Slideshow

Hey Everyone!

It's been a month since we've last posted. We wanted to post the slideshow we created to show our friends and family what we did on outreach. Enjoy the video and we will post again after Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family. We love you.

Outreach Update # 3

(borrowed from Tom & Lisa Maxwell's blog)


Besides ministering in many of the area villages, here is a glimpse of some of the ways our team ministered within the central barangays of Bontoc.

Making a presentation to the municipal government employees during the Monday morning flag ceremony

Kids' Club in the plaza

Ministering to the Police Officers for the Moral Recovery Program

DTS with the Students at the YWAM Mt. Province Base in Bontoc

Visiting sick children at the hospital

Taking Blood Pressure at the Friday morning Health Clinic

Ministering to local congregations

Outreach Update #2

(post borrowed from Tom & Lisa Maxwell's blog.)

One of our first adventures was to take our team to Maligcong.  This gave most of our team our first opportunity to have a truly Filipino experience - riding a jeepney.  Some even enjoyed the natural beauty of the area by riding on top of the jeepney (Shane rode on top and I am hiding behind Eli's head inside the jeepney).

Brothers Zack and Breck taking a moment for a photo-op

Because our team is large we were able to divide, with part of the team staying in the village of Favuyan and the other hiking through the wonders of the rice terraces to the village of Fang-orao.

In Favuyan...

Michelle and Reuben leading worship

Eric giving testimony of how God saved his life

In Fang-orao...

Photo-op while hiking through the terraced mountains to Fang-orao
(I am in the pink skirt and Shane is the 4th person up from the bottom)

The team shared "cardboard testimonies" like Eli is showing here:  one side showing a struggle the person faced and the other side showing how God brought them through it.

Darren and Krista presenting the sermon together

The sermon was followed by a time of prayer.

After service, both teams enjoyed sharing a meal with the congregation they spent the morning with.  It was a good and exhausting day.

Outreach Update # 1

The 2011 Am-Among Festival was once again a colorful visual and cultural experience for all who participated in and observed the activities.

Lisa (our YWAM contacts who live in the Philippines) snapped these photos as the street dancers were queing up for the parade.

In years past, these young ladies may have been comparing actual tattoos covering their arms.

The dances and cultural represented aspects of traditional life among the Bontoc people.  All of these presentations were made through the medium of traditional gong music and dancing.  Many depicted the agricultural background of the people here.

The girl on the left is Casey, used to be part of YWAM's SSM program.

Other Igorot historical practices such as courtship were highlighted as well.  But perhaps the most exciting was a presentation of a war dance where two combatants struggled against each other using traditional weapons.  The dancers showed intensity as the gongs played and they alternately danced for position and charged, clashing shields as they leaped through the air.

The festival was a great opportunity for our visiting team to experience the sights and sounds of the culture of Bontoc.  While enjoying the festival, the team distributed water bottles, as we have done in the past, to spectators in an effort to share the love of God with others.

(post borrowed from Tom & Lisa Maxwell's blog)

FINALLY... an update!

