Missionaries, Misconceptions, and the dashing of Idols

This is the first actual bit of "work" that I've done in a few weeks. I've been doing some meetings here, scheduled some stuff there, but I haven't been doing any reading or writing or anything that feels....substantial. 

There are reasons for that, of course. We've been busy with life stuff. Meeting with friends, holiday stuff (we did Thanksgiving here!) and sickness has taken it's toll on our schedules with work and homeschooling. So yeah, this feels good, to sit down and write something. It feels good to put some thoughts to keyboard and process some of what has been going on, and if you haven't noticed, processing what we are going through is really kind of the point of this blog, along with stateside contact, of course.

In October, Rudy, our translator, took some well deserved time off to go spend time with his family in another city and all of a sudden, out of the clear blue sky, culture shock hit. Hard. We were suddenly struck with some of the little difficulties of living in the Philippines. We had more or less a month to sit in our house, not go anywhere or do anything really noteworthy. During this time a sort of weird grumpiness set in. We bemoaned silly things, like the lack of lunch meat, or the fact that I would wound or seriously maim someone to get my hands on some spinach, or some of the cultural situations that we would find ourselves in that really were not that out of the ordinary. But we were suffering from culture shock. We were missing America. We were missing the comforts and the American-ness of our home culture.

Some of you guys were able to see Hollie's video at SRC about her struggle with comfort and that idol here on the ground. That is a snapshot of what we have been going through for the past two months with the almost daily onslaught of creeping thoughts of "why?"

Why are we here? What in the world are we doing? Do we really need to be here? Is this the work God actually called us to? Nobody (seems to) even really wants us here, so why bother? Why not just go home and hide in a hole of shame and failure?

Why in the world were we going through this?

Aside from the fact that culture shock can happen to anyone, missionary or not, we were feeling like we were under attack and a general feeling of uselessness and a drain on resources of the church that lovingly kicked us out of the country almost a year ago. It was (and in some ways still is) an identity struggle we were going through. We were struggling with our identity and how we were wrapping ourselves up in "the work" instead of Christ. We were caught up in the feel and flow of what was or was not happening with work and that seemed more important that resting in Christ and our identity that is hidden with Him. We should have been  resting in the knowledge that we are redeemed in Christ and that through and in Him we have finally found out who we really are and don't have to worry about keeping up with the performance of work or status or some sort of ministry facade. Instead we were worrying about the outer, the facing, the facade of what being a "good" missionary is, what our performance looked like and what we thought we should be doing. We, like so many Western Christians, have/are in the process of getting rid of this romantic view of international missions and what in our mind it should look like. We had this misconception and this wrong-headed view that we needed to be suffering more, being more on the front-line of mission work (you know, where the super dangerous and unreached people are, where there are few to no established churches) and not working here because there are lots of buildings and groups that call themselves "church" and I mean really, do we even need to be here?*

We were also going through a slow process of God dismantling our idol of mission work. Because we were struggling with misconceptions and our identity, we ended up in one way or another, turning being a missionary into an idol. Something we rested in. Something we found our security in. Instead of that beautiful and glorious rest from the race and the grind and the day to day flow of junk that we constantly wade through, the rest that we can only find in Christ, we ran headlong into that flow of junk. We turned our performance and identity as a respectable and upstanding citizens of the kingdom as missionaries into a trap and a snare, something we would check ourselves against and became chained to. We are not missionaries first and foremost. We are not that even secondly or thirdly! We are missionaries at like a fifth tier. There are more important things that that that we have as part of who we are. Yet because of the busyness of language school, acclimatizing to the culture (as best we could) and planning a trip for this past summer, we never really had the chance to check ourselves and see what and where we may be slipping into idolatry. It was only when we had a chance to slow down and be quiet in October into November that we were finally able to hear the convicting voice of the Holy Spirit telling us that we needed to pry the lump of dirt that we had lashed ourselves to out of our hands and drop it. We needed to let go of the pressure and the idea that we had of what all of this past year and the next few years means. Has it been easy going since coming to this conclusion? By no means! But we are continually in the process of being redirected from looking at ourselves and our circumstances (that we chose to come to!) and reorient everything around Christ. We have to. We can't survive here without being wrapped in and around Christ. Heck, we couldn't survive anywhere this side of heaven without being orienting our lives around Christ and the rest that He gives us.


'Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the
surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For
his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count
them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be
found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that
comes from the law, but that which comes through faith
in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on
faith— '
(Philippians 3:8-9)

Christ is what is worth knowing. Christ is worth losing everything and being able to let go of everything that we have. Christ is what makes all things, even good things, seem like rubbish compared to the knowing of Him. Through this knowing we gain Him and His righteousness, this righteousness does not depend on us at all, and so we don't have to perform works of the Law (because we can't measure up) or measure up to the standards of the little L law that we suffer through societal pressures (because we can't measure up to that either). We rest in Christ through faith, we get God's perfect righteousness through faith, and nothing we do...or don't do.
It is precisely because of Christ's work on our behalf that we are able to get His righteousness through faith. And because of that we can let go of the pressures that we have put upon ourselves and we can rest in knowing Him. Everything else can fall into their proper place when we put knowing Christ at the center of it all. This is our justification. This is our salvation. This is the most transformational aspect of Christianity, and it is often one of the most ignored aspects.

We need to recover this. We need to rediscover the freedom and joy that we find when we orient our lives around Christ and the cross and His finished work on our behalf. We have to do this. We have to be able to fix the anchor of our lives on the Rock and no matter how and what happens to us, no matter the storms and troubles that we face, we can rest secure that our anchor holds. This has nothing to do with us, but everything to do with the One we are anchored to.

So remember to pray for us as we are still learning and relearning this important lesson. And remember this lesson yourself the next time you are trying to measure up to your job, or your neighbors, or the idea of yourself in your head, or what you think being a Christian is. Remember Christ and that He is your rest and your righteousness.


*The answer is yes, because God called us and had placed us here, so of course this is where we need to be.

The Best Laid Plans Pt.2

This is the second part in the series, Best Laid Plans, if you haven't read the first part, click here

We were told late on Monday night, the very first full day of door to door work that there was an event at the Mayor's office that we were asked to attend. I thought that was cool, but didn't think that everyone needed to go, maybe just my family and Brian.Oh no, everyone needed to go, and it really wasn't a request, we were told it kind of had to happen.
That is how we found out that we all needed to be ready bright and early the next day in our church clothes to go meet the Mayor of Tubajon. Nobody knew what we were to expect, or even how long it was supposed to take, but we all got ready and waited for the official pick up to get us out there.

From the Mayor's Office, Pic by (si)Garrett Boone

The ambulance and the rescue vehicle was dispatched to make multiple trips to get us all out to the Mayor's office, which has a beautiful view of the bay and is overlooking the barangays that line the coast.  After settling in and going through introducing everyone and getting some cold refreshments we had a chance to talk with him about why we are here and what our goals are in Tubajon. We were given some good maps of the municipality and where the nine barangays (kind of like villages within the municipality) are located. He offered us help in whatever way he could and was very gracious and generous. Since the place we were staying was owned by him, we got to see the Mayor and his wife a few times after that meeting, and each time we were greeted very warmly by him and he was curious about what we would be doing or what our next plan was.

I guess this is as good a time as any to let you guys know a little bit about our plans for work on Dinagat. With the map we now have we can see all nine barangays in Tubajon and we can see how difficult it will be to reach them. Most of the people who live in the municipality live in the bay area that we normally go to and so they are within reach, but getting up into the mountains is going to be tricky at best.

Another challenge that we learned about from the Mayor was the general religious makeup of the other barangays that are up in the mountains: The Philippine Benevolent Mission Association, or the PBMA is not always a dangerous group, but they have been known to have their moments.

With the Mayor and His Wife, Pic by Jessica Lambiase

But one of the awesome things that came out of this past trip is something that we thought was going to take much longer. Pastor Arnel was worried that the young men of Tubajon are moving off to Manila or Surigao to get better jobs, which makes his church very one-sided in terms of men to women. With this trip, however, we have seen at least 6 young men (and maybe up to 15!) step forward and begin to show a desire to be involved in ministry in some way. They are not all from Arnel's church (some are from different denominations) but they are all eager to learn and be better disciples and better men of God. We intend to train those that want to be trained to send them out to be pastor-missionaries, doing the work of evangelism and church planting and pastoring a small church of (hopefully) new converts.

So while we were definitely not planning on meeting the Mayor, God orchestrated this event to be exactly what we've been praying and looking forward to: young men eager to serve and the means to get them out into the more remote barangays. Isn't God awesome?

