we spotted these sketch pads in a classy mall:

"Elephant: Animal's joyful- elephant in river water cheerful taking a bath!"

"Zebra: Animal's joyful- zebra on lawn free playing!"

And now, for the best one of all:

"Deer: The thing quick- Deer is looking for oneself happy food!"

Look closely. Now, does that look like a deer to you? I'm also a little scared as to what "oneself happy food" might actually be. Sounds a little cannibalistic...

2010-09-29T08:54:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to share some pictures from my best friend's birthday party.

Payong- Umbrella

2010-09-09T09:24:00.002-05:00

Last week Dennis went out in a torrential downpour with his umbrella. Now, I have known for a long time that his umbrella was on its last leg, but he kept insisting that it was still usable. So... imagine him walking down the street- all eyes on him because everybody always watches us anyway- and he is holding... this.Then the rain really started pouring. He made some valient attempts to stay dry. Even the lady at the cart selling barbequed banana and the lady at the other cart selling newspapers on the corner were laughing. I laughed all the way to school.

A Surprise

2010-08-29T23:01:00.004-05:00

In an interesting turn of events, I spent the better part of last week in a hospital bed. I now have a new fear and appreciation for the mighty ameoba. That, along with a UTI, fever and sinusitis made for a pretty tired and exhausted me. I'm home from the hospital now with some meds in hand and a new lease on life. I experienced first hand how intricately a body is knit together- how when a couple little things go wrong it can make a person really, really unhealthy.

Thank you Lord for health and strength, and for Your grace provided right when I needed it.

The girls bought me some roses and sent me a little note, signed by each of them. It was so precious.

Ready to go home after four days!

Button and Winnie Swim

2010-08-16T21:21:00.004-05:00

Not to be outdone, Button and Winnie are swimmers too!

Squeaky's Swim

2010-08-14T07:46:00.002-05:00

A Date with Daddy

2010-08-09T09:33:00.004-05:00

Dennis likes to take his girlies out on a date every so often. Now, when I take the girls on a date we usually just go and have a little treat while I go grocery shopping or something. Daddy is definitely the better person to date because not only does he buy them a treat, they often manage to come home with a little present too. Oh, spoiling daddy!

This time it was Button's turn. They had sorbetes (Pilipino ice cream- tastes a little different) and Button came home proudly displaying her new toy.

I took a good look at it and noticed that they had unwittingly purchased more than what they had bargained for: a bug plastered between the cardboard and the plastic. Hmm. I wonder if it is an extra peso for the bug?

Don't breathe

2010-07-29T01:29:00.005-05:00

Some people like to breathe cool air. Some people like to breathe in flowery fragrances. Some people like to breathe crisp, fall air.

Here, we try to avoid deep breaths and don't ever experience crisp, cool air.

This is what we breathe:

No, it's not a dead rat in the tub. It is just the black diesel dust from our air conditioner filter. You can pray for our lungs.

the Lord preserves the simple...

2010-07-27T06:21:00.004-05:00

It was a dark and stormy night, but since it was "family night" we decided to brave the wind and rain and take our kids to the mall for the evening. After all, it is just rainy season and we have to live a little, you know. So we grabbed our umbrellas (all 6 of them) and the hands of our children and took off to find a jeepney going to the mall.

We climbed onto the crowded jeep that stopped for us and pulled the girls onto our laps. The plastic rain flaps had not been pulled down on the jeep but that was ok, I thought, because I was only getting a little bit of rain coming in on my back.

When we finally arrived at the nearby mall (as in, less than 3 miles away) 30-40 minutes later I realized that while the rain hadn't been too bad on my side of the jeep, my poor sister-in-law's back was entirely soaked.

The end of the jeepney route is not exactly at the mall. We have to walk along the outside of a different mall, go up a long flight of stairs, cross a walkway suspended above six lanes of atrocious traffic, down a long flight of stairs and another block or so to the mall entrance.

It was still raining as we stopped at the end of the sidewalk before the long flight of stairs. We gathered ourselves as we prepared to step out into the rain. The girls were pretty excited that they had been allowed to bring along their own umbrellas.

Winnie was the first to open her umbrella. We turned our attention to the other girls as Winnie stood waiting.

Suddenly, as if in slow motion, I saw Winnie take a step forward... right off the edge of the sidewalk. The step down was over a foot in that spot. She crumpled to the ground under her umbrella. In fact, all we could see was the colorful umbrella- no Winnie!

We heard the gasps of the people walking by. We knew what they were thinking, "Crazy foreigners!"

We quickly picked up the umbrella and noticed that part of Winnie was missing... down a dark hole in the cement. We quickly pulled her out, ascertained that she had all her appendages and accessories and started wiping her down with wet wipes from my purse.

I think I've talked a little about the pollution and grime of the city in the past. Well, let's just say you really don't want to fall down a hole in the ground here. Her legs and dress were covered in greasy black slime. The sewer runs underneath the city and there are often openings right down into it right in the middle of the sidewalks or roads. The smell is horrific and you always have to look down as you walk. One of the hazards when it floods is the danger of accidentally stepping into an open hole as the water rushes over it. Many people have been lost that way.

It wasn't until lunch the next day that I realized what a close call we had had. We could have lost our Winnie! She had fallen in up to her waist, but in the dark we didn't know if it was a shallow hole or one that went all the way down into the sewer.

Dennis checked it out in the daylight later that week. The hole was as big around as Winnie's waist and it went down all the way into the sewer.

Thank you, Lord.

Perspective

2010-07-11T09:16:00.003-05:00

Last night there was a banging on our screen door. Dennis was out, so I thought that he had returned and needed me to unlock the screen door for him. I hurried downstairs and discovered two little faces peering in at me. It was two neighbor girls. I don't know them, although I think I've seen them playing around outside with the 40+ other neighborhood kids.

"We want sidewalk chalk," they said. "Can we borrow some?"

I said, "Sure," and fetched two of the bigger nubs from our declining stock of sidewalk chalk.

They giggled like they had accomplished a major mission and ran off. I knew I probably wouldn't see the chalk again, and I was ok with that. I thought.

Pretty soon there were a dozen kids outside in the driveway in front of our place. My own kids were upstairs playing.

The screen door banged again. It was another neighbor kid asking to borrow one of our plastic deck chairs.

"Where are you going to take it?" I asked in my most chipper, syrupy neighbor voice.

"Just there," she said, pointing to the driveway.

Soon all five of our plastic chairs were across the street on another neighbors' patio.

"Grumble, grumble," I thought.

My girls finally went outside to play too, and took the rest of the nubby chalk with them. There were only two pieces left. I sighed and mourned the loss.

Then the first two girls were back. "We're thirsty," they said.

My kind sister-in-law asked them if they would like some water. "I want iced tea," one announced flatly.

Then to my horror, they came in the house and tramped into my kitchen. They started pilfering through some of the stuff on my counter. They found one of our girls' little dollar store notebooks and loudly exclaimed how much they liked it. Bee gave them their drinks and they thought the water was too cold. Then they left most of it on the counter and went into our living room. They started looking through a box of Lael's special quiet time toys that was sitting on our couch.

"Oooo!" they said. "This is a cute book. Can I have it?"

We ignored that. They touched everything in that box. They grabbed a magnetic picture board and sat down to play on our chair. I stood in the kitchen with a furrowed brow.

"How rude!" I thought. "They just marched in here like they own the place. And the way they are giggling at each other makes me know that they feel like they really accomplished something by getting in our house."

Soon their nanny came by and asked them to come home. They ignored her. She came back about 5 minutes later and asked again. They ignored her again. I was making our own supper by this time and was wondering what would happen when I was finished with it and it was time for us to eat. Would they go?

"I'm hungry," one said. "Can I have a cookie?"

"Grrr," I thought.

Finally it was time for us to eat and I pulled out the syrupy sugar voice again. "Ok!" I chirped. "Thanks for coming over! You'll have to come another time to play again. (I lied...) It is time for us to eat supper and so you need to go, and your nanny has been calling you..."

They didn't really act too fast. I am not authority to them. But finally they reluctantly put the toy away, took one more glance around the room at all the stuff we have and left. I breathed a frustrated sigh and went back to the kitchen, relieved that the inconveniences had left.

...........................

A little while later I regurgitated the whole tale to Dennis. "Wasn't that terrible? Weren't they rude to march in here like that and demand all that stuff?! They are kids of rich people. They could have gone home and gotten anything they wanted. They have no respect for us and just wanted to use us." I was looking for some justification.

Dennis just said, "Well... isn't that why we came here?"

And then I heard Squeaky singing a little song, "I want to be like Jesus, to walk and talk like Jesus; I want to live like one who follows Him..."

That night she prayed and thanked God for the friends who had come over.

Peanut Shell Obligations

2010-06-13T09:27:00.002-05:00

We are now in our third week of full time language and culture study. For Dennis this means that his waking hours are scheduled around 8 hours of study a day, both in and out of the "office." I have 6 hours of study a day which is a bit of a challenge as I endeavor to manage the homefront at the same time.

Some of our study tasks are actually really fun. We are to have a certain amount of exposure time each day; time when we go out and actually experience the culture. This could be as simple as going grocery shopping with the intent to try and speak the Tagalog that we know, or watching an interaction take place in the market. Last week Dennis and I hopped on a jeepney and went down to Quiapo market to experience some culture. We had been there before on our immersion excursion trips when we first arrived here, but finding our way and doing it all on our own was a whole different ballgame.

The week before Dennis and I went out together to a neighborhood market and bought some fruit and a couple of bags- using our Tagalog and the cultural tidbits that we've learned to haggle for a good price. It is an art.

Here's a funny little story for you. Every week we are given a set of questions on a particular topic as a part of our Philippine cultural study. It is our job to find a Filipino and ask our list of questions before our group discussion time on Fridays. Last week the topic was "Household Duties of Men and Women." Our questions explored gender roles in this culture and helped us discover some of the cultural values that exist here.

