Happy Thanksgiving!

We leave early tomorrow morning for another island here in the Philippines to celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends, the Allens (the ones who used to live near us in Bicol but moved earlier this year). I made a quick map of where we are going in case you are interested. We will fly to Manila, then down to Bacolod. We return on December 2. Thanks for your prayers for safe travels, good health, and sweet times of fellowship. We hope each of you have a great week praising God for all He has done and is doing all around the world.

In Awe

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Steve and I were sitting outside enjoying the cool night air and the star-filled sky last night (making the best of a brown out), and we got talking about how God is at work amongst the Agta. We are in awe of the amazing things He is doing.

Here are some pictures from a 2nd baptism in one of our Bible studies (that makes 3 baptisms in less than a month!). These 5 who were baptized this time are all siblings or spouses of siblings in one family. They have all attended the Bible studies, but many of them have been "hit or miss". However, Jose, the man on the right, has been telling EVERYONE about his new-found faith in Christ, and he has helped his siblings understand the Truth. Imagine our joy at watching him baptize men and women who he has led to the Lord.

As you can see, they are doing the baptisms a little differently than we do them in the States. Instead of laying the person back into the water, they are pushing them straight down into the water. Now this is real "dunking". :)

We also just found out yesterday that Annabelle, one of the ones in this same study group from the 1st baptism, just led her husband to the Lord! God is so good, and we stand in awe of all He is doing here.

Please take some time to pray for Jose, his wife Mary Ann, and Annabelle this weekend. They are all attending their first training seminar on how to be even more effective at teaching the Word. Their excitement about all they are learning is infectious. Please pray as well for Steve as he teaches at the 2-day training.

You've got to be kidding me...

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Ok, so we drove a couple hours to go see a movie last weekend. When we got there, the sign said that it started at 11 am. We hustled and got in the theater at 10:58. We were surprised to see that the movie was already going but figured we had only missed a couple minutes. But as we watched, it really seemed like it was the middle of the movie. Steve went and asked about it, and we found out that on the sign that said it started at 11, it also had a little "R4" next to it. Come to find out, that, yes, it starts at 11 am - at "Reel 4" - 1/2 way through the movie!!! When we asked what time the BEGINNING of the movie starts, they looked at us like we were NUTS and informed us that it was playing all day long. We said we understood that, but that we want to watch JUST from the beginning to the end. After we convinced them that we really wanted to start at the beginning of the movie and were not just pulling their legs, they scrambled to try to figure out what time it would be on "R1". They eventually said "probably around 12".

So we left to try to find somewhere nearby to get lunch (a whole other story) then came back at 11:57. We caught the last scene of the movie, then the credits. The credits were not even finished yet when it cut to "R1" and jumped right into the beginning of the movie. It would be impossible to time your arrival so as to miss the end of the movie and still catch the beginning.

As it turns out, Filipinos just pay for a ticket, arrive whenever they want and start the movie at whatever point, watch until the end, THEN they watch the beginning up to the point where they started watching.

So not only were we weird when we wanted to watch from the beginning of the movie, we were also the ONLY ones in the whole theater who left when it was over - everyone else was sticking around to see up til the point when they started. It also means that people are coming and going throughout the movie since they arrive and leave at random times.

Always an adventure!

Praising Him!

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Yesterday was another exciting day in the village - 2 of the Bible study groups decided to do a joint baptism! Altogether 9 were baptized. There were already 2 baptized believers, so there is a healthy start to their little church. These first 2 pictures were taken while Steve was visiting with the group before the baptism. Roger is quite the cut-up, and he and Steve have a lot of fun together.

Once everyone had arrived, we trekked down the mountain to the lake. Steve started by explaining again what baptism is all about - that it is simply a sign of the faith they have in Christ. It was neat to see how many gathered to watch the proceedings. This is the group that gathered on the rocks; there were a couple dozen more up a little further on the hill.
Steve then baptized Roger first, then Freddie. Then these 2 men, as well as the 2 men who were previously baptized, baptized the women.
After the baptism, we returned to Roger's house to break bread together. It was a sweet time. Please continue to pray for these new believers as they grow in faith and obedience. Pray especially for the 4 women who had planned to be baptized yesterday but their shyness got the better of them just before-hand. Pray for God to give them the courage to go through with it next time. Also pray for the young man in black below. He is a cousin of Roger, and as a result of the baptism, he is very interested in studying the Bible with them. Pray that he would continue to seek the Truth.
This older gentleman caught my eye yesterday. He is a sweet old man, and he desperately needs Christ. Pray that God would draw his heart and he would begin to desire to study the Word.
I took this picture on our day off this week at the wakeboard park just before we left.
Isn't it beautiful?