Please pray for us as we step in to help with follow-up from the trip and as I'm writing the training material that we will use for these young men. We are also looking forward to maybe having some other smaller teams come out before next summer, pray that all would be put in place for that to happen as well, because that will also be a huge help and blessing to us. Pray for the young men that we are working with, that they would grow in godliness and a firm sense of God's calling. Also please pray for the Mayor and his wife, they are Catholic and going through some medical issues and with their Catholic theology, it seems like they put more trust that the local priest can help them more than Christ can.

The Best Laid Plans part 1

We just sent the team back about a week ago. We spent months preparing and planning, consulting contacts and church leaders here and in the States to make sure that we not only had a successful trip logistically, but that we were pursuing a goal that we believed that God had laid out before us in a way that would glorify Him and help with all that we were trying to do on Dinagat Island.

The team also prepared for months. They raised money, purchased and borrowed gear and went through training at SRC for this trip. They prayed and sacrificed so that they could come alongside us in the work we are doing here for just a short amount of time.

They flew for almost three days straight before landing in Butuan in the afternoon last Friday. We picked them up and went straight to Surigao on what seemed like a bus ride that lasted forever. After settling in to our hotel rooms with the 12 Amerikanos and the 6 translators and our family we went out to eat at Calda Pizza, a SRC Tubajon tradition now. The next day after breakfast we loaded all our things onto a 30 seater pump boat and traveled for a little under 3 hours to Tubajon. We were all tired but we were able to land right in front of the resort we were staying at, which is a major improvement from having to walk from the dock on the other side of town.

We had our first dinner there at another house right next door to where we were staying and had all our meals there. Then we had our first team meeting, going over the agenda and schedule for the next few days and trying to offer advice and make sure everyone knew what to expect. Then we all got some rest for Sunday morning, when the team would be leading worship for the local church there. The service went very well, with all the people in attendance we had to meet in the gym near the church to make sure there was seating enough for everyone. Hayden and Harper led singing while Brian preached and then Arnel got up and led his congregation in a Cebuano hymn or two.

Later that afternoon we had a basketball tournament where we were sharing the Gospel in between games and advertising the Bible Studies and VBS we were going to have the rest of the week. There were only minor injuries, mostly to Rosie, who tried to stick her fingers into a metal fan (!) and came out with only two little bitty cuts on her fingers.

Even with the little amount that we had done up to that point the stress was already killing me and Hollie. We were getting short with one another and, I'm sure, with others on the team. We have never done anything like this and even though we knew that in the Philippines nothing goes as planned we (read Jeff) hoped that having Americans in the mix would somehow even that out; because that makes sense right?

After a quick pep-talk from Brian later that evening we thought we were ready to start Monday off right and begin our Door-to-Door evangelism and Prayer Walking Groups. They went pretty well, it didn't take long to get everyone set up and on their way to where they needed to be and so I could concentrate on visiting church members with Arnel. But then the first scheduling "issue" came up. It was too hot for some of the Americans (not to mention that every one of them was experiencing jet-lag) and so they had to stop what they were doing and get back to the resort to cool down. Not a major issue, in fact an ok one to have:  people were recognizing their own limits and didn't push themselves past in an attempt to simply do work and be busy. The only downside was that they had a lot of free time on their hands (to me at least), with up to six hours of free time because we couldn't do VBS or anything else for kids in the afternoon because Filipino kids are in school during this time of year, plus the early afternoon heat is awful for everyone.

So we made the decision to let people decide when to call their morning, no earlier then 10, no later than 11.30, so that everyone could be back in time for lunch. After rest time we had our first VBS and it was quick and semi-painless affair, which is good because the person who planned it out (Hollie) couldn't be there for the first few because the girls were napping. After we cleaned up the minimal mess from VBS we got back to the resort, ate dinner and got ready to be back a little later for the Bible Studies. These were my baby, where the Americans were helping to show some of the church members how easy leading an evangelistic Bible Study was supposed to be. When we got to the gym to meet the throngs of unbelievers who were supposed to be filling up the place waiting to hear about Jesus, we only found little kids playing basketball. Man, the disappointment was almost palpable. While we were waiting to see if there was going to be some guys who wanted to have a Study, we learned that we were invited to the Mayor's Office the next morning, and that meeting was a big deal, and everyone had to be in attendance, scheduling issue no.2, no more morning Door-to-Door or prayer walking the next day.

photo of SBC Tubajon by Jessica Lambiase

The guys who wanted to have the Bible Study finally showed and when we found out that it was enough for one group Brian took the other guys back to their rooms while I got down to business with the small group. This group ended up being a HUGE surprise blessing, because Arnel and I have been praying for a small group of young passionate guys that we could train as pastor/church planters and send them out throughout the Tubajon region. With the exception of maybe one or two guys, we now have a group of trainable young men to work with and possibly send out into the wide open mission field that is Tubajon.

