Peace Church and Pantojas!

This past Sunday, Peace Church had the wonderful opportunity to gather as a community with Dann and Joji Pantoja. This inspiring couple are fellow Mennonite Church Canada workers and founders of Peacebuilders Community and Coffee for Peace. We were privileged to be mentored by them during our internship in Davao and many others from Peace Church have also worked with them. 

Near the end of our internship in 2008/2009, Dann and Joji and us began to envision Peace Church. As more and more people (army Generals and Islamic leaders!) were asking us where the church is that believes in building peace, we began to feel God calling us to plant a church- one that is Jesus-centred and follows His radical teaching of reconciling all people and all of creation. We wanted to encourage and equip followers of Jesus to have a faith in action and felt that God was calling the Body of Christ to be a mediator among various conflicting groups in the Philippines.

Fast-forward a few years and this vision has become a reality! What a blessing it was to visit with Dann and Joji and be inspired by their story and encouraged by the affirmation they received during their recent 3-month speaking tour in North America. And having just spent a few weeks living at my parents house, they came bearing gifts from Gramma and made me feel a little closer to home:) All in all, a very special evening filled with excitement, laughter, thanksgiving and hope.

Makai was a little overwhelmed by all the people and clung to my hip
most the evening.

We fit 18 adults and 6 children in our apartment! Just barely:)

praying together.

Cody loves his Tito Dann:)

Prayer Requests

- Finding a vehicle. We hope to find the right diesel mini-van in the next few weeks. We have a few options we're looking into. And being a foreigner always makes things tricky so please also pray that the paperwork, money transfers and insurance would go smoothly.

- We are speaking at the Integrated Mennonite Church's Youth Camp December 26 to 29. Pray for us as we prepare the sharing time and also for the event.

- Language study. We spend two to three hours everyday studying Tagalog with our awesome friend/teacher/mentor, Bryan. Please pray for patience and energy during our daily lessons and for discipline to use the Tagalog we're learning, even when people understand English.

- A quick recovery for Darnell. He had laser eye surgery today! Supposedly the healing process is very quick so he should be fine by tomorrow.... and won't be wearing glasses/contacts!

- Peace Church. Pray for us as we discern scripture together and strengthen our relationships. This weekend we are excited to be able to meet with Dann and Joji Pantoja (our mentors from Peacebuilders Community in Davao).

- Relationship building. We are meeting many people in our neighbourhood and also connecting with a lot of other churches and NGOs in Metro Manila.

- The Integrated Mennonite Church. They are seeking to grow in their identity as a group of Anabaptists churches. Pray also for our relationships with them.

Thanks friends!

Family time!!!

We have been making Saturday our family fun day and are enjoying finding kid-friendly things to do in the morning. Here's a look at what family time has looked like lately....

We LOVE going out for a good breakfast. Since living here, Darnell was really missing abc or IHOP breakfasts.... so we were on a mighty big search for a tasty breakfast that didn't include rice:) We found Gram's Diner and its become a favourite Saturday morning hangout for us. They also have cartoons on in the morning.... can you tell Cody is a little distracted? We don't have a TV at home so this is a treat... makes for quite the relaxing breakfast, actually!

We went to Salcedo Market a couple weeks ago and found some amazing food from all over the world. We feasted on a moroccan dish, chicken curry, samosas, lugau (a tasty Filipino soup), some Italian sweets and mango shakes, and we brought home some sourdough bread, which we haven't been able to find anywhere else. And there was a playground there... perfect!

One Saturday we went to the Mind Museum with some friends. It's just down the street from our house and its an awesome museum for kids.... we all had a great time.

Last weekend we went to Rizal park, named after the national hero. We went for a walk and then headed to another kids museum to escape the heat. Another fun Saturday morning:)

A few weeks ago we had planned to go to a new indoor zoo in Manila, but after some miscommunication, the taxi driver brought us to the Manila Zoo instead. Once we got there we figured we might as well go in (and only $2.50 for all of us!) but it was not exactly what we were hoping for. While Cody did enjoy seeing the animals, the place was very dirty and the conditions for the animals were terrible. We got home earlier than planned and hit the pool to redeem the morning, though.

And today we found the zoo we were looking for!

a chicken wandered into the playroom and nested in the red pop-up
 tent behind me. kind of funny:) 

Right after this photo was taken Cody heard Darnell say
that it looked like the bearcat might jump and he freaked
 out....  "no bearcat up there jump on Cody!!!"

An event-ful weekend

We were busy this past weekend with two memorable events. Friday evening we attended a 20th anniversary celebration of an amazing organization called Samaritana. They are "committed to sharing and living out the Gospel among Filipino women caught in prostitution" (check them out here). It was a joy to celebrate their work with them and make more connections with various people. We also got to hear our friend Bryan's band play, which was a huge highlight. The boys received a ton of attention, as usual, and even though we left way past bedtime (10pm, home at 11:30!), the boys were great- Cody played with some sweet young girls and Makai just enjoyed mommy cuddles. The only downer was Cody throwing up on the way home.... it happens way too often in this crazy driving! Here's a couple photos from the evening...

Saturday afternoon we headed to a 1st birthday party for Gabby, the son of some good friends of ours who are part of Peace Church. We had a great time. The party was at McDonalds in a big event room with over 100 people! Crazy, I know.... but completely normal here to have such a big bash. They also had a dedication service for Gabby at the beginning of the party and then we were each served a double cheeseburger, spaghetti (a popular snack, very sweet here), fries and a sundae. 

In the middle of the craziness when the McDonalds characters were seriously breaking it down to Gangnam style and everyone was laughing and cheering, I said to Darnell, "this would so not happen at home!" While I very much enjoyed Cody's first birthday party (and others'), I'm not sure if anything compares to a Filipino party... they seriously know how to have fun. The MC, a McDonald's employee, had everyone in stitches.... at home it would have been awkward and people would definitely not be laughing like we were! As the saying goes, "It's more fun in the Philippines!" Here's some photos from the party....

cake! each kid said Happy Birthday in the microphone one at
a time.... Cody was very pumped to do that:) 

the birthday boy and his family posing with the characters

enjoying the dance show.

photo booth time. Makai wasn't really into it.

best friends.

Bryan, Rei, John (birthday boy's dad) and Darnell