Dennis interviewed one of the guards at the gate of our neighborhood. One of the questions was about why more Filipino women work abroad than men. Our ears are starting to get used to hearing the accent here, but sometimes comprehension is slow for us even when people are speaking English. The man Dennis was talking to waxed eloquent as he explained about women and men working abroad. He lapsed into Tagalog and Dennis carefully took notes although he had a hard time following him. The man kept using the phrase "peanut shell obligations."

When we got to our discussion class Dennis brought the phrase up. We were hoping we had stumbled onto something really deep and meaningful about culture. But when he mentioned it to our Filipino teachers their faces wore question marks. Everyone was trying to figure out what the phrase could mean.

Finally I turned to Dennis and said, "So, how did the guy say it? How did it sound to you?
Peanut shell obligations?" I said the phrase with a thick Filipino accent (as best I could anyway). Suddenly one of our teacher's face lit up. She waved her hand in the air, "I know!! I know what it is!!! Pea-nan-chull obligations!"

Learning about taxis

2010-05-17T22:51:00.002-05:00

We are finishing up our first 6 weeks of class. The purpose of these first 6 weeks has primarily been to introduce us to the sounds of Tagalog and teach us commonly used nouns, verbs and adjectives. We estimate that we know about 900 words now but most of them we only recognize when we hear. We aren't able to manufacture many of them on our own yet.

This picture was taken during one of our classes recently. We were learning what to say in Tagalog when giving directions to a taxi driver. This is a basic skill that we've been able to use regularly. Most taxi drivers speak some limited English but it is best to be able to throw a little Tagalog in there to help clarify where we want them to take us. We take a taxi to and from church on Sundays, home from the mall when we have a lot of parcels to carry, or when it seems unwise to take more public transportation (i.e. nightfall, when we are dressed up, etc.).

So Blessed

2010-04-25T09:20:00.003-05:00

I think a normal part of growing up in North America is dreaming that one day you'll own your own home and be able to buy your own appliances, etc. Long ago when our dream of owning a house was forefront in our minds we went to the bank and had a little discussion with a mortgage consultant. He stared at us in disbelief when we gave him the facts. It makes me kind of laugh now to remember it! God really shut that door and He had great timing, as usual.

After the home owner hope dissipated I eventually gave up all those type of dreams and was really content with whatever hand-me-down things we had.

When we moved here to the Philippines I first imagined that apartments here were like apartments you rent back home. All the nice appliances are included, etc. Well, that simply is not the case. Apartments are listed as "partially furnished" if they come with light fixtures. Quite literally there are wires sticking out from our apartment ceiling where we need to wire in a new light socket.

The fun news is this: we got to buy a new stove, fridge and washing machine! I've never owned these things before! I feel like I've made it through a rite of passage or something.

Thank You, Lord for blessing us with simple pleasures like having a brand new fridge. You didn't have to do that.

Tidbits of this and that

2010-04-17T05:29:00.002-05:00

I realize I haven't updated in awhile. We are busy getting ready to move into our new apartment. We hope to move in the middle of next week if our mattresses come. I don't really care to sleep on the floor until I know what status we are at with the ipis (cockroaches).

We've been spending money like crazy people. In the past three days we've purchased a rep (fridge), washer, stove, 3 small aircons (air-conditioners), a sala set (living room furniture), and a table and chairs. Feels good to get that all done but kind of bad to let go of the cash. You know how it is. I pray that somehow God is glorified through our acquisition of stuff- that all these conveniences will free us up to put more time into the things that count.

Anyway, there are many interesting little tidbits that I thought I'd share with you this time.

We have evidence that living in a concrete jungle is hazardous.
Don't worry- Little People bandaids make even the worst of owies feel fabulous.

Winnie's third birthday was this past Tuesday. I went to several stores on a search for icing, the kind I used back at home. No one had any. The last store I tried was HyperMart. Yes, that is what it is called. It is conveniently located near our new apartment and I think it will soon become my favorite grocery store.

Anyway, I was in there and I asked one of the 100 employees loitering around if they had any icing. I had to really explain what I meant, using my hands to illustrate the cake, the spreading of the frosting etc... He shook his head and went to ask his buddy about it. His buddy said something in Tagalog and the first guy lead me off toward the cooler section of the store. He pointed to a tetra pack of whipping cream. This was not what I wanted, but I got the drift that they didn't have any real icing. The price on the whipping cream was outrageous. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the guy standing back there waiting for me to decide what I wanted. I sighed and put a small box of the whipping cream in my basket. Then I decided that maybe yogurt on top of the cake would have to do. So I put some of that in my basket too. I went on to look for other things and the guy disappeared.

About 10 minutes later I was in the housewares department looking at a soap dish. I heard someone say, "Excuse Ma'am." I looked up to find that the guy was back. And in his hand he had three containers of icing! "Is this what you looking, Ma'am?" I was so happy I nearly jumped up and down. I happily gave him back the whipping cream and yogurt in exchange for the icing.

Afterwards I was thinking, "You know, this is one thing about the Philippines that I will really miss when we are back home." Here was this guy- paid about $6 for an entire day of work- he spent 10 minutes looking for icing, and then walked around the whole store to find me. I'd never get that kind of service at home. In fact, we are lucky if someone actually does anything more than, "Um, maybe try aisle 3?"

It doesn't take long for the bugs to find you here. No sooner had we moved into this guest room with a kitchen then we started having an ant problem.

After a couple of weeks I was sick of it. I heard that there was a hardware store in one of the ritzier malls that carried Terro... the king of ant killers. So I finally got over there to buy some.

Check it out! Mmmm yum yum.

1.5 days later- no ants!

Squatters

2010-04-01T02:45:00.007-05:00

For the past week and a half Dennis and I have been involved in "Immersion Excursions" to aquaint us with our new home. One of the language school teachers, Beth, has been taking us around the city and letting us get an insiders perspective on her culture. It has been fascinating and we have thousands of pictures.

It is hard to know what exactly to say about it. Can I just say that it is nothing like Canada or the U.S.? Does that mean anything at all? I just want to bring people here to see it all for themselves. Pictures don't adequately describe it. I can't describe it.

Today our friends the Castagnas took us to a place where squatters live along the Pasig River. These people are living on government land, too poor to live anywhere legally. They are the lowest of the low here. They try to eek out a living washing clothes for people, or selling a kind of charcoal ash they make out of coconuts. They survive on eating the plants that grow in the river (see the pictures below), something I would consider inedible, and rice.

Last year their homes were wiped out by the floods that gushed through during the typhoons. In lots of places only rubble is left. Sometimes fires are started intentionally (not by them) in order to burn their homes and to force them out.

So, Dennis and I went down there this morning with three others. Of course we were the center of attention. I often wish it weren't that way, but we just can't hide. This isn't unusual, we stick out no matter where we go. So amid stares I soon discovered that I could smile at them and they would smile back. Not rocket science, but sometimes I almost feel paralyzed by this culture gap.

All along the road are little tiny booths and shops. Some are made of concrete, others are formed from bits and pieces of metal and board, cloth and cardboard. Between the shops about every 30 feet are long alleyways. In these alleyways are openings into homes. So behind one street of these little booths hundreds of people live.

One thing that really struck me was that the people living there were so friendly. They didn't look on us with suspicion or distrust. Instead, they welcomed us and tried to make conversation. The friends we were with are fluent in Tagalog which helped immensely, but I just wished I could talk to them more than smiling and saying "hi" over and over.

We handed out some candy to the kids.

Dennis and I explained where we were going to our girls. I took lots of pictures with them in mind and showed the girls when we came home. Squeaky immediately filled a bag with her things that she wants to give to them. I thought that was precious and am trying to figure out a way to appropriately cultivate that spirit of giving in her.

It's all new to us...

2010-03-23T08:59:00.004-05:00

How can I possibly sum up a week and a half in our new home in one blog entry? I think it is impossible, and most likely the things I think I'm learning about Filipino culture are skewed because of my own worldview.

This city is incredible. It assaults all of our senses.

The noise: honks, beeps, whistles, birds, roosters, screeching brakes, vehicles, vendors ringing bells or yelling out to get your attention. "Hey, Joe!" they yell out to any "Americano" male- a title that harkens back to World War II.

The tastes: juicy, ripe mangos (delicious and not anything like what you can buy back at home), wonderful Western guest house food, eating at the malls for a pittance compared to Western prices ($8 feeds our family at Sbarros, McDonald's or Wendy's), interesting foods that we haven't been brave enough to try yet.

The smells: piles of garbage, open markets, smog, exhaust fumes, beautiful flowering trees, the stench of the meat section in most grocery stores, food, baby powder, perfumes and lotions. There is a great emphasis on personal hygiene and very little emphasis on public sanitation.

The feelings: the weight of the heat at noon, the filthy cloud of diesel smoke that speckles our face and rolls over our heads as a bus rumbles by, the endless stickiness that is only appeased by a shower and spreading baby powder over our arms, the breeze while sitting in front of a fan, sweat trickling down my cheek, and the best part of the day- 6:30pm when we go outside and the relief from the sun and the soft evening breeze makes me love it here.

The sights: the trickle of discolored liquid pooling into a hole in the pavement, a man scooping up polluted street water from a puddle into his water bottle, people going through garbage at the end of our lane, the cutest little dark eyed babies you've ever seen, immaculately dressed people riding colorful jeepneys, lush greenery in wealthier areas of town, colorful and busy market areas littered with garbage, roaming diseased dogs, and full of precious people who are crammed in the smallest of spaces.

The Great Flight

2010-03-16T05:50:00.002-05:00

The night before our departure was special. Ron and Sabrina came down to the hotel we were staying at and we had a nice swim together and went out for pizza.

Then at 4 am on Wed. morning, March 10, our busy, busy trip began. We were awake a lot all the night before with anticipation. Finally when we got up we got our stuff together and got on the hotel shuttle to go to the airport.

Lots of people came to the airport to see us off. Bruce, Patti and their two girls came, as well as Grampa and Gramma, Jamie and Annette Weber (Dennis' cousins), Annette's boyfriend Jonathan who all managed to surprise us and find us at the airport somehow, and our friend Bill Yeo from Peterborough, who got up around 3am to come to the airport! It was so great to see all those people and so sad.

