2 Weeks in the Philippines

Today marks 2 weeks since arriving in the Philippines. I am still amazed at how blessed I am to be here. The first two weeks haven't been too full, which is probably a good thing, as we have had time to adjust to the new culture (and the unceasing barking of dogs all through the night), build relationships with the Arcano family and meet other people in the church here. Life will start to get busy right away here, as our first of 4 VBS's is starting on Thursday. We are teaming up with a local pastor (Pastor Eric) in running a VBS or "Values Instruction Emphasis Week" (VIEW) at an elementary school near his church. Here is a picture of one of the buildings at the school:

The VBS will run all day Thursday and Friday and a half-day on Monday, so we anticipate being quite busy preparing for and helping with the VBS. We will then take what we have learned and run 3 more VBSs in various communities around the city throughout April and May.

Pastor Sam is involved in and preaches at 2 churches in Baguio: one in the nearby community of Balac Bac and another in a community called Ambiong. We have met some of the families and church members and have attended church in both locations. We have also started to get involved with the youth groups in each place, helping out with youth fellowship nights and talking with and discipling the kids. I was even able to start teaching some of the youth how to play guitar, which was pretty cool.

We also spent one morning building building "stairs" leading down to a family's house. They don't have a permanent staircase down the steep hillside because another house is being built uphill from them. Especially when it rains, it is very difficult to get up and down the hill to their house. We didn't have a lot of resources, but we were able to find a few tires and dig some steps out of the dirt. It is quite amazing to see how joyful and content people are here, despite having almost nothing. It has been really challenging and inspiring.

We have been learning Tagalog as well, with lessons every day from Evelyn, Pastor Sam's wife. It is pretty tough, and we don't get a lot of practice because most people either know English well or enough for basic communication. It is fun to learn though, and we are hoping to get proficient enough to have basic dialogue with people. Learning their language is one way we can express our care and commitment to them.

I will leave you with some pictures from our last week. Please pray for the VBS. It is a rare opportunity to be able to do something like this at a public school, and will be a great chance for the kids to hear the Gospel and experience God's love.

Walking up the 209 steps to the road after church- great exercice at 1500m with a guitar in hand

Ambiong church service

Charis and a cow

We walked through a network of tunnels underneath the city- really cool

Preparing crafts for VBS

A section of the stairs we worked on

Jonas and his friend Zach after the church service at the basketball court

Repairing a hole in the wall to keep the mice and rats and lizards out of our room

Riding a seahorse boat at Burnham Park on our day of rest

Walking along Session Road in the heart of Baguio

The Super Burger at Jim's Retro Diner. Jonas and I shared.

One additional note: as I was writing this blog post, we found out that we probably have lice! So that's fun. We are trying to figure out what to do about them right now so that's another thing you can pray for.

Salamat! Paalam. (Thanks! Bye.)