Fun with Lizards

Ok, so maybe it is only fun if you get to read about it on someone

else's blog and you aren't the one who actually experiences it. But at least this way, YOU get to have some fun at our expense!

The other morning, our helper came in to work and said that we probably should check under our bed since she heard something under there the day before that scared her. To which our first thought was, "Couldn't you have mentioned this BEFORE we slept in that bed last night???" But Steve dutifully went and took the bed apart so we could look under it. He was more than a little surprised to find a MONITOR LIZARD under our bed!!! It was already dead and had several blood spots smeared around it. It seems that it was outside, and the dogs got ahold of it and broke its back; but it was somehow able to get inside and under the bed before it thrashed around and died (at least we prefer to think that to the alternative- that something larger than that monitor lizard killed it under our bed!) It was pretty big, especially if you count the very long tail (look closely).

As we were cleaning it up, we noticed that a smaller lizard had also met his demise under our bed - between the mattress and the frame, we found this little guy flattened. No idea how long he has been there.

Ok, so it wasn't really that much fun for us - was it fun for you? :)

A New Bible Study

Our supervisor was supposed to come down from Manila for a visit last weekend, but his flight was canceled due to weather. Since he was going to be here over a Sunday, and people from several of our Bible studies wanted to meet him, we decided to have a "fiesta" - just bring a lot of food and have a time of fellowship. Well, when his flight was canceled, there was nothing to do except continue with the plan since we have no way of telling them that things had changed (no phones in the village!). So borrowed our friends' car early Sunday am and drove about 45 minutes away, stopping many times to pick up passengers from various Bible Studies until both vehicles were crammed full of people. We stopped at the market in the last little town to buy some rice, fish, kalabasa (like squash), coconuts, and langka (jackfruit cooked as a vegetable) to bring with us up into the village.

Then we hiked the last 20 minutes or so into the village of Pokoy. Remember the new believers in the village of Santa Justina? The ones that were baptized a couple weeks ago? Well, they have lots of relatives in the village of Pokoy, and when they told their relatives how much they were learning from the Bible, their relatives asked them to come teach in their village! God is really at work in this new village, and many MEN are attending every week and taking real ownership of the group (there are women as well, but it is hard to get the men here in the Philippines, so that is what makes this group different).

While everyone was disappointed that our supervisor wasn't able to come after all, they were still game for a party, and everyone brought food to contribute, pot-luck style. Since I haven't put any village pics up for a little while, I brought my camera with this time and took some shots of all the fun.

The kids are getting great at hiking into villages - even Ben (though he did have a wipe-out on the way back and skinned his knee and shin :( .)

Mikayla played with babies (this cutey is Steve's god daughter) while the boys watched the men cut up the fish.

This is Sam. He is 20 months old, and until recently was very sickly. We were very concerned about him and weren't sure he would make it; he lost a lot of weight and would just lie around listlessly all the time. Since his family has no money for medical care, we paid for him to go get a dr appt and chest xray. They treated him for pneumonia, and now he is doing great! His mom, Annabelle, is one of the new believers from Santa Justina, and her level of excitement about the things of God will light up your world. And now she keeps very busy chasing a very active and healthy Sam all over the village. :)

Mikayla tried to make friends with 8 yr old, Janet, but she was too shy. Maybe she will feel more comfortable next time she sees Mikayla.

This guy kept his distance and seemed very suspicious of everything, but when it came time for the Bible study, he came close enough to listen carefully.

"Kain na tayo!" (Let's eat!)

Steve met this old guy on the first Sunday they were driving out to Pokoy. He was walking along the side of the road, and Steve offered him a ride. Jose, one of the new believers from Santa Justina, was with Steve in the car, and Jose promptly told the old guy all that he had been learning from the Bible and invited him to the Bible study. He has been coming ever since!

These two girls were all smiles the whole time. Too precious.

This one was painfully shy - I tried unsuccessfully all day to make eye contact with her and smile, but I was never able to.

This little guy is a pill! He was teasing and running around the whole time. I caught him in a peaceful moment as he was eating his lunch. Notice his "plate" is some bark from a banana tree and his "spoon" is his fingers.

It was great to watch Steve connecting with the men. It was also neat to see the new believers from several Bible studies get together for the 1st time and be able to casually share their testimonies as they sat around. Roger, with the hat, was very vocal in sharing all that God is teaching him, and I think God really used him in that new group.

Well, even though our supervisor was not able to come after all, we had a wonderful time in the village of Pokoy, and we even ended up going through 2 Bible lessons - both from the life of Abraham. Please pray with us for this new group as they grapple with the Truth of the Word and make life-changing decisions in the near future.