Bits and Pieces during the rainy month of July 2009

IT'S RAINING, RAINING, RAINING!.......What a perfect opportunity to catch up with all the administration and to update our blog!! Next week my sister Susan arrives from New Zealand and will be with us in Baguio for two weeks. This will be her first trip to Asia and also the first time we have had family visit us since 1998! Needless to say we are really looking forward to her stay......Please pray for a good time and fine weather!

One of the families on our staff recently went into China to give some family ministry seminars. They brought us home this handmade gift (pictured above). Apparently in that particular place in China when you as a woman would like to court a man you throw one of these at him......Interesting! I'm wondering if you do it gently or with a cricket or baseball style pitch!! It would be fun to observe and to watch the man's reaction! I wonder if they ever throw it back!

This week Mel taught in the YWAM Baguio DTS on the topic of communication and conflict management...here are some pictures of those days....



Mel found that as the students were so much younger than him (For instance when we took our own DTS's in 1985 some of these students were not yet born!!) and younger than those he usually teaches much of what he shared was brand new too them..He said that the students were eager to learn and drink in all that he was sharing just as these bees are doing here with this sunflower.....oh I hope I have my biology right.... Its been a while since my 5th form high school class!

Pictured below is the Waitara NZ outreach team that visited us here in Baguio January 2008...


...We have waited for a year to have a picture of this outreach team so here it is.....that's Mel & I on the far right..This picture was taken at our staff's son's dedication in their church which the Waitara team so diligently painted a lovely blue! We are now waiting patiently for their next outreach team of zealous youth and leaders to visit Baguio!

Some of you have been asking after our children and how they are getting on...

.........well for Joanna apart from...

.........no success with her fishing expedition and.....

....finding it very cold due to freak weather storms at Mount Maunganui..(that's hail not sand) and an extremely cold winter this year in New Zealand..(Joanna is biking to work in the wind and the rain'like a true kiwi..its a good thing shes not living in Taranaki...)

..she's pretty happy...here she is catching up with Jason & Christina Harkett at her workplace. Christina was her best friend in YWAM Antipolo Philippines when she was three years old.

Here they are when they were three years old..Amazingly also her best friend as a five year old and our neighbor in Bulacan Philippines is now living in Hawera NZ..How amazing is that?

God is Good!

....Joanna has made many other friends... here she is with three lovely girls from church....

...............as for Jonathan he is enjoying life working aboard the Norwegian Sun cruising between Vancouver and Alaska weekly..our geography has certainly improved since he started this kind of work......we have now heard of places such as Juneau, ketchiken, Scagway etc....

Jonathan enjoying summer in Alaska with one of the famous glaciers in the background.....

......Here he is with his cabin/work mate Rommel who happens to be from Manila.....

Here are a couple of pictures of the Cruise Ship he woks on 'the Norwegian Sun'

He really is enjoying the variety of work this job brings him.He says that no two days are alike...

Getting to see the world, enjoying it and being paid for doing it..not too bad!

Jon (2ND from the right) pictured with some of his work mates

Yes we miss our children but are happy for them that they are finding their way in life.

As for us here in Baguio we are warm and dry thanks to Mel sealing up the leaky places. It sure is a long wet rainy/typhoon season....However we have enjoyed long sunny mornings too so we can't complain....We live in a compound with three other houses including our landlady's. She used to employ a gardener but for the past two years...well lets say Mel & I have been doing quite a bit of it.......God always speaks to my heart when I am gardening....Last weekend as I was removing these vines/weeds (wow they grow so fast it's unbelievable ...choking all the other plants and hiding the beauty of the good ones.)....I was thinking how it is so similar with our lives....Sin just entangles and chokes us and hides the good things that God has placed in our lives...Just as we need to do a little weeding every week and not wait till they have taken over the compound, so it is with our lives. We need to regularly remove those things that tie us down or trip us up and prevent us from going forward in our walk with the Lord...

Well after that mini sermon I would like you to see some of those plants that were becoming entangled, choked and hidden by the vines and are now growing freely just as we can.

Ao

Well this is all for now from us on this rainy rainy day in July.....
Thank you for your prayers and your committment to us as a family..
We so appreciate each one of you...
Blessings and love Mel & Brenda