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| A change of scenery for a while. |
We made it! We are in Manila. This past week has been a whirlwind of packing up our house into barrels, saying good bye to friends, traveling and now setting again here in Manila. We will be here for a few months until we can take baby home to the village. I am missing the village terribly. Our little house, the fresh air, the scenery, the people, Izzy having her own little routine and loving seeing all her friends there. However, I am trying to remind myself of all the positives of being here right now and there are definitely some positives. Danny is happy to now have me closer to the doctor, especially as I have been having some pains this past week. We are loving the air conditioning, and the hot showers. The grocery stores have lots of things we cannot buy in Puerto, and there is a Starbucks very close to the guesthouse. 🙂
AND…..best of all we are here to God willing, to meet our new little bundle of joy (in another 8 weeks or earlier). We are so thankful for this, and really it puts all the other things I am missing into perspective.
Before I forget though, I wanted to share some of the great things and fun things that happened in our last week in the village. There were a lot of special events that took place and we are praising God for a wonderful last Sunday that we had with the church. We are continuing to pray that God will raise up young men who will be faithful to teach others also. This has been a specific prayer request of ours over these past months, and the last Sunday we were there God showed us that He is at work, answering prayer and raising up men that God willing will be leaders and teachers in the little church long after we are gone. As I am too tired to write all about it, I thought I would share through photos instead. 🙂
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| Danny was able to sit in church and listen this week as the men in the church took the meeting from beginning to end. A real joy for us to watch and listen to.
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4 of these 5 days taught in church for the first time this past Sunday. They each taught a portion of the book of Jonah after completing a 5 week Bible Study Course on “How to study the Bible”. Paul and Danny have enjoyed meeting with this small group each week. These young men are a HUGE answer to our prayers. Please keep praying for them.
L-R: Ilyo, Paul, Biloy, Joel, Romy, Tata and Danny. |
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| Tata, a young father of three was probably the most nervous of all. He was sweating SO much while he was sharing. However God really helped him and we are so grateful he had the courage to take this big step of faith. We are praying that God will continue to teach Tata through his Word and that Tata will be willing to share what He is learning with his fellow believers. |
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| Tata and Joel both have good voices. They led the singing on Sunday. |
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| Romy is really becoming a gifted teacher and he will have a lot of this responsibility while we are gone in the next few months. Please continue to pray for Romy. Yes, nobody blinks an eye at the dogs wandering in and out! |
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| The Sunday School kids took part singing a few songs. They are just too cute, and did so well. |
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| Purple was the color of the day! Pretty girls….and Lester. 🙂 |
It was a great last Sunday service for us to be able to attend. It just thrilled our hearts to see these young men and kids take the whole service and to know that this was a big step of faith for many of them. In the afternoon we had Sunday School were 24 kids had memorized their 10 verses and received a children’s Bible in Tagalog this past Sunday.
Once Sunday was over, Danny and I were thrown into a packing-flurry as we were leaving the village on Wednesday. Everything has to be put into big barrels which are sealed and hopefully will keep our things from molding or getting destroyed while we are gone. I was so thankful for the help of 4 dear friends who basically helped me from morning to night and we managed to get it all done, and have some fun….and a few mango shakes in between.
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| On a hot day of packing a mango shake tasted even better than it usually does. |
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| Izzy and I still managed to get in some sweet cuddles. 🙂 |
On Tuesday afternoon Cathy and I decided to do a little party for the ladies who normally meet together on Wednesdays for Bible Study. We decided to teach them pictionary and charades not really knowing how it would “translate” into another language and culture……the pictures show how they enjoyed it more than my words ever could! Take a look at those faces! Danny said he could hear them way down the hill from where we were. 🙂
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| Ate Emma is drawing a picture and the ladies were in stitches!!! |
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| Lots of laughs together. It was so nice to have some fun before we left. |
Actually there were lots of emotions all in the space of a few days. This letter (that I took a photo of in case I lost it in all the packing) is from a young couple in the church, Tata and Roslin. They are in their early twenties and we are their “godparents” in the village. They sent this lovely little note to us to tell us that they are praying for us and they are sorry they cannot send anything with us. They said instead they will send us a verse. Daniel 12:3 is what they chose. So precious. It made us sad and happy in the one moment.
I don’t think we were the only ones going through some emotions though! Our co workers Paul and Cathy will be in the village for the first time on their own for a few months and Paul looked like he was working through some emotions the morning that we were leaving!
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| First it was tears! |
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| Then a tantrum! |
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| …but we finally left him with a smile. Acceptance had come. 🙂 |
We will miss Paul, Cathy and Zoe very much as we have spent these past months living right next to each other and ministering alongside one another. We will be in touch often while we are here in Manila keeping up with life in the village and knowing how we can pray for them and the believers as they work together. We appreciate your prayers for them over these next months, that God will give them wisdom for situations both big and small and that they will be strengthened and encouraged in their ministry. We will keep you all updated with what is happening in the village even while we are here in Manila. Thank you for your prayers for us all in the midst of constant changes.
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| Our last photo in the village as we prepared to get in the car and drive to town. God willing when we drive back home again there will be 4 of us!!! Baby days are coming soon. 🙂 |
From the concrete jungle of Manila,
Goodnight,
Philippa.
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Teacups in the Jungle 
praying for you as you are coming to the end of this pregnancy…i know how miserable it can be!
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Love reading about all that going on with you guys and the precious people in your village.
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