So the week went about as planned for the rest of the time. Aside from our visit to the Mayor's office (another post!)and the ensuing zaniness that event happened to cause, and one other event (yet another post!) it was fairly smoothish sailing. While I am glad that the whole stressful planning process is over, we have definitely learned quite a bit about how to plan and execute a mission trip. We are blessed to be apart of what God is doing here in the Philippines, in the next few weeks I hope to update everyone here on what we have planned as follow-up for the next few months (at least!).

First Day on the Job

We've been here since about the middle of January, about three months. We've seen and done a lot of things since we moved. Most of what we've been posting here has been funny little stories or cultural situations that we have found ourselves in and somehow connected to our spiritual walk with God.
So at some point, some of the 40 or so people who read this blog (that's right, I know) may start to wonder just why are we here, and what are we doing, what are we supposed to be doing?*
Well, wonder no longer! The weather allowed me and my national partner, Rudy to make a trip out to Dinagat a couple of weeks ago, our first such work trip. We were supposed to meet at a mall at 5 am to get to the bus terminal to get to a city called Surigao City, about three and a half to four hours away. We were on a time crunch because the ONLY ferry that went to where we were going on Dinagat that day left at noon. Well, I missed my alarm and woke up to Hollie saying "Jeff, the sun's up", then speed walking to the mall to meet my very patient partner, we set of to the terminal and got on the cheap bus, without AC.
The buses are interesting, much like the city multicabs, they pick up whoever flags them and fills up the bus way more that it needs to be...
At one point, while most people on the bus were trying to take a nap, we were at another terminal getting yet more passengers when blaring rock music poured onto the bus and a semi blind man walked on singing and begging for money.
A few hours later this guy brought four or five roosters on the bus in woven bags to keep them calm.
Not much else to say about that.
We finally made it to Surigao and got a motorbike to carry us to the pier and made it onto the right ferry with a few minutes to settle in and get some water (we had missed breakfast and lunch by this point and had nothing to drink) before the ferry left for Tubajon.
We made it safely and walked to short walk to the church where we would be staying.
After some kape and pan (coffee and bread) we got to work meeting with the Pastor. We spent that afternoon and all next day seeing how we can help him and his church with the vision God has given them to do evangelism all over Dinagat.
We also spent some time taking about plans for the upcoming mission trip this summer and we were able to do some surveying of Tubajon for future work.
While we were there we got to participate in a cottage prayer meeting, where​ we learned that two new families started going to that church because of work that SRC was apart of, and so that's really cool to see that fruit.
We sang hymns in Cebuano and had a lami kaayo (very delicious) soup-like dessert made with sweet potato and banana. I got a chance to try my Cebuano out and overall it was an awesome experience with other believers.
That night we settled in for a brief rest because we had to be up at three to catch the ferry back to Surigao. This time we sat at the very back of the bus where we learned what "whip lash" really means while eight people sat in the space of four seats.
After arriving at the bus terminal cramped and somehow sunburned I had another multicab and a tryke to get me home. Then a good cold shower and spending time with my family. Aahhh
Overall it was a really good trip, where we learned some of the challenges that await us on Dinagat while getting a chance for fellowship and planning.
I can't wait to go back in May, when their Church anniversary is with all of the Rathbuns, that will really be an adventure.

*I would like to say that our main focus right now is language study. That is our job now, taking up 15+ hours a week, and if/when we don't treat is as such then we run the risk of not pushing ourselves and falling behind in class.