We soon realized that we had WAY too much luggage. We were well within our ticket allotment, but practically speaking it was a nightmare to wield it all throughout the airport in Canada and then again when we picked it up in Manila. Each girl had a back pack and one carry-on, which was a great idea until we tried to make exhausted children run through an airport pulling those things in time to make a tight connection. What a nightmare. Live and learn! We are sure glad to have all that stuff here now, though.

We made it through 1 million and 1 security checks in Toronto. I had just enough time to grab one last Tim Horton's regular coffee and 12 timbits for the girls before our boarding call. The girls were really difficult and cranky in the airport and I really had to pray for patience!

When we landed in Chicago Button threw up on the descent. Fortunately we were able to catch it in the barf bag.

We barely had enough time to make our connection in Chicago. We had to switch terminals and check in with a new airline. Because it was an international flight we had to clear security all over again. Everyone was kind to us, but the girls were downright surly and uncooperative. Button was really weak and dehydrated from getting sick and wasn't able to pull her carry-on. This did not please me.

We managed to snatch a sip from a drinking fountain before passing through yet another security checkpoint and finally boarded our Japan Airlines flight to Tokyo. This was the big one. We didn't have time to put any of the girls toys into their backpacks from their carry-ons. That was a big mistake. Next time I will try to make sure that new toys get placed in the backpack between each flight. Accessing carry-ons in the overhead bins is not really practical.

Button fell asleep right after take-off. Winnie found a little slit in her seat cushion and sat with her legs tucked way inside and her seat belt over her lap.

This was the longest flight- Chicago to Tokyo, 13 hours. We flew over Alaska and the Bering Straight. The scenary was beautiful. Button and Winnie napped off and on all throughout the flight, but Squeaky only fell asleep finally during the last 10 minutes of the flight.

Both Squeaky and Button threw up on the descent into Tokyo. We had more security checks and shuttling at the Tokyo airport but were finally able to relax and rearrange some of our carry-ons during our 3 hour layover in Tokyo. It was the middle of the afternoon there but our bodies felt like it was 3 in the morning. The kids were nuts. Dennis found a room with padded floor and walls and the kids jumped around in there for a long time.

We boarded our final plane around 6:15 pm, local time. The girls all fell asleep while we were still parked at the gate. The last leg from Tokyo to Manila was a five hour flight. After the 13 hour flight that one seemed really short. The girls slept until 1/2 hour before landing- we were so grateful!

I managed to sleep for about 20 minutes which was the most I'd slept the whole time.

It was exciting descending into Manila. It was 10:30pm so all we could see was the city lights and the reflection on the water. We had some arrival instructions so we knew what to do when we got there.

First we gathered our stuff and our cranky girls and went to immigration. As we waited in line I was keenly aware of the amount of people crammed into that airport. It was bustling. I wasn't comfortable letting the kids walk around with any freedom and kept harping at them to stay close. They didn't like that too much and had some major melt downs in the immigration line-up.

When I finally made it up to the immigration officer I handed him our passports and chewed my lip as he decided our fate. Behind me Squeaky was losing her cookies into a barf bag. I'm not sure if that influenced the guy, but we were through really quickly.

Next, we picked up our obscene amount of luggage from the conveyor. A guy helped us put it on carts but I wasn't sure if I should "tip" him or not. I didn't, hope that was ok.

We pushed our three carts of luggage to the customs officer. I was all worried about this. The lady just looked at us and asked, "How many?" We said, "6." That was it. Not a single suitcase was opened. We were just waved through.

Finally we exited the airport and got to feel the heat of the city. Not too long later our ride came and we piled in the back- no car seats for the girls!!! We all enjoyed feeling the wind through our hair. It was a honky and beepy ride home. We arrived at the mission guesthome around 12:30am local time and crashed into bed.

We're Here! And we've already had an adventure...

2010-03-13T03:31:00.005-05:00

It is going against everything in me to skip the plane part, but I'm thinking you'd probably rather hear about our adventures here first and maybe about the trip later. Am I right?

Ok! So we are here! It is quite warm and our bodies are getting used to constant sweating. I'm figuring out ways to manage it, like two showers a day sometimes, face splashing, baby powder and we certainly wouldn't want to forget the deodorant! Of course, it has only been two days so I am definitely not the expert.

We arrived close to midnight the night before last so we've had two days here now. Yesterday we had breakfast here at the guest house and then we were taken on a little tour around the facilities here. We've met all sorts of nice people and have started to learn a little about what life is like around here.

There is a little playground outside here that the girls enjoy playing on. They also have a play room next to the laundry facilities that we have yet to enjoy.

Look closely at this carousel picture: which of these is not like the others?

This morning Dennis and I both woke up really early (like 2:30 and 3:30am) and thought it was time to get up for breakfast. That was weird. Then of course I had a hard time getting back to sleep. So we'll have to figure that one out. The girls are sleeping in the same room as us and they seem to be waking up around 5:30am. So we'll have to work on that.

After breakfast today our friend who has lived here in the Philippines for several years came by the guest house to see how we were doing and invited us to go out on the town with her. It ended up that a large group of us went together on this excursion. Dennis, Brenda, myself and the kids, our friend with two of her girls, her co-worker, John Burbidge, and a language helper all went.

It really feels like an excursion because we are staying in a nice, comfy guest house that is very North American-ish in many ways.

So the gate opened and we emerged onto the crazy, busy sidewalk. Our first job was to cross the street. Think about a busy downtown Toronto type street. We all grabbed a kid's hand and basically just forced our way across when there was the slightest hint of a gap in traffic. Winnie lost her shoe in the middle of the street. This was a major problem. It took over 5 minutes for us to retrieve the shoe and all end up on the proper side of the street. Winnie was tramatized and kept yelping, "My shoe! My shoe!!!"

Then we got on a jeepney. Squish. Seven to a side no matter what the size of people. I didn't quite know how we picked that particular jeepney over all the other 100's of jeepneys that seemed to be available, but that is what seasoned missionaries help you do. I found out that jeepneys take routes and have a sign displayed on it saying which route it does.

Then we jostled and sped our way through the busy and congested streets. It was fun but perhaps would have been a little harrowing if we hadn't been so excited.

We hopped off at a Christian bookstore. It was really nice and air-conditioned. Here they call it "air-con." They had a really great selection of Bibles for sale. Probably one of the best selections I've ever seen. They also had a ton of non-fiction Christian books and Bible studies. A very nice store I anticipate we will visit again sometime.

After that we walked over to another mode of transportation. I can't remember what it was called- three letters- but it was like an above-ground subway. Dennis' little ticket card somehow got rejected by the machine with the three rotating arms that lets you in (just like at any subway) and so that was a little interesting. Finally a guy let him through another gate. The first train was so full they couldn't fit us on. The second train looked just as full, but we miraculously squished on. I felt sorry for the kids whose noses were literally in people's pant legs, or whatever.

Then we arrived at Shangri-La mall. This is apparently the top of the line mall. It was about 5 stories with lots of escalators (made the girls super happy) and every store you could think of. Some things seemed super North American-like and some things definitely were not. There were fountains, a carousel, and an enormous food court. Oh, and you get your bags checked as you go into the mall. Apparently at some places they even give you a pat-down.

At the mall we got our pictures taken for various IDs that we will be getting in the next few weeks. Our friends also helped all three of us to purchase cell phones which is an absolute essential here. Everyone has to have one since it is so easy to get lost. It isn't like in Canada or the U.S. where a cell phone is super expensive and then the plan is even more. You just buy the phone and put a little chip inside that is your phone number. Then you buy a little card that has some time on it. And you're all set. So Dennis and I now own our first cell phones. Nokia.

There was a Wendy's in the mall and we went there for lunch. As we stood in line one of the workers came to us and wrote down our order on a little slip. Then you go up to the counter, hand the slip to the cashier and pay. Sounds simple, right? Well, it didn't really go well. I ordered and thought that I was understood, but when we got our meals I didn't get mine. My tray with the receipt was whisked away so I couldn't even prove that I had paid for it. I started to think that maybe I hadn't. Our friends helped to sort it out with the manager of the restaurant and finally I had a sandwich in my hand. It was interesting- the first bumble in a series of many, I'm sure!

We came back home in a jeepney and laid down for a little late afternoon siesta. It is hard to wake the girls up when they sleep during the day. They are just like limp little rag dolls and it takes a lot of conjoling to get them up.

Ok, supper is soon and I'd better get off as the laptop is starting to feel quite hot.

One Day Left

2010-03-09T08:27:00.004-05:00

This is our last day in Canada (for awhile)! Today is shaping up to be a big one. Dennis is loading our luggage into the back of the truck right now, the girls are eating breakfast, and we're planning on making our way down to airport-land in a couple of hours.

It is hard saying goodbye to every thing. Funny how sentimental you can feel about inanimate objects. Silly, really. Anyway, we're freeing ourselves up. It is refeshing.

It is even harder to say goodbye to every one. I am bottling it all up for now- it seems the safest thing, but I'm sure it'll come out on the other side. Watch out poor Dennis and Brenda! And my little kids!

God is preparing us for this. Just this morning I was encouraged by Psalm 68: 34-35.

Ascribe power to God,

whose majesty is over Israel,

and whose power is in the skies.

Awesome is God from his sanctuary;

the God of Israel-

he is the one who gives power and strength to his people.

Blessed be God!

gasp

2010-03-05T10:21:00.003-05:00

Things are coming together for our departure on Wed. I feel torn in a million directions as we finish up all the things that we've been putting on the back burner for the past few months.

Yesterday when I found myself making a decision on what to do with some extra twistie-ties I had, I knew I had stooped to a new low. It's pretty bad when deciding what to do with twistie-ties actually becomes an issue.

I feel like the true worth of items is not being considered as I throw toys in the trash and stuff a blank 3x5 file card in the last open box of stuff to go to the Philippines. I think my brain has short-circuited!

Please continue to pray for us!

12 Days...

2010-02-26T14:58:00.002-05:00

Only 12 days until we leave!

