They're Here!

If you are looking for the pics of our Church Planter Training or of the Virtual Journey to visit some Agta villages, you will just need to scrol down past the last few posts to get to them.

Steve's parents, John and Sandi, just arrived for a visit! They will be here for 2 months, with a short interlude in the middle to visit Thailand and Malaysia. We are all very excited to have them here in our home. It had been 1 year and 10 months since we had seen them!

While they arrived safely and so did all their luggage, John had a little mishap at the airport in St. Louis and sprained his ankle! While it was painful to travel with, it did help them get preferential treatment including wheelchair service, free porters, and bulk head seats the whole way! They did see a doctor in Manila during their layover there, and it is just a sprain so he should be up and around soon. While they spent the day in Manila, we spent the day trying to track down some crutches (not easy out here in rural Philippines), and we FINALLY found some. Here is a pic of the kids with their grandparents. I know that Sandi will hate this pic, but it was the only one them and the kids that turned out, and there will be lots more pics to make up for this one. I think she was making that face in reaction to the funny face I made to get the kids to smile. Wasn't watching her expression - just the kids'. Guess my funny face scared her a little. :) Anyway, you can see how happy everyone is to be together.

They brought 4 bags full of goodies from friends and family in the States - thanks to everyone who sent something!!! What an encouragement. We actually haven't opened all of it yet - it will be better to spread it out over a couple days, and we are just enjoying being with them right now. But we did open up a few things...

We have a wakeboarding place near us, but they don't have kids' wake boards for rent, and Mikayla has been dying to try it out. Here is her face when she realized what it was - pretty excited! Papa and Grandma Jackson sent some little cars the boys absolutely love and haven't put down since they opened them up.
Mikayla got a set of Boxcar Children books that she was thrilled with - she is an avid reader, and that series is one of her favs.
Since the books were fun but not really something she could play with while the boys played with their new cars, Grandma also pulled out some Polly Pocket things from Larry and G. Mikayla laid them all out first, then she and Grandma headed up to play with them in the Polly sized doll house Mikayla has. Fun stuff! :)
We are so excited to have Steve's parents here with us for a while. We plan to put them to work while they are here - at leaset after John's leg heals up!

Just before they came, Green Valley Baptist Church sent a package for the kids from their VBS kids this summer. Here is a pic of the kids with their fun new books, water torpedoes, underwear (the boys think they will be run REAL fast with the Superman ones), bike helmets, and computer game. Thanks for being such a blessing to us and our kids!!!