Hello from the Philippines! We have officially ended our first full week in the Philippines
and I am happy to report that things are going well. Our flights from the USA to the
Philippines went extremely well. We had some tired kiddos, but all of the kids were
troopers. Shane and I were SO proud of Eli and Ayla. They are rockstars when it comes
to long plane rides (especially since Mom was a dork and forgot to pack Eliʼs
gameboy!). We stayed our first night in Baguio at the YWAM base there. It was very
rustic and musty smelling with no running water while we were there. Apparently they
had a water shortage for those 2 days. We took off the next morning on a rented bus for
a CrAzY journey to Bontoc. The roads were INSANE and extremely curvy. We all
stocked up on dramamine and did fairly well. Itʼs not a trip I am looking forward to on our
way home, but thankfully we packed enough motion sickness medicine for the entire
team.
Weʼve all settled into our living accommodations quite nicely and are adjusting to our
new lifestyle for the next 2 months. We are very pleased (and shocked) with how nice
our rooms are. We not only have running water, but we have warm water!!! Our family
also has 2 double beds to sleep in (last year we had 2 twin beds for our family of four).
The location of Bontoc is incredible. We are nestled in between the mountains and our
view is beautiful. Itʼs the rainy season, so weʼve had rain every day but it doesnʼt usually
last long. Itʼs warm and humid and my hair has been interesting. lol :-)
We have rice fields all around us and have goats, water buffalos, chickens, cows, pigs
and dogs all over the place. The kids on our team have started to name the water
buffalos roaming in the rice fields. We hear pigs squealing one minute and then the next
minute we see two guys carrying a long pole with a pig hanging off it (arms and legs tied
up) taking it to the market. We pass butcher shops going down the road selling pig
heads and every other part of the pig (sitting on a table, outside, in the heat, being
swarmed with flies). It smells SO bad walking past these shops. Walking through the
market is also interesting. Electricity is expensive here, so most people do not use a
refrigerator. This requires them to shop every day for the food they will need to prepare.
We have 2-3 team members assist our YWAM contacts every afternoon when they go
into the market. Lisa (our YWAM contact) told me a story about a big rat running across
the fruit or vegetables she was looking at one time when she was at the market.
Needless to say, I keep my eyes open and alert at all times. :-) Everyone warned me
about the big bugs in the Philippines, but so far, I havenʼt seen anything too scary. Iʼve
seen one cockroach (outside our bedroom door... but my shoe too care of him right
away), tons of ants and little geckos (like they have in Florida).
We do not have wifi, but there are a few internet cafeʼs close to our hotel. They are
extremely old school and run extremely slow. We have to pay to use them they are
usually hot, stuffy and crowded.
We started homeschool earlier this week and it is going REALLY well. Ayla is working
on writing and letter sounds. Eli has tackled his BJU video curriculum and thinks itʼs fun.
Iʼm waiting for them to both dread having school, but at this point, itʼs still fun and
exciting for them.
I must go - we will head into a local village this Sunday to host 2 church services with
our team. We are excited to see what some of these more remote villages are like
compared to the Filipinos living in the cities/towns. Next week our entire team will go to
Can-eo for the weekend and sleep in the village. Iʼm nervous and excited about the
experience. Thank you for your prayers and interest in family. We love you all and canʼt
wait to post some pictures to give you a glimpse of what weʼve been up to. Until next
time....

 Our view... we're are literally in between some mountains. It's beautiful.

 We were here during the Am-Among Festival where local tribes get together and have a parade and dance competition with their tribal dances and attire. It was awesome!

 This was my favorite dance - they had to guys fighting like in a tribal war. Very cool.

The water buffalo that wonders in the rice fields behind our place.

Adventures in the Philippines

Riding a mechanical bull while shopping at the mall in Baguio.

Outreach Prep

This song is called, "If You Love Jesus". It's so fun to sing! I find that this song gets stuck in my head a lot.  :-)

This song is called, "The Hippo Song". It actually is better in person and when you aren't trying to teach it to adults (you don't normally echo each other). We sang this song a lot in India and the kids all loved it.

June

It's June 2nd today... it doesn't feel like it's June. The temps have been in the low to mid 60's and the sun hasn't been shining for often lately. I hear it supposed to be a fabulous weekend, but then rain and cooler temps next week. Doesn't Oregon know that it's supposed to be SUMMER!?!?!

Thankfully I will be able to experience a little bit of warmer temperatures in a week and a half when I go back to Michigan for a long weekend. I will be arriving in the evening on Thursday, June 9th and staying until Monday morning, June 13th. Shane and the kiddos will not be traveling with me as the ticket prices are so expensive and the time I am able to spend at home is so short. I am happy to be able to witness by brother (Scott) getting married. I am excited to visit with my friends and family and I am REALLY excited to see the sun!  :-)

