our latest road trip...

We spent 3 days this week visiting Integrated Mennonite Churches in the north. Here's a little glimpse of our weekend....

The view of the back two rows in our vehicle during the drive was lovely... filled with big smiles, laughter, good conversations, and some sleepy heads. Probably the funniest part of the drive was Cody saying, "Don't sing Ate Reg, you're not a singer!" Ouch. That one hurt.... but they're still best friends:) It was about a 7 hour ride each way and no pukes this time- yay Cody! On the way home we didn't stop once.... 7.5 hours is a long time for the boys to be strapped in without a break (maybe too long!) but they were happy the whole time! They amaze me.

We visited the Anabaptist Mennonite Church of Castaneda Sunday morning. We were so warmly welcomed and enjoyed spending time with some wonderful people. A friend of ours at this church asked us to help her get more Anabaptist materials for Adult Sunday School... we are very excited to get some great materials translated into Tagalog for the Integrated Mennonite Churches. Here's a picture of the whole church family...

We had a ton of help keeping the kids amused during the service and while we waited for the lunch to be cooked, a lovely lady held a very sleepy Makai for about an hour and this was the result.....

And literally right next to Makai falling asleep, Darnell was at the mic singing U2 with a full band behind him, including Cody:) I can't believe Makai fell asleep to all that noise! Here's what Cody was doing while Makai slept....

We also had a great time visiting a Bishop at this newly built church in a nearby community.... (can you spot where Makai is sleeping?)

The pastor took us to a dam just down the street from the church. There was once a whole town where this water is now.... when the water is low you can sometimes see the cross on the top of the old church. The community was displaced up the hill and sadly enough, the towns surrounding this dam have no electricity for several months at a time. We were staying at our friend Reg's grandparents house and we had a lovely view of this big dam.... but no power. Ironic and very sad.

Some other memorable moments include a midnight wake-up when Cody fell of his bed! We put him in his tent, thinking that he'd be safer in there because he's not used to such a narrow bed not against a wall, but the whole tent, with him inside, fell right off the bed and he was squished between the small space between the bed and the wall.... oh dear! Poor guy... he slept with us the rest of the night. Other sleep events included Makai being up until 12am the first night (doesn't work to transfer him from his carseat to the bed when in a new place, I guess!) and likely keeping the whole house full of people up. Sorry! The second night he woke up at 5am and I couldn't get him back to sleep.... with no electricity, I was up for a good hour playing in the dark and trying to keep him quiet so he wouldn't wake everyone up before I could venture to other parts of the house.... oh the joys! Needless to say, I was pretty bagged after the trip! But we all had a really great time :)

Darnell is heading back up north for the Integrated Mennonite Church North District Conference tomorrow morning and is looking forward to more discussion and learning. He'll come back late Friday night and then Saturday we're having Makai's 1st birthday party! I'm excited to celebrate our little guy with lots of friends here! And on Tuesday we head to Thailand for 8 days.... we're attending the South East Asia Anabaptist Retreat and also spending a couple days in Bangkok for a short holiday. For Makai's 1st birthday and my 30th we'll be in Thailand... should be fun!

some help for this mama!!!

Big changes in our house lately…. We have the lovely Ate Sam watching the boys twice a week! 

I am very thankful to have help with the kids, as it has been a very busy 9 months. My weeks include 2 hours of language study every weekday, hosting big groups for dinner twice a week (I cook and bake A LOT!), various writing tasks, communication with supporters, and monthly financial reports. This work (minus all the hosting) adds at least 12 hours to my week, on top of taking care of the kids full-time, cooking for the family, doing all the dishes (man do I miss my dishwasher!) and lots of laundry (hanging clothes takes SO long compared to having a drier!). 

So far I’ve only had a friend clean our house every Saturday for a few hours but I’ve been feeling like I need more help. After being busy all day with the kids and studying Tagalog while they nap, its not fun to often “work” once they go to bed in the evening too. And now that Makai is almost one, I feel ready to let someone else watch him and Cody.

I met Ate Sam in our apartment complex, as she used to take care of a young boy from Russia whose parents worked at the embassy. When I heard they were moving back to Russia, I was pretty excited about the idea of having her help us. She loves the boys and we all really get along with her. I look forward to getting to know her and her family more.

So while its quite different from finishing a maternity leave, I do feel like I’m kind of going back to work twice a week. Right now I’m at a coffee shop while the boys play outside with Ate Sam and I have gotten SO much done in only an hour! And now I can also attend various events that usually only Darnell goes to. Next week there is a forum about the peace talks between the Government and the Community Party of the Philippines and I actually get to go!!!!

I’m excited for this new “phase” and feel really good about this decision.

Language Update

After 6 months of studying Tagalog, we are finally feeling like all the hard work is starting to pay off! We can understand a fair bit and can have simple conversations with people we meet. Though we still have a LONG way to go before some kind of fluency, it feels really good to be able to use the language a little and understand some of what people are talking about. 

Our study sessions have changed lately, as we've reached the next stage in our Languaculture program. We're now spending time telling Bryan about a scene or picture, either from our own facebook photo albums or ones provided by our curriculum. We spend 30 minutes speaking only in Tagalog and then when the timer goes off, we debrief for a few minutes about words or ideas we were stuck on. Bryan then asks us questions in Tagalog, focusing on new words added to our word log, and then we record him talking about the picture/scene for us to listen to later as review. We basically repeat that process a couple more times and  that's our lesson. It usually last about 2.5 to 3 hours and we do it while the boys nap in the afternoon (although I'm sometimes only half involved for part of that time when Makai is still awake). Learning Tagalog is a huge struggle and sometimes very tiring, but we are really loving it!

Thank you all for your prayers, love and support. A lot of really amazing things are happening here.... more about that in posts to come :)