One snowy day last week we prepared our boxes to be shipped to the Philippines. We have a great shipping company available to us who will ship these huge boxes without weight limit from here to our door in the Philippines. Pretty sweet deal.
Squeaky loved being Daddy's helper. Anything with tape and scissors is right up her alley.Winnie is convinced that she is taking a boat to the Philippines. So we let her sit in the top of this box for awhile. We took her out before taping it up. Every time we tell her to get her coat on she says excitedly, "Time a go Pillipines?"I had an injury right before I took this picture. These guys were hauling the heavy boxes up the basement stairs (whose idea was it to pack those down there, anyway?!) and I was trying to help. My foot got caught up under one the heaviest boxes and my ankle was pinned between the box and the sharp edge of the step. WOO, I sure yelped. I took a picture of the damage for posterity but didn't include it in this blog in case it would gross someone out.

Load 'er up!Good bye, stuff. We'll see you on the other side... hopefully.

A Valentine Adventure

2010-02-15T16:31:00.007-05:00

Dennis and I have had a long standing tradition to trade planning responsiblities for Valentine's Day each year. This year was my turn to plan.

I wasn't feeling very creative- which is not unusual. When a friend asked me last Monday what we were doing for Valentine's Day, I expressed my lament over not having a clue. She asked me if I'd ever considered renting a cottage.

No, I hadn't. But it seemed like a good idea, so I considered it then. My friend even offered to watch our girls while we had some time away. Great! I started making some phone calls. Things came together rather quickly and soon I was secretly planning a getaway.

According to tradition we keep our Valentine's Day plans secret from each other. So I was answering phone calls in the bedroom, running around town doing various errands and trying to keep it all from Dennis. I packed the car with our luggage and the girls luggage while he was busy doing other things so he wouldn't see me.

On Wednesday around 3:30pm I started getting the girls up from their naps early. Dennis was working on some ministry expense reports at the computer and hadn't a clue what was going on. Hearing little chirpy kid voices, he finally came over to the bedroom door to see what was going on. I told him to get his coat on.

You should have seen his face. He started running around like a crazy person. "What do you mean, 'Get my coat on?' Oh! Are we going somewhere? Do I need anything?" I just smirked and didn't say much. It was fun seeing him totally confused.

We dropped the girls off at my friend's house. I blindfolded Dennis with a dish towel (another tradition) and we took off. I was almost giddy with excitment for pulling off this big surprise. Usually I manage to surprise him at Valentine's Day, but only with the activity and not the timing of it.

The cottage we were renting is about 1/2 hour from where we live. I had a map and directions from the cottage people. And having a map, I felt pretty confident.

I obeyed the directions and turned at the first right after the road I was supposed to be watching for. It was a snowy road. At the end of it I started realizing it wasn't the right road. None of the numbers were matching up. I stopped. I couldn't turn around without backing up- right into a big snowbank. A bit of poor driving if I ever saw some. Poor Dennis, he was still blind-folded. He was like, "Whaaa...?"

We got out and after scrounging around in the snow for awhile we decided that we were stuck beyond pushing out. We grabbed our suitcase and started walking down this snowy side road. The road had two tracks on it- one going in and one coming out. After walking for 15 minutes or so I realized we weren't going the right way. This didn't even look like civilization. We turned around and walked back to the van, pulling the suitcase behind us.

We walked out to the highway next. It was getting a little cold and the sun was setting. We went right up the highway with our suitcase in tow. Suddenly I saw the sign for our road! It wasn't the 'first right' after all. Down the snowy side road we walked. Thump-a-thump came the suitcase behind. I stiffled giggles and Dennis seemed slightly amused as well. Finally we saw the cottage. What a beautiful sight to behold!

After we thawed our frozen hands and feet we called the tow truck to come get our van out of the snowbank. Dennis had to run back over to where we had left it to meet the tow truck driver, who happened to be his ex-uncle. He kindly informed him that his wife backed the van into the snow.

The cabin was beautiful.

The next day we took a hike on the frozen lake. This is fun for me, since I come from the land of no lakes and the ones we have never freeze over enough to walk on. We walked around a cute little island and made messages and pictures in the snow.

When we got back to the cabin I tried the door. It was locked. "Ummm....? Dennis? Do you have the key...?" You know what the answer was. The key was happily laying on the table inside the cottage, right next to our happy little van key.

Fortunately, someone who had been to the cottage previously had not obeyed the cottage rental rules which indicate that all doors and windows must be locked and secured before leaving. We found a tiny little basement window open and Dennis squeezed through. Yippee!

We completed a 500 piece puzzle while we were there. This is the third puzzle I've attempted and the first I've completed in 10 years. And we did it all in one day. And not one grubby little hand messed it up. :)

At 4:30pm I told Dennis it was time to go. We planned to go out to eat and one of our favorite local restaurants for supper. We loaded our van and took off. Well, kind of. We tried to get up the driveway to the entrance road and finally managed to umph ourselves outta there after 3 tries. The next step was to drive down the long and narrow road that turned up onto the highway. We couldn't make it. 3 tries, no use. We were stuck. Again. (I mistakenly thought this sort of thing only happened once a year.)

We walked back to the cottage. I admired the tracks of our suitcase on the road from the night before. They almost made me smile again. Back at the cottage we were informed by our auto club insurance that they didn't cover people who knowingly drive down snowy, un-publicly maintained sideroads. Oh.

So after much disgust and maybe just a couple I-told-you-so-s we swallowed what little pride we had left and called the cottage rental company for help. Our friend runs it, and her kind husband drove all the way out with his all-wheel drive car to pull us out. It didn't take much, just a few yoinks with the rope.

Supper was left-over chips and salsa.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Moving and Staying and Surprises

2010-02-01T17:02:00.005-05:00

On January 21 we got the email we were waiting for! We are officially accepted by New Tribes Mission of the Philippines. We began working even more earnestly to sort, pack and make decisions. We started getting quotes on flights. We rejoiced with a wonderful turkey dinner.

That weekend we went to Dennis' brother's place. Dennis was speaking at their church on Sunday the 24th and we celebrated Button's 4th birthday with her aunt, uncle and cousins. We had a great time.

We returned home on Monday night. On Tuesday morning Dennis' dad had a mild heart attack. We actually didn't find out that it was a heart attack until Tuesday evening. He was taken to Kingston that evening. The next day they did an angiogram and discovered that he had some blockages in the arteries of his heart. On Friday he had triple by-pass surgery. He is doing well and was up and walking today. He will likely be coming home either this Wed. or Thursday. We'd appreciate your prayers.

We've seen God's grace through it all. All along we had been thinking we'd like to leave in January for the Philippines and couldn't figure out why all the steps seemed to be taking so long. We see that God allowed us to be here for this time and we are so grateful. We are so glad to be able to spend this time with Dennis' parents and hope that our presence will be helpful (and not too noisy!) over the next few weeks as Roger is recovering.

A Happy Day

2010-01-19T15:31:00.006-05:00

Here is a picture of me in a very happy moment. I realize that not all of us get so excited about paper, but we just ploughed our way through some red tape and have in our little paws all the documents we need when we go.

The final step will be to take several documents to be authenticated at the Philippine Consulate. This will likely entail a day trip to the Big City to visit the Consulate and to also drop some boxes off to be shipped on ahead of us to the Philippines.

Things are looking good- now just waiting on The Email that says we're officially accepted to the field.

Anyone scared of needles?

2010-01-15T17:25:00.003-05:00

We had our travel immunizations yesterday- our first dose in a set of three. Each girl received two shots and Dennis and I each had three. Button writhed in anguish on my lap, Squeaky was indifferent and basically shrugged the whole thing off in order to eat some Skittles, and Winnie looked at the needle as it went into her arm and laughed somewhat nervously. Daddy, who went last grimaced to entertain his girls and I put on a brave face to encourage everyone that it wasn't so bad.

After the shots and a nice meal at Crabby Joes, we went and blew a hefty sum at Wal-Mart- buying two of all sorts of things we use on a daily basis to take with us.

Birthday

2010-01-06T10:03:00.005-05:00

On December 30th I turned 30. I can clearly remember thinking that 30 was old in my childhood. Thirty is right up there with "maybe 55? 80? 103?" in those guess-my-age games that adults like to play with kids. Birthdays like that make you think. What have I done in the past thirty years? What do the coming years hold?

By God's grace, the past decade has been a time of incredible growth in my life. I've seen the brevity of life and the faithfulness of God in a whole new light. I've learned a lot about my own sinful heart and the process of santification. I got married, had three children, two miscarriages, moved 9 times, lived in 4 towns, made many new friends and lost a few.

God is faithful. The Psalms include many reflections on the past and the evident faithfulness of God. Psalm 107 offers a synopsis of God's work on the behalf of men in the past.

Verse 43 sums it all up:

"Whoever is wise, let him heed these things

and consider the great love of the LORD."

So I've been spending a little time thinking about God's faithfulness in the past and the surety of His faithfulness in the future.

I'm not scared of being thirty!

Come On Ring Those Bells

2009-12-26T07:50:00.003-05:00

The Festivites Begin

2009-12-18T20:27:00.002-05:00

It is that time of year, and all sorts of fun things are happening as we gear up for Christmas! Tonight the girls were extensively playing "Mary and the baby Jesus" complete with imaginary hay, gifts of gold, frankensense (sp?) and myrrh, and blankets tied over their heads for shawls. It didn't seem to bother them that they were all Mary with only one baby.

Grandma VE arrived yesterday! Today the girls showered her with attention (maybe more than she could handle?) and hugs. She brought some craft materials with her so the girls worked on those for awhile. Then this afternoon we did some last minute shopping.

Our town had a Christmas parade the first weekend in December. The girls had lots of fun and collected a LOT of candy. I guess people can't pass up the three of them sitting on the curb. It made their day and fortunately we are still working our way through that basket.

If this was one of my only gifts for Christmas, I'd be pretty happy.

Merry Christmas!

What you get with a 2 year old helper

2009-12-02T22:05:00.001-05:00

Daddy: Winnie, will you please help me by putting these cd cases in the box?

