Typhoon #2

I am afraid I have to break into the vacation pics to show some pics of the typhoon that just came through today. While we have had several typhoons come through near us, this was only the 2nd one that hit with much force. And, in keeping with tradition, a tree fell on our house again! This time it was a huge avocado tree in the back yard. We are all just fine (don't worry, Grandma!). Our biggest concern was when the dogs both ran away in the midst of it and couldn't make it back cuz of the flooding and wind/rain. Steve was out on a bicycle for more than an hour in the midst of the storm trying to find them. Thankfully, he was able to rescue both of them. Our electricity is out, and it will probably be for up to a week again. Thankfully though, we are borrowing a generator and will run it for a little while each day to keep the meat in the freezer frozen (so I should be able to check email daily too). So here are a few pics to tide you over...

After the storm stopped, we all worked together to try to clear some of the brush. Steve hacked away at the tree on the house to get it off the roof. He was really missing his chainsaw!
The kids had a blast helping too. Maybe next time I will even show you the pics of Mikayla and Zach wielding their own bolos (large knives). Just trying to fit in with the culture! :)

Horses and Tigers

Here is vacation pics, installment #1. I'm afraid most of the pics included my bro and sis-in-law so the options are limited. But there are still some good ones. After we picked them up at the airport, we drove down to Subic and went to the tiger safari again as well as rode horses to a little waterfall. The horse ride was about 1 hour long, part of it through jungle trails, and we all had a blast. Ben jabbered the whole way - "Big Horsey, BIG Horsey!"The kids looked adorable in the little riding hats we had to wear.

We walked to a little waterfall 1/2 way through the ride.

And we of course got to feed a baby tiger again.

The tiger safari part was great this time as the tigers were pretty hungry and playful. It got especially exciting when our guide got the chicken-on-a-string that he was feeding to the tigers stuck under the vehicle. So, he proceded to very nervously open the door to get it unstuck. I don't know that we would have been too concerned about it - except he was obviously VERY concerned. Quite the adventure. Thankfully none of the tigers were too close by...

Next installment: our visit to the WWII historic island, Corregidor.

We're Back!

Hello again! Did you miss us? :)

We safely returned from some wonderful vacation time with my brother and his wife. We traveled all over northern Luzon and visited many special places from our childhood, and had many adventures along the way. Here is a pic of our family in front of my family's old home in Aritao. I am planning to put up pics from our trip over the next couple weeks - a few new ones every couple days. So be sure to keep checking the blog. You more observant ones out there may notice that my bro and his wife don't appear in any of the pics - yes, they really were there, and, no, we are not mad at them. Just being careful - trust you understand.

Many of you have asked about the Ipod and that whole difficult situation. Thanks so much for your prayers and encouragements; this has been so tough. We are so thankful to be able to say that the warranty actually covered it, and we got a new one! What a blessing. After much investigation, we are also confident that our helper, Mhey, was not in any way involved in the plot to take or "return" the Ipod. However, she did have MANY things she was guilty of in the whole mess, and we have had some problems with her work lately... Anyway, so we decided to cut back her hours to just one day a week. It was difficult telling her this before we left, but it seemed like the right decision, and she accepted it, and was even grateful (we would have been justified in firing her for the role she did play, albeit unwittingly). But then we arrived home yesterday and opened up our phone bill to discover that she has (again) been running up our phone bill when we are not around. Since this is not a first offense with this, we will need to let her go after all. This will be very tough to do, and we still need to ask our teacher in the morning the culturally appropriate way to do it. Then I will need to find someone new to help out part time and to fill in when our other helper is sick.

Thanks for your continued prayers with this. And keep coming back to see some great pics of our trip in the next few days!

Oh - and I want to announce the birth of Abby Renae Carver, Steve's sister's first baby. She was born on the 20th of September, and both she and Christine are doing great. I will try to put a pic on once we get one...

Going on Vacation!

Well, after this past week, our upcoming vacation couldn't come at a better time - we are certainly feeling the need to get away for a while. The kids smiles in this picture show how excited we all are. We leave on Sunday the 10th (right after Steve preaches his first sermon in Tagalog - out of Romans 6!), and we will go and pick up my (Jen) brother & sis-in-law at the airport. Then we will drive all over the northern Philippines - Zoobic, Corregidor, the tribal village where Dave and I grew up, a flight base where we spent many childhood years as well, possibly even up to the famous Banaue rice terraces. We are so looking forward to some down time and wonderful time with family. Thanks for praying for safety for us as we travel and try to find our way around. We will be back in Manila on the 20th for some Dr. appts and meetings. We plan to come home the 23rd.

As for the stolen ipod -- we still don't have the whole story, just suspicions. There were 3 people there, and 3 different stories as to what happened. All claim to have no idea what happened, but we know some of them are lying about parts... The latest development is that it was "returned" - in the sense that it was chucked over our gate outside so that it broke (or was broken before it was chucked?). We will try to send it in to see if the warranty will cover it, but it has seen a lot of abuse in the last few days, and we are not sure that they will honor the warranty because of that. Please be praying for us if you think of it - we still don't know if our one helper is on all this or not. So tough to know how to handle it with her...

This week has been awful as we have tried to wade through this mess and find out what really happened. It has been good language and culture experience, but miserable. To make it worse, Steve was gone in Bicol for nearly all of it, and our other helper was home sick! What a week!

PTL, Steve's trip to Bicol went well. We have not come to a final decision, but we at least have a town that we are leaning towards locating in!!! Thanks for continuing to lift us up in prayer - we need it more than you know.

A Trip to the Fortune Teller

Well, today has been quite the adventure. Yesterday we went out for the afternoon and left one of the housegirls alone in the house to finish up then go home. She then called some friends to come over and keep her company while she "worked". Going against the house rules, she invited them into the house, and - long story short - my new Ipod MP3 player (that Steve just bought me for our anniversary on Aug 22) was stolen. Steve went with our helper and her one friend to the school of the other guy, the one we don't know and suspect took it. He ended up in the middle of a big ordeal there at the school as the principal and guidance counselor got involved and ended up searching every student there. After that exciting cultural experience, Steve and the 2 girls left, and Steve thought they were headed to the guy's house to check his room. They arrived at his house, and there were a lot of people hanging around out front and in the foyer of their house. Steve kept asking these people questions - indirectly, in keeping with the culture - trying to get to the bottom of the situation. But he just got vague answers. He then asked what all the people out front were doing. He was told that they probably lost something too and need to know where it was. It ends up, our helper's friend had taken him to a fortune teller to find out who took it! So here Steve was sitting in the waiting room to have his fortune told to find out who took the Ipod! Much to the bewilderment of all, he walked out before it was even his turn.

The day continued to be a roller coaster adventure but with the end result being a missing Ipod and no hope to get it back. The guy has certainly sold it by now. Steve finally did leave (3 hours late) for Bicol for his survey trip there. I continued to try to track it down but to no avail. Today has been quite the adventure, full of language and culture exposure, one that we will not soon forget.

As for the Ipod, I am trying very hard to view it as "just stuff" (to quote my husband). While I know this in my head, my heart is arguing...

Please be thinking of us as we try to figure out how to handle the situation with our helper who asked her friends to come in when she knew better. She has now disappeared off the face of the earth. I am not sure if and when she will come back nor what I should say to her if she does. To top it off, our other helper is sick and Steve is gone and I have a big trip to plan and pack for! Life is an adventure...