So much has happened since we've moved to YWAM, but it's so hard to find the time to write about everything. I also find it hard to find the words to describe all that has happened. One word that could sum up my entire last year would be "transition". I, personally, feel like I am in a constant state of transition. It's not a bad thing by any means, but it definitely keeps you busy. When we arrived to the YWAM base, we were transitioning to living in community (we share one ranch-style house with 2 other families), transitioning from living away from our family and friends, and transitioning into our new roles here on base. Elijah and I transitioned from homeschooling to sending him to the local elementary school. Shane and I have worked in a few areas here on base for the past few months and am now transitioning into the Crossroads school. We were unable to live in our home for a few weeks as we had a serious mold issue in our dining room and had to transition to living in the dorms. Thankfully, we are now back in our home. We received a new kitchen this past week, so we have lived in a state of transition again as we have had no sink, stove, microwave, etc to use and have eaten all of our meals at the cafeteria. We are excited about our transition into Crossroads. We have 9 students and 10 children coming this summer! My kids are excited about meeting some new friends. We have been praying for our students and planning our school for the past 2 weeks. Every Friday evening we have gone to our director's house to play games and fellowship. I love my fellow staff members. God has blessed our school with a great group of people.

We are excited about having Shane's Mom visit us the first week of July and my parent's coming at the end of July and the first 2 weeks of August. We are planning to go back to Michigan sometime in December and stay for a few weeks. We are planning to homeschool the kids after we return from outreach, so it will work out well for us to stay in Michigan for an extended period of time.

For those of you who know about Romio, I wanted to let you know that he is okay but needs to move asap. Please continue to pray for him as he is in need of a more permanent place to live that is in a safer area. For those of you who don't know, Romio (our orphan friend in Jamaica) had his life threatened and a ransom call was made to Shane and I saying that if we did not send them money, that they would kill Romio. It's a really long story, but Romio was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a very surreal and traumatic experience for Shane and I (I can only imagine how Romio felt) and we could also use your prayers. We have already witnessed God's amazing grace and felt an unexplainable peace that only He could give us. Thank you to everyone who has been praying.

As far as my kiddos... they are doing well. Elijah had some bullying issues at school, but thankfully, they have stopped. While Elijah loves his teacher and is really enjoying first grade, we have decided to homeschool both kids next year because of our crazy schedule. We will be co-leading outreach from Sept-Nov and then we would like to take an extended break and come home for several weeks in December. Obviously no child can miss the entire first semester of school and keep up with everyone else in class, so we applied and were approved as missionaries with BJU (Bob Jones University) and will use their DVD homeschool program. The kids are actually excited about homeschooling (Eli wants a shorter school day. lol), so I'm praying it goes well. I never thought I would homeschool... I have extremely little patience when it comes to teaching school, but God is working on me. haha.   :-)

Shane and I are doing well. Shane is applying for an Oregon drivers license tomorrow as his bday is this Sunday (June 5th) and our license plate and tabs expire. He has to retake the written portion of the test, so pray that he passes it with no problem. You'd be surprised at the various difference each state has (speed limits, bike rules, etc). It's not really a "common sense" test... it's a "do you know Oregon" kind of test. Dumb (if you ask me). Anyway - he's studying for it as we speak and would appreciate your prayers. I am heading up the volunteer program here on base, so if you know of anyone who'd like to come spend 1-3 months out here and volunteer, LET ME KNOW.   :-)

Love to you all...

Happy Birthday Ayla

Check out this YouTube video I made for Ayla's birthday. Isn't she adorable!?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecF6xY5VlVM

A Glimpse of Our YWAM Training

Silent Auction

Please join us at a Silent Auction Fundraiser being held to help our family raise our support to send us to YWAM (Youth With A Mission). The auction will be held on Friday, February 4, 2011 at Georgetown Christian Fellowship Church on Port Sheldon St in Hudsonville. The auction starts at 6:30pm and goes until 9pm. 
$5 per person gets you in the door with a dessert and a drink where you will be able to listen to a LIVE band and bid on over 50 items up for auction.

Items up for auction include (but not limited to):
$500 ping pong table from MC Sports
A nights stay at various Hotels (Marriot, Baymont Inn, etc)
Car washes
Oil Changes
Gift Certificates to MANY restaurants
Skating at Terry Hall
3 month Tae-kwon-do lessons w/uniform
Photography Sessions
Music box
Griffins Tickets
Scrapbooking Baskets
Double J Resort
Salon gift certificates
Golf Passes

We are so excited about this fundraiser. Please come and invite everyone you know. If you have any questions, feel free to email.