Tis the Season

2009-11-28T22:56:00.008-05:00

It is so nice to have a Saturday at home! Dennis and the girls went outside this morning to help Gramma put some Christmas lights up out there. Grampa and Gramma also set up the Christmas tree this afternoon and we put the few special ornaments that we've kept on the tree this evening. It seems a little early to me as usually I don't allow myself to decorate for Christmas until December begins. This year I had the thought that if this is the last Christmas we'll celebrate in Canada for quite some time it would be nice to make the most of it.

The girls have been working on more artwork lately. Squeaky likes writing stories. Often she'll write them on paper and illustrate them with cute pictures of bunnies and kangaroos (two of her favorite things). Sometimes we does the stories on her board and we have to take pictures before she deletes one page to go on to another. Here's the latest:

Do you need an interpretation? It says, "Once upon a time there was a palace filled with gold." The little circles are coins, there is also a pearl necklace and two sets of earrings.

Button is getting very good at drawing her little guys.

Last weekend we participated in an outdoor play here called the "Trek to Bethlehem". We played the part of a family who stopped for a rest around a fire on the side of the road to Bethlehem. This basically consisted of us dressing all up in long robes and eating as much as we could as fast as we could before different groups came through and we had to say our lines. It was fun and the girls enjoyed all the special treats.

On the second night Winnie came up to me and gleefully showed me this granola bar. She was so pleased to have found it on the ground. I stuck it in my bag thinking it was one of the ones I had brought along with us. When we got home, I realized that it was a different brand! Since our station at the trek had been next to the bandits Dennis thought it was pretty funny to think that perhaps Winnie had robbed the bandits.
I suppose that little story could have been written more cleverly. I am too tired to do make anything sound clever. I apologize to you gentle reader, if you are disappointed.

Good night!

Making it real.

2009-11-12T15:25:00.006-05:00

Oh, the Philippines. Our minds are becoming more absorbed with finding out all we can about this country we are moving to.

I think about it all the time:

1. Will today be the day we get the email we've been waiting for?!
2. I wonder if they have my brand of deodorant there?
3. Am I sooo incredibly cold this fall because God is already adjusting my body temperature for the heat?
4. Will my kids eat anything there?
5. What stuff should we take and what stuff should we leave?

So, you can understand that when we found ourselves in a large city this past weekend we had to check out all the things we could. First, Dennis and I went to the brand new asian supermarket that has been built only a few kms. from his sister's house in Ottawa. We went up and down the long aisles looking at everything with big eyes and smelling everything with big nostrils. I mean, small nostrils. Ok, forget about the nostrils. We smelled stuff. Fish, wierd unidentifiable stuff, fish, cow tongue, fish- you get the idea.

Then we looked more specifically for what we came for in the first place: CANDY! Candy from the Philippines, to be exact.

What do we have there? Tamarind (which my friend Erin introduced me to), mango-tamarind (which looked safe), and sweet prunes (which Erin also introduced us to but I didn't like. I got it anyway because it was cool and I want to try it again to make sure I don't like it).

The next day we tried out the only Filipino restaurant we could find in the city.

As we've discovered, you can't have Filipino food without karaoke. Yes, that's right! For some reason karaoke is a well-loved pasttime for many Filipinos. So we would be remiss if we didn't participate in this! Ok, I admit it. We were the only people in the restaurant that afternoon. But we loved it and spent about 2 hours doing this- right during the kids naptime. If you know us, it takes a lot to make us want to skip naptime! :)

The girls enjoyed singing things like, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "Twinkle, Twinkle" (did you know there are several verses to that song?), and "The Right Stuff" by the New Kids on the Block. "What?!" I can hear you saying in disbelief. Well, Dennis likes weird music. And noone is better at weird music than Weird Al. And Weird Al has something he called his "Food Album". And on his food album is a parody of "The Right Stuff" in which he sings, "The White Stuff", about Oreo cookies. So Dennis likes that. And as is typically Dennis he has turned that song into a kid song. "A-ah-ri-uh, A-ah-ri-uh. What's in the middle? The tummy!" The girls love this song so it was easy for Button to sing along with the karaoke machine. "A-ah-ri-uh, a-ah-ri-uh. What's in the middle? The tummy!"

We bought four different meals and shared them amongst the seven of us. We had Dennis' friend, Stephen and Dennis' sister, Brenda along. Our food had very good flavor but was not made with the best cuts of meat. We adults liked it all but the girls filled up mostly on rice. Winnie is our most adventurous eater and enjoyed all the different dishes.

We decided to go all out and order dessert. Halo-halo. Hmm. Not sure this was my favorite, but at least now I can say that I've eaten a dessert that had beans in it!

On our way up north we were in the middle of what I felt was nowhere when we saw a sign, "Bookstore. Everything 75% off!" Well! Who could pass that up? We stopped. When we went in, it felt like we had entered somebody's basement with meandering corridors and alternating low concrete ceilings and high raftered ceilings. There were millions of books. There were also two cats upon which our girls lavished much love and potato chips until the proprietor gave the girls cat food for the cats instead. Squeaky tried to keep two or three little tidbits of the cat food in her potato chip bag "for the cat we get someday."

I searched through dark racks and dusty piles and scrounged up several books on the Philippines. We ended up buying three. Two of them are informational books on the country with lots of fun pictures. But the coolest find by far was this... passed over for years by hundreds of other customers who would never look at it twice.

Ta DA! This book is written by an anthropologist who provides some interesting insights into a tribal group of the Philippines. Dennis and I read parts of it together in the car and found it fascinating. Many of the tribal names and areas mentioned in the book are familiar to us. I'm sure much more of it will be familiar in a few years! It reminded us a lot of the cultural study we did in one of our practicums during training.

I wonder if the Kalinga have been reached with the gospel.

On the Road Again...

2009-11-10T11:04:00.004-05:00

We just got back from a whirlwind trip up north. We were invited to present our ministry at six different venues, with eight speaking engagements in total. It was a wonderful opportunity and we are so grateful to all those involved. We also spent a lot of time catching up with friends we haven't seen in awhile! It was a very encouraging time for us as we had a few very emotionally draining weeks last month.

For the first three days we stayed with the Kerrs. The girls really warmed up to them (so did we)! Winnie jumped right up into PK's lap when he offered to read her a story. I wish I had gotten pictures of the girls playing. They had the largest amount of homemade playdough I have ever seen and had a lucrative bakery business going. "Anyone want a piece of bread?"

Farther up the road we stayed with our friend from KLBC days. It's so funny to see both of us now, what was once just her and me has now turned into 8 of us with one more on the way! Dave and Amy are expecting their fourth little baby in December. The kids had a blast and played hard. We adults enjoyed lots of conversation and tea! :) Thanks so much, Dave and Amy! It was so great to spend that time with you.

C, J and N: here are the pictures that we took of you! Hope you enjoy seeing yourselves on the blog! Thanks for playing with us and sharing your house with us!

As we made our way back down from the north we stopped back in to visit another friend from KLBC days. Christie has three little ones and the oldest is only 4 months older than Winnie. And I thought I was busy! She had made cupcakes for the kids to decorate while we took a break from our long drive. That was so sweet. Thanks Christie! I wish our camera batteries hadn't died on us so that we could have had a few more pics. In this picture you can see Button with two of Christies kiddos. Button's face is pretty descriptive of our crazy week. I'm not sure if she smiled even once on the way home, poor little girl.

The girls had to be extra patient as much time was spent riding in the van and sitting in pews. There were many late nights because of meetings and the girls didn't get to bed before 10pm on any of the nights. Despite all this, they did very well and we are so grateful to the Lord for that.

There are many challenges in this phase of our journey while enroute to the mission field. One is that all the travelling is tiring. It is worth it, though. We find it extremely valuable to make connections with our spiritual family and know that it is important to include our kids in this. I will say that we are really looking forward to having this week "off" to recooperate. :)

Only Him

2009-11-05T10:06:00.002-05:00

Lots of things lately have been pointing us to the Lord. I'm realizing more and more that on my own I am nothing. Only through Him do we do anything at all. Anything.

Psalm 5:7
"But as for me, by Your abundant lovingkindness I will enter Your house, at Your holy temple I will bow in reverence for You."

2009-11-02T20:57:00.002-05:00

I am so woefully behind on here and I don't really know how to make it all up. I don't think I'll try. October was an interesting month. There wasn't much progress made on our process of getting to the Philippines and we are still awaiting official acceptance. We hope to hear from them soon and then get started on making some of our travelling plans, etc. Our desire is still to go early next year, but that may change as we receive more information.

We've been travelling most weekends and visiting various churches in the area. Right now we are actually up in northern Ontario with several speaking engagements this week. I am sharing tomorrow morning at a ladies coffee hour and I am currently procrastinating and feeling a little nervous. I don't know how Dennis does it.

The girls are doing fine. They've been really healthy this fall and are so grateful for this gift God has given us. We usually travel together as a family on our weekend trips. It is sometimes hard on the kids, but it seems like a good idea to have them with us as many of the people we meet haven't met us before. A good night of sleep usually helps a lot when the kids get owl-y.

Eight Years

2009-10-05T19:29:00.005-05:00

Dennis and I celebrated our anniversary this past weekend. We were married on October 6, 2001.

Traditionally Dennis has surprised me with something on our anniversary. This year was no exception and he held fast to his secret as I tried to pry it out of him with much conjoling, bribing and begging. Most of the begging was half-hearted- I didn't really want to find out!

We left the kids here with Grampa and Gramma and took off on Friday evening. Much can be deciphered based on which way the vehicle turns on the highway, but Dennis picked one of the directions I'm more unfamiliar with so I was still guessing an hour later.

We stopped in Belleville for supper (chinese) and were going to go to a movie. When we got up to the ticket kiosk we asked for two tickets to see the only movie we cared to see. "Um, we only have one ticket left for that movie," the girl told us. I told Dennis that he could go and that I would stand outside in the rain. He decide to forego the movie and we went to our favorite store in the world instead. Value Village. Oh, yeah. We are that classy. Value Village even on our anniversary- twice. Heh, heh.

After that Dennis said something about hopping in the car to go across the road. I wasn't sure what he meant and was still in the dark about our final destination. So I trustingly boarded our vehicle and he whizzed out onto the 401. "What about across the road?" I asked. Apparently it was all a ploy.

