Peace Church: always a good time!

Last night we had a lovely and lively gathering with our Peace Church community. We were 23, but with the laughter and energy Filipinos are famous for, it must have sounded like our apartment had twice that many people in it! We had a great time playing games, eating, sharing about what Peace Church means to us, singing and praying. We are so thankful for all these wonderful people and the way God is using Peace Church to spread the Good News of