First Encounter of the mosquito-y kind

The other night (Thursday night, to be exact) I had a "first encounter". I was walking to the mall, a mere 1.1km away from the house, when a voice came out from the darkness saying "hello!". A Filipino man emerged from the darkness, chewing leaves, spitting red juice virtually everywhere. He had a jacket on and for some reason I could see his breath (it was 76 degrees out). He asked me if I was American in Sibuhano and I thought to myself "heck yeah, I get to practice!" So I answered back to him that yes, I was American. He asked me if I lived around here and I told him the name of our street, right around the corner. He asked me how long we had been here and I was able to tell him one month, but it was at point that I realized that he didn't even speak Cebuano, he was speaking something else, a tribal language of some sort. I asked him in Cebuano if he spoke English and he said a little. That made the conversation flow. After he asked me about my job in America (hahaha) I told him I worked here in the Philippines with churches, and I got to ask him if he was a Christian....no was the response, he was a Muslim. My heart both started to get really excited and really nervous at the same time. Excited because I was about to "do it" about to drop the Jesus-mic on this guy, and nervous because I have heard not very nice things about Muslims from some parts of the Philippines*. We started talking about converts to Islam, and I didn't know a one that he mentioned, some big name pastor from Manila apparently converted to Islam but I didn't know who he was talking about. He then asked me how my church calls me to prayer, and I got to respond with, well, it doesn't, Baptists typically believe that we are to be praying at all times, and that there is no set prayer time, our lives are supposed to be nothing but prayer. He told me that Islam was true, the Koran was all truth and the Bible was full of lies and that I needed to convert to Islam. I responded that my soul hungers and thirsts for nothing but Christ, and with Christ I have everything, no matter if I have "dili balay, dili pagkaon, dili tubig" (no house, no food, no water in bad Cebuano). Without Christ, I have absolutely nothing, and with Christ, I have "pulos" (Everything, still bad Cebuano). He told me that he wanted to look at the Koran together, as I mentioned something about it saying that everyone who does not follow the words of Jesus go to hell, and he would get me an English copy of the Koran so we could look at it. His name is Salah, please pray for him and our next few encounters, we exchanged phone numbers and hopefully we will be able to talk again!

The mosquitoes were AWFUL that night, being a little bit after 12 hours of straight rain. I might now have some sort of tropical disease, but probably not.

I know that was mostly stunted, rambling dialogue, but I really wanted to share this little event with you guys who read the stuff we put out and ask that you guys pray for Salah, he definitely wants to follow God, but he just doesn't know that we don't have to work for our salvation, that we can rest in the one who is not only the Prophet, but the Priest, and the King, and rest in what He has done for us, so that we don't have to try to present our filthy rags before the throne of God on the Last Day in hopes that they will be enough for Eternal Life. Pray that Salah comes to know that Jesus is more than just a prophet, He is the culmination and reason for everything we do.

Thanks.

*Recognizing that not every Muslim is "extremist" and out to kill every Christian they run into, some parts of Mindanao are not safe for Christians for that very reason.

Visas,Flights, and Mice (Oh my!)

This has been a pretty busy week for us. Being that we have been here almost exactly one month that means one thing: our tourist visas are expiring. When we where flying out of LAX we found out that we had to have a residency visa already since we had one way tickets, this meant that we needed flights booked so we could leave the Philippines , just to enable us to enter it to begin with! Brian Lamb and Jordan Martin got us set up (thanks again guys!), and so we had tickets booked for when our tourist visas expired going to Hong Kong and back, which is something a lot of missionaries do here to avoid the expense of a long term visa. So this week I had the responsibility of getting our tourist visas extended while we start working on getting our long term visas done and rebooking our flights. Monday morning I went early(ish) to the airport so that I could get to the airline counter and change the flights, all going like clockwork until he needed the passports to make photocopies of them. Oops, left them at home because (for some stupid reason) I figured that they would have all our passport numbers and info right in front of them when they pulled up our flight. They did have that, but the guy wanted copies of them for some reason or another. So get on a taxi back home, get all five of the buggers and get a taxi back to the airport. Get the process going again and....that counter doesn't take cards, cash only. The rebooking of the flights was about 35 thousand pesos (about $700), and we were just not able to get that much cash on hand quickly. So I had to get on another taxi and go back into town to another airline office. This time no taxis were there, except one guy who knew he had me. I was flustered, getting tired, and just trying to not have to get on a plane on Thursday, and somehow, he saw pesos signs over my eyes because dude got me for a "special trip" into town for 200 pesos, should have been at most, 20 and man I knew that but I just didn't care at that point.