We headed down the highway and I could see that the signs were saying that Kingston was ahead. Having only been to Kingston a couple of times and most of those times were from the perspective of riding a bus, I really didn't know what was down there. We actually stopped at Napanee and grabbed some Tim Horton's on our way to a very nice hotel with a pool.

We were expecting rain all weekend, but the next day was beautiful- sunny and warm. I still didn't know what we were doing that day. We headed down the road another 30 minutes or so to Kingston. I got out the map with Dennis' permission and started speculating what we would be doing. I saw some interesting things on there and mentioned a couple to him. He didn't give me any clues.

Our first stop was Fort Henry. It was actually closed until the evening, but we were able to walk all around and enjoy the view. There was a ceremony taking place across the bay at the military college and some jets and a bomber flew overhead. We thought it was very kind of them to honor our anniversary in that way.

Later we went downtown and walked all around. It was very scenic and there was live music going on in a park, as well as people milling around and the smell of lots of food. We walked around for about 15 minutes trying to figure out what everyone was doing there. There didn't seem to be any signage or organization to the mass of people. Finally, I noticed a small piece of paper taped to one of the booths that said, "Chilifest." It all made sense then, and we started noticing all the people eating chili out of tiny bowls and the sea gulls eating up everything they dropped.

We were sitting on the pier looking out over the water when I saw some boats sitting there. I had mentioned the 1000 Island Cruises as a point of interest on the map to Dennis. As we sat there, I asked him if we could check out what they offered. He acted interested but kept putting me off everytime I tried to go over to the information building.

Finally, he just had to tell me that he had already reserved spaces on the 3 hour sunset dinner cruise that evening. I was over the moon!

Hardly containing my excitement, we headed off for lunch- I wasn't interested in chili. We ate at a nearby Cambodian/Thai restaurant. It was delicious.

On our way back to the car we were following a couple. The man who was quite tall stopped to look in the window of a men's clothing store. He thrust his head forward to get a better look at the goods displayed in the window. BANG. He hit his head on the glass, left a little sweaty head mark and made my day. I giggled all the way back to the van and am still laughing about it as I write. A friend once told me that I have affliction humor, and I think he must be right.

After visiting another Value Village and a Salvation Army and taking a quick snooze in the van, we went down to the dock to wait for our boat to board.

The trip was wonderful. We enjoyed a delicious buffet and spent a lot of time on the upper deck enjoying the scenary. Very romantic! The most interesting thing of the evening was the live musical entertainment. The guy performing the songs had quite the personality. We found him funny and entertaining, but we were able to escape to the top deck when he got to be a bit too much.

I am unable to upload pictures tonight for some reason. I'll try again another time.

Coming Right Up

2009-09-29T18:50:00.005-05:00

There are some things I've been meaning to share on here... just having some laziness troubles and wishing for a wireless router so I wouldn't have to lug our computer all over the place.

1. Dennis had a birthday!

2. Cute pictures of the kids

3. Our anniversary is coming up and Dennis has some big secret-something planned.

4. An update on our progression toward leaving for the Philippines

5. Squeaky's new class at school

6. Probably some other things that will stun, intrigue and delight you. Maybe.

Soon...

Plus, since I am actually using Dennis' parents computer, I found some old relic type pictures that I thought might be enjoyable.

Squeaky's Big Day

2009-09-07T20:39:00.006-05:00

About a year ago we hatched an idea: what if Squeaky were to go to kindergarten for a few months while we prepared to leave for the Philippines? After praying and talking to several people about it we decided to enroll her in kindergarten at the local elementary school here in town.

Last Wednesday was her first day. I'm not sure if we've ever seen her so excited. She had her new little backpack, a new outfit, a new lunch bag with glittery butterflies on it, and her little epi-pen in a case pinned in her backpack. She was so thrilled about this new experience, I wasn't sure if she was going to sleep the night before!

I think she did. Her bedroom is right above ours, and around 7am I heard a little shout of exclamation from her room and a squeal of laughter as she remembered what day it was.

After breakfast she got her little purple backpack on and gave everybody hugs.

Button seemed a little sad to be losing her best friend for the day. I promised her that when Squeaky went to school I'd do "school" with her at home. She was pretty excited about that. She got a new little backpack too, and Daddy bought her her very own pencil case with Dora pencils and erasers inside.

Does Winnie look sad? She isn't. She had just crawled out of bed and wasn't really sure what was going on.Here is our excited little girl!

In all the hustle I didn't get a good picture of the bus.

After seeing Squeaky onto the bus, Dennis and I hopped in the car with our camera and zoomed to town. We meet her getting off her bus and this was the smile she gave us when she saw that we were there. We stuck around for awhile at a distance and saw that she enjoyed playing in the sand and dutifully came running with all the other kindergartners when the school bell rang. I don't think she really knew what the bell was for, but she sure ran!

She came home tired but had had a wonderful day. Her next school day is Tuesday the 7th because of Labor Day. She has been praying each night that she would be able to go to school every day like the big kids, even though she knows that kindergarten is every other day.

We are excited for our sweet little girl and pray that she will be a little light for the Lord at her school.

Winnie meets the Bug, and other news

2009-08-28T19:51:00.000-05:00

Winnie took a long look at this praying mantis in Kansas.

We're back up and running, folks! After visiting my family and friends in Nebraska for about a month we are back in Ontario. We came back to some good news- we have high speed internet now! I cannot express to you how happy this made me.

Now I have no excuse not to keep this blog updated, so I shall try to be more prompt and a great deal more interesting. :) I'll try, anyway.

2009-08-15T22:02:00.002-05:00

Squeaky's prayer:

Dear Jesus,
Thank you for my sin.
No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO! (Waving her hands in protest.)
Thank you for taking our sins away.
Help me to have a good snack and a treat.
Amen.

This is a Random Blog

2009-08-08T08:28:00.004-05:00

I've been so bad! I've been enjoying my summer and neglecting my little bloggy world. That's ok. I noticed by the list on the side of my page here that most of my fellow bloggy friends are going through a bit of a hiatus too. Check out my husband's blog! I think he is on permanent hiatus.

Well, I have good news and bad news.

The good news: I'm in Nebraska right now enjoying the wonderful heat (coming down from Canada I really mean that) and DSL, which is much faster than dial-up.

The bad news: We left the power cord for our laptop in Canada and it is being shipped to us as I write. No power cord= no uploading pictures. No pictures = no inspiration to blog.

Without pictures my inspiring words have to stand on their own merit- and let's face it... often my words aren't exactly inspiring. :D

But really, the point of this entry is to assure you that we are indeed still alive, enjoying a very warm time in Nebraska (101 warm enough for you?), and are saving up all the great pictures and memories that make up great blogging material. :D

Have a happy day, everyone!

Thoughts from Hebrews

2009-07-22T06:57:00.003-05:00

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

I've been reading through Hebrews and got caught up with the first 17 verses of chapter 12.

-the race is not of our own choosing, but God's (set before us)

-in order to run properly, we must lay aside that which hinders us...

I pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down all the things that hinder me, but I can't answer that question for you.

What hinders you? What is the race that God has you running with endurance? What does looking to Jesus look like for you today?

We need a clear picture of who God is and what He is like because what we think about God affects every area of our lives.

Quebec City Trip- wrap up

2009-07-18T14:55:00.004-05:00

News

Today I am in Peterborough, and being here means I have a wireless connection- oh woo hoo woo hoo- hooray!

So I'll happily upload pictures for you to enjoy. We are doing great in our new place. The girls are getting adjusted and I love being able to send them outside to play each day. I've taken to walking in the mornings and the smell of the trees and damp earth is wonderful. I often tell Dennis that the smell there reminds me of camping, because the smell of Nebraska air and the smell of Ontario air (especially up there) are quite different. The smells of forest and rocks were exclusive to vacations when I was young.

Quebec City Wrap-Up (I don't have my vacation journal with me)

On the third day we had together we started out in the vans with the intention of going up the St. Lawrence to do some whalewatching. Instead we ended up visiting a huge catholic cathedral and going to a place with seven waterfalls. We had a picnic lunch and enjoyed our time together even though nothing around there really looked like a whale.

I've uploaded a bunch of pictures of our summer including our trip to Facebook, if you are on there.

Quebec City Trip, Journal Entry #2

2009-07-06T08:33:00.003-05:00

June 30, 2009

We had breakfast in the cabin- hot cereal and applesauce. (We had two tenting sites plus a small cabin for all of us to share, so each family got one night to sleep in the cabin and we were all able to prepare some of our meals in there.) Sometime after breakfast we hopped in the vans (we rode scattered in all the vehicles because our van was in the shop) and headed for Old Quebec City. After several phone calls to each other we finally found parking spaces at the Plains of Abraham. The clouds kept coming and going- we were wondering if it was going to be sunny or rainy.
We all walked on the path that runs alongside the cliff overlooking the Saint Lawrence River. It was beautiful. About that time the guy from the shop called about our van. He said that we had lost about 4 liters of transmission fluid. They couldn't figure out why. They thought maybe it had gotten so low and hot that it had boiled right out of our car. It was a little difficult to understand him because of the language barrier- he kept saying "transmission oil" or just "oil" when referring to the transmission fluid. Quite confusing when we have had oil problems as well. $187 later... Anyway.

The guy suggested that we take it easy on our way home, perhaps avoiding travel during the heat of the day and get it checked out again back in ON.

After our little walk above the river we had a picnic lunch (tuna sandwiches) and walked down into the Old City. The shops there are so quaint. Dennis and I honeymooned there, so it was fun to see it again.

Right as we went down the Breakneck Steps into the oldest part of the city the skies opened up on us and it started pouring. We found shelter in a souvenier shop where I bought an umbrella. As soon as I went outside with my new treasure the rain stopped. So much for that.

We headed back to the camp via the grocery store. For supper we had chicken, potato, onion and carrots cooked in foil packets in the fire. We also toasted marshmallows, bannock, and banana boats. Yum!

The Quebec City Trip- Entry #1

2009-07-06T07:35:00.004-05:00

I like to keep a little vacation journal. My mom always had one for our yearly camping trips when I was growing up and I love to look back at them. Her's was fancier than mine- with postcards and pamphlets inserted at appropriate spots. I used to love to by postcards of places where I've been but as our lives have become more transitive I've found that having piles of postcards isn't really helpful. So I began a vacation journal on our trip out east.

Last Christmas my sister-in-law gave me a beautiful vacation journal book. I decided that I wanted to begin that journal with our journey to the Philippines next year.

There were just enough pages left in my current journal for our trip last week to Quebec City. We went with Dennis' entire family (dad, mom, brother, sisters and their families). It was a lot of fun.

We started out by loading our van to the gills, as usual. We stayed in Ottawa on Sunday night with Aunt Bee so we'd have a 2 hour head start on our next day's journey.

Journal entry-Day 1

Pulled out of Brenda's at 9:00am. Stopped to pick up breakfast at Tim's. Coffee, a sour-cream glazed donut and breakfast sandwich for me, a breakfast sandwich and donut for D, muffins for the girls. Finally got on the 417 at 9:45. Cloudy, overcast. No rain... YET (doom, doom, doom).

Stopped at the Quebec Welcome Centre at 10:45. Got some pamphlets and maps. Went potty. Back on the road at 11:00. It drizzled for 15 min. or so awhile ago. Ok, now it is raining- 11:15. Stopped at a BK with a playplace for lunch. Stayed a long time while it rained and rained. Left around 2pm.

That was a long stop but the girls had a good play. Squeaky and Button took Winnie up by the hand and helped her come down the bigest slide. They came down all together like a big train. It was so cute to see them helping Winnie.

We arrived in Quebec City around 4pm. As we pulled off at the exit and stopped at the light the van started chugging. We barely made it into the lot at Petro-Canada. Transmission fluid started pouring out of our van. We had to have it towed to a garage. We called Dennis' brother and sister-in-law who had just unloaded their van at the campground. Ron was able to come and pick us up- we were only 3km from the campground.

My kind sister-in-law helped me set up our tent while Dennis was taking the van to the garage. We ended up moving out tent to a different spot across the road because of a swampland at our site... I'm so glad we did! It was so muddy.

We were so encouraged to see God providing for us- even through the experience of our broken-down van. It happened so close to the campground and our family was there to bail us out.

Alive

2009-06-24T21:45:00.007-05:00

I have a few pictures for you, as promised. I decided to time how long it takes to upload four pictures on here. Just for fun. Three of the pictures are of Daddy with his girls on Father's Day.

Started uploading at 10:51...

This has been a nice week of getting into a routine here. We eat breakfast here at the table in our little apartment, and we eat with Dennis' parents upstairs for lunch and supper. Squeaky's bedroom is upstairs, and the two younger girls have been sharing a room downstairs. It is the first time Winnie has shared a room. We were a little concerned that she would spent the whole evening keeping herself and Button up by yelping every 30 seconds, but surprisingly she has contained herself.

The girls have been having all kinds of fun exploring the yard; rolling down the hill, puttering in the garden, running through the sprinkler and getting muddy.

Ok. Timing the upload isn't fun anymore. It is 11:26. I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't do so many pictures, although I didn't think four was that many. Perhaps I'll have rely on vivid verbal descriptions and wordy posts now...

Wooo HOOO! 11:29- it is finally done. Wow.

We're Here

2009-06-18T18:49:00.003-05:00

I just thought I'd let everyone know that we arrived in our new home safely on Tuesday night. This is the first time I've been on the internet since we've been here- I think that having only dial-up is both a blessing and an inconvenience! I remember when I thought having any internet at all was amazing. So funny.

Maybe now I'll get through that enormous stack of books I've been wanted to read. Maybe Dennis and I will have time to play games in the evenings again. One thing I do know, I probably won't be loading videos on here very often.

Thank you for praying for us as we moved and as we are getting settled. There are boxes everywhere and the challenge is finding a place for everything!

Next time I'll post a few pictures.

Moving Day

2009-06-16T05:01:00.003-05:00

I woke up this morning at 5am- went to bed at 1 am... something doesn't add up right. Today is the big leave day. The girls are happily settled at Coco and Sabrina's place and are hopefully still sleeping as I write this! Thanks guys for taking them- it is a huge help.

Today:

-finish loading truck and van

-scrub this place down

-have breakfast with friends (thanks, Peter and Kathy!!!)

-drive 4 hours; Dennis in the moving truck and me in the van with my eyelids pinned open

-unload on the other end

-stay sane

-remain aware that it is God who provides strength for every step

Moving

2009-06-13T14:47:00.006-05:00

We are busily packing boxes and cleaning every surface in our home. What a mess. What a huge amount of stuff we've managed to collect! Why do we do that?!

Our official move date is Tuesday. Tomorrow we will be away all day, so all the final things will have to be done on Monday and Tuesday. We are moving into the basement at Dennis' parents' place. They have generously offered it to us and have put a lot of work into it this spring getting it ready for us. Thank you, Dad and Mom E! We are excited to be able to spend the next few months with you. The girls are especially tickled to have so much time at Grandpa and Gramma's house.

I wanted to show you a few things we've found in the mission barrel recently. We found this little bike for Button. Squeak already has one, so this bike will help Button keep up with her. Squeaky is getting pretty good at riding hers- Button has a ways to go. :)

Dennis found this shirt in the mission barrel last week. He couldn't believe his eyes and there was several moments of collective jubilation after he got home and showed it to me. :) We will miss that old mission barrel (which is really two rooms and more like a freebie store than a barrel, in case you were wondering).

The first year class has been working hard on their Jungle Camp homes for the past two weeks. We've had fun keeping an eye on their progress and remembering what we were doing a year ago. Last night we took one last stroll up there. The homes look good and I thought more than once that I could easily live in one of those for a month again.

This year they are keeping some live chickens. The girls had fun looking at them.

After Tuesday we will be on dial-up. I'm hoping to arrange some way to go to a wireless place every once in a while so I can blog with pictures and not have it take 20 minutes. Until then, I'll probably be posting shorter updates with only one or two pictures (sorry, family).

Drum roll please...

2009-06-12T06:16:00.010-05:00

Some (or most) of you have already heard this news, but we wanted to share our destination officially on the blog.

We are excited to announce that we are heading to the Philippines! We came in to the training wide open to all the possibilities for future ministry and God has faithfully been guiding us all along the way. Up until last fall we really didn't sense a concrete pull to any particular country and we eagerly sought information of the needs everywhere.

As time went on in this second year of training we started becoming more interested in two places, the Philippines and Cambodia. Using a variety of means, God has turned our focus to the Philippines where at least 50 tribes still do not have access to the Gospel. NTM projects that at the current rate of need and available resources it will take another 100 years for these tribes to be reached. We pray that by His grace God will allow us to play a small part in what He is doing to reach the lost.

(Picture provided by P & K Baker)

(Pictures provided by V. Burbidge)

Go here for more information on NTM's work in the Philippines and here to get an idea of the needs there.

Scholastic Pursuits by a 3 year old (and other random things)

2009-06-09T13:55:00.006-05:00

It was a big day for Button one day last week when she drew an "A" for the first time. We are so pleased that she stuck with it and made several really good letters. She hasn't had much interest in trying to learn to write and doesn't have the patience for coloring usually, but this past week she's shown improvement in both areas. I'm really happy for her, because I know how much it will help her in the future! I'm hoping to have a little school time with her this fall while Squeaky has kindergarten.

And lest you think that all is normalcy and boring-ness in our home:

Rarr

2009-06-05T14:37:00.004-05:00

In our home, rarring is the biggest insult. The girls will sit around the table and Winnie will say a little tiny "rarr". Immediately the other girls will protest loudly, "She rarred at me!!!" Winnie was the brains behind this pasttime. She started it about two months ago (probably after hearing one of her sisters roar) and she does it daily. I've tried different tactics in dealing with this family crisis. At first it was just funny. Then the girls started getting so upset by it that I tried to keep Winnie from doing it, but that seemed ridiculous too. So then I told the girls to just do it back to her.

Winnie can dish it out but she can't take it. She starts it but the moment one of the other girls rarr back at her she accusingly exclaims, "Mommy! Ael rarred!" or, "No! Aia rarred!" The other day after she started it I quietly roared at her. "No, Mommy," she said. Then I roared a little louder. "Noooo, Mommy!" she said. I couldn't resist- I did it again. A big one that made her jump. She burst into tears and didn't stop crying for 10 minutes. It ruined her whole day.

Poor little thing. It didn't stop her. Last night she rarred again. So we got it on video for posterity.

A break amid the packing chaos...

2009-06-03T18:39:00.005-05:00

The girls are now well on their way to being dual citizens, like me. Yesterday we headed down to Toronto to visit the U.S. Embassy to file the paperwork. Our appointments were actually this morning at 8:30 and 9:00am, but we went down yesterday so we wouldn't have to get up at a horrible hour this morning. We found a great hotel on priceline with a pool and a hot tub, which we enjoyed!

Our first stop on the way down was at a park for a picnic lunch. We love to picnic. The girls had a fun time on the playground and were able to burn off some steam before we continued on to TO.

When we got to the city we headed right downtown so we could figure out where we would be going. I am not a big city girl. I think it is crazy how many people are packed in to such a small space. I was thankful that Dennis was driving so that I was freed up to notice all the nasty steam escaping from the grates in the streets and the buses that were barrelling down on us.

After driving downtown we headed to our hotel. We went down to the pool right away.

The girls are so funny in the water. Squeaky is the only one who has had any swimming lessons. She does pretty well in the water but we have to watch her since she feels too confident for her own good. She really is just a sack of bones that would sink to the bottom in no time if she wasn't being held up by us.

Button has a natural buoyancy and takes to the water like a fish. She is like a little barrel. Her bottom floats to the top first, then her tummy, then her bottom again- round and round she goes, giggling the whole time.

Winnie hasn't been in the water very often. At first she was scared, but she soon started to enjoy it. Her favorite thing was to scoop up the water in her mouth and drink it. I kept telling her that was gross. She kept right on scooping it in saying, "Yum, Uky! Yum, Uky!" as if "Uky" was the name of the water. I don't think she gets it. She also had a couple of face plants while she was sitting on the steps that scared her (and us) a little bit. After that we mainly kept her in our arms and made one of the other girls wait their turn on the steps.

After we put the girls down for the night I went back down by myself to get in the hot tub. Ahhh. Love that.

We had been praying about these appointments at the embassy for a long time and I was very nervous. It turned out that we had a very nice lady helping us and everything went fine. The girls kept saying, "Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!" And Button brought out her standard reminder, "We need Jesus all the time, Mommy." :)

Things are Winding Down

2009-05-28T19:29:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow is our graduation rehearsal. We will meet with our class for breakfast at a nearby restaurant, then we'll head over to the church where we will be graduating on Saturday. It is hard to believe that two years have passed and that we are now on the other side of things.

Most of our classmates are furiously packing and cleaning. We aren't moving for another two weeks so you can guess what we'll be doing for the next little while! The house is already in a state of disarray and the kids are acting a little crazy. I'm sure it is hard on them to go through the change.

Anyway, just thought I'd let you know what is up with us this weekend.

"Nake"

2009-05-26T20:08:00.003-05:00

Fun Day Outside

2009-05-22T12:06:00.002-05:00

Wednesday was Field Day here for the academy. This is a fun day for our kids since we spend the morning outside watching the "big kids" race and do various other track and field events. At a certain point they have a preschooler race, which we've been psyching the girls up for for awhile. :) Even Winnie participated this year. She and her little friend just calmly walked down the track, holding hands and smiling at the people on the side lines. Squeaky won the preschool girl race; never mind that her oldest competitor was Button... :) They all received a box of smarties and some bubbles- I don't know who thought to do that for them, but it was really sweet.

Squeaky had a nasty cold this week but that didn't stop her from running the race or doing the standing broad jump and the long jump (just for fun).
This is one of Squeaky's favorite people in the whole world- the son of friends in our class. She sometimes refers to him as "her sweet boy".

Here's my sweet boy (aww...).

And one of my sweet girls.

And a pack of kids who just love to hang out and be kiddish together.

And one little kid who pretty much entertains herself and ignores the other kids.

Here is Dennis trying out the long jump.

A fun day!

Training Update

2009-05-14T22:03:00.004-05:00

It has been awhile since I've posted an update about our training. It is hard to believe, but we are almost finished! Our graduation is on Saturday, May 30th.

The last few weeks have been spent writing cultural papers on the village simulation class we were involved in. Right now we are having a four day refresher on Church Planting. Our trainers who taught us all last year are taking turns bringing the big picture of what this is all about to the forefront of our minds once more before we all part ways.

In the next two weeks we will be making ministry presentations to our classmates. It will be good practice for future use and will also be a chance to experience all the nervousness involved in doing such things!

It has been such a joy and privilege to spend these last two years here at the training center. I feel so blessed to have met so many precious people who have impacted my life in incredible ways.

2009-05-09T15:21:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was a pretty fun day for our family. In the morning Dennis suddenly decided that we should go and check out a conservation area nearby. So we packed up the girls and the bug spray and headed out. We ended up in what we thought was the conservation area but turned out to be just a fire access road that bordered the real conservation area. Oh well, it was fun anyway. We walked a trail and on the road. Winnie does better on the road when she's "hiking" since her feet are the size of postage stamps.

We were treated to all sorts of sights in God's green creation. We saw four snakes (or maybe just one really fast guy?), lots of cool bugs including a shiny blueblack beetle that we trapped for 2 minutes in Squeaky's habitat until he Houdini-ed out of there, and many swarms of blackflies that apparently are just swarming and not biting yet.

Do you see the guy in this picture?

Then last night we went to our last class social held at a dam close to here. It was a gorgeous evening with a perfect breeze and warm sun. We all had a picnic supper together and talked while the kids played. Then we headed over to a local ice cream shop for cones.

For Aunt Bee (and you too)

2009-05-08T06:46:00.003-05:00

Poor little thing has a cold, but you can see how much she loves reading! She's gobbling up every word in the house now; on cups, cereal boxes, daddy and mommy's books (she tries), and she tries to figure out what Dennis and I are spelling to each other so even that isn't safe anymore...

Our littlest reader

2009-05-07T06:25:00.003-05:00

Picnic for a Saturday

2009-05-02T19:34:00.007-05:00

We had "the best picnic ever" tonight, according to Squeaky. It was a bit on the windy and chilly side this evening, so we packed our picnic basket and laid our picnic blanket on the dining room floor. Ham and cheese sandwiches and apples were on the menu, with cookies for dessert. After supper we went to the "park".

The park was in our living room; complete with a slide, a swing, a tetter-totter, a merry-go-round and a drive home in the van. I think the girls had fun and so did we!

Tae-bo and bow-ties

2009-04-30T20:09:00.005-05:00

I'm procrastinating and pulling my hair out trying to make a story from two English syllables for our literacy course.

We're making the first two pages of a primer just so we can learn what its like to struggle through the process. And I am struggling.

This is what my page looks like:

tɑⁱ boᵘ
boᵘ tɑⁱ
oᵘ boᵘ. ɑⁱ tɑⁱ.
tɑⁱboᵘ oᵘ boᵘtɑⁱ.

tu si
bibɑbebo bu
kikekɑkoku
ɡufi

Anyway, you get the drift. The first little section says,
"Tae-bo. Bow-tie. Oboe. I tie. Tae-bo oh bow-tie."

That doesn't really sound like a story to me.

Say Goodbye to the Thumb

2009-04-26T22:06:00.003-05:00

I can't remember if we told you about how Squeaky stopped sucking her fingers. We felt that it was getting ridiculous seeing this 4 year old walking around with her fingers in her mouth, so we launched a full assault against the finger sucking. We let her get a sticker for each day she didn't suck her fingers, and we painted nasty tasting stuff on them at quiet time and nap time. It only took a few days and she was done. We took her to the dollar store and she picked out a toy as a reward.

Well, a couple of weeks ago we did the same thing with Button. She was a thumb sucker. We painted the nasty stuff on there and really praised her when she didn't suck her thumb. I'm not sure if we did the stickers or not. It only took her a few days too and she no longer sucks her thumb. Anyway, last Thursday we took her to the dollar store for her hard-earned reward. She was so excited. It was really cute seeing her bounce alongside her daddy, holding his hand and chattering away about what she was going to pick out. She came home with a little painting kit with three pigs in it. She had a lot of fun with that and now has pink, orange and red piggies.

Now for Winnie who still sucks her thumb...

We have a 5 year old!

2009-04-19T21:43:00.003-05:00

Squeaky's fifth birthday was on Saturday. I can't seem to get my brain around the fact that I have a five year old now. Five years is a long time. I'm not saying that as a bad thing; in fact, it has been rather enjoyable getting to know this little family member.

Check out this post to see Squeak on her third birthday! Wow. You will also get to see a much younger Button (14 months) and a week old Winnie. So cute.

We had a little princess party for Squeak yesterday. She and Button dressed up in their best Sunday dresses. We had two friends from here at NTMC and were so excited to have two little cousins join us as well. Bruce and Patti were able to come up to see us this past weekend, and they got the grand tour of everything including Jungle Camp.

The girls did a craft, played "hot slipper" for prizes and had a tea party. I tried my hand at making cake balls. They were hideous on the waxed paper and I felt so disappointed that I hadn't made the dolly cake that Squeak had asked for. But I discovered once again the magic of a glass plate- it turned ploppy, candy coated balls of cake into a delicacy fit for a princess party. :) I think next time I will try to borrow a double boiler from somebody instead of microwaving the candy wafers. I have to say that they were delicious!

From the Button Chronicles...

2009-04-14T16:27:00.003-05:00

B: I want to do something fun, Mommy. I want to do something fun.

M: Ok, why don't you go do something then?

B: But I want to do something fun! (repeated 5 times)

M: You know what, I want to do something fun too, but instead I'm making supper. Why don't you go and play? You can be a kid!

B: But that's not fun! I want to do something fun!!!

Hope you had a wonderful Easter!

2009-04-13T22:02:00.003-05:00

"...looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:2

Musings of a Foreigner

Pious Technology

Perspective

The Scoop

Oh, be careful little tongue what you say...

Drawing with Winnie and Button

Churches

Blog Catch-up and Little Fish

One Hot Day

The Saga of the Glasses

Not Exactly What I Meant... (take 2)

Munch, Munch

For Mother's Day

Gone

Not Real

The Secret

One, two, three... no, four times blessed!

Shoeless in Manila

This is the Stuff

A Pleasant Surprise

Date with Daddy

Divertive-ness

New Glasses

Monumental Event for 2011

Caroling

That's not garbage

Catch up

Visit to the Ga'dang, Part 2: the hike

Visit to the Ga'dang, Part 1

Church Picnic!

9th Anniversary

Funny things are everywhere

Payong- Umbrella

A Surprise

Button and Winnie Swim

Squeaky's Swim

A Date with Daddy

Don't breathe

the Lord preserves the simple...

Perspective

Peanut Shell Obligations

Learning about taxis

So Blessed

Tidbits of this and that

Squatters

It's all new to us...

The Great Flight

We're Here! And we've already had an adventure...

One Day Left

*gasp*

12 Days...

A Valentine Adventure

Moving and Staying and Surprises

A Happy Day

Anyone scared of needles?

Birthday

Come On Ring Those Bells

The Festivites Begin

What you get with a 2 year old helper

Tis the Season

Making it real.

On the Road Again...

Only Him

Eight Years

Coming Right Up

Squeaky's Big Day

Winnie meets the Bug, and other news

This is a Random Blog

Thoughts from Hebrews

Quebec City Trip- wrap up

Quebec City Trip, Journal Entry #2

The Quebec City Trip- Entry #1

Alive

We're Here

Moving Day

Moving

Drum roll please...

Scholastic Pursuits by a 3 year old (and other random things)

Rarr

A break amid the packing chaos...

gasp