So I finally get to the other office, and there is this older British fellow yelling at the ladies behind the counter about a flight that he had booked that was canceled without him knowing or being told about it a week before the flight was scheduled to happen and he and his brother showed up at the airport to find out that they should have been notified by someone about the cancellation. He was understandably upset about the whole thing, and taking it out on the girls behind the counter about people lying to him. Half an hour later, when he had finally left, I got up there, tried to be as nice and polite as I could, got the flight set up, and when the lady looked at our passports she added some special Philippine something or other blah blah tax (200 bucks). Why? Because our visas were expiring, so we needed to assure the government that we would not be illegal immigrants when we returned to the country. Fine. Whatever. I will trudge over to the Immigration office and see if I can get that taken care of quickly. Luckily the office was not very far. I got there and the lady behind that counter, well her eyes got very big when she saw how many passports I had (obviously not just one, but five) and told me that she needed applications filled out, pictures of all of us and almost 16 thousand pesos. Defeated, I walked out with the feeling that I did not have a whole lot of time to get all this done. So I got on a taxi and on my way home the taxi stopped right in front of a computer store that I needed to go into to see if they could take a look at our computer real quick.

Our teacher Mimi let us out of class early that day so we could go to one of the malls here and get some pictures made. With the cash in hand, the applications more or less filled out, and the pictures we all went over to the Immigration office and it was closed for the day. So we walked on down the street a bit and tried a Chinese chain restaurant here (spoiler: it was delicious).

I was up and out by 8.30 that next morning with Sophia and Rosie with all of the aforementioned paraphernalia in the last ditch attempt to get our visas extended and our flights rebooked. 20 minutes after getting there BOOM all five of us had extended visas! Out on the street and a few minutes later we were back in the airline office trying to get that done. It was a slow process, and Sophia (of course) was best friends with the other lady behind the counter before we were done. Because of when our extended visas expired we could not book the flight for when we wanted unless we payed that blah blah tax, which I had no plans of doing. Ok, so the middle of March? Fine. 3.5% for card use? Fine. BOOM! REBOOKED! Oh what's that a recap? Sure. Then the bomb drops, after being led to believe that we would fly from Butuan to Manila and Manila to Hong Kong all in one day (total I think its like 4 hours in the air) I'm told that oh no, we have a 22 hour layover in Manila.....and oh yeah, it would cost roughly $200 more to move it one day, even though I would never have paid for that otherwise. no refunds, no rebooking "I'm sorry I messed up" coupon, accept it or pay.

We are going to try to use that day in Manila to get our residency visas done...maybe.
But I was able to get it all done. Barely.

Wondering about the "mice" from the title? The other night one of the girls new friends rolled up to our house holding something and it turned out she was holding a little baby mouse. It was so new it's eyes were still closed. Sophia and Aaryn got to hold the mouse, and it was duly passed around to all the kids, multiple times, and it died that night, in front of everyone (the nerve of some mice) and the kids simply through it in the field across the street.

Oh my.

2017: The Year of F.O.A.M.

So it is officially the first of January. A New Year. People are making their resolutions and trying to improve themselves and "turn over a new leaf" and all of that. But for us, we are not really worried about our leaves or what side is facing up. We are more concerned with what will be taking place within the next few weeks.........
In a week, on January 8, I (Jeff) will be getting ordained by our sending church, SRC. Our entire family is also being commissioned, so the entire day is going to be HUGE in terms of the spiritual encouragement that we will be getting before we fly out, which is the next thing. Our flight leaves on January 17. That is sixteen days from when I am writing this. In sixteen days my wife and I will be taking our three small children on a plane for the very first time, with (almost) all our worldly possessions in about five checked bags to fly across the ocean, around the world, leaving the U.S. and moving our entire lives to the Philippines. So prayer is needed. For sanity, for our kids, who have been having a hard time with this whole transition. We have moved out of our apartment, about two weeks ago, and have been staying with family until we fly out. Our poor girls have had to say goodbye to friends, watch the house they have been living in for the past three years empty out, not have any stability or know where they will sleep next (we do, so don't worry) so they have all made themselves sick with the moving, constant travel, and all the business of the holidays on top of it! Whew! Ok, I think that is enough of the freak out.
So this is the year that we finally go overseas. This is the year that we finally see the hard work put in by everyone at our church who has been working on this with us to see what God is going to do with us in the Philippines. This is the year of our Family On A Mission, living out the work that God has given us and our church to take His Gospel to the ends of the earth, may God give us His grace and mercy and strength as we transition from what we have known and been comfortable with to the unknown and putting more and more trust and faith in Him, our God, who deserves all praise and glory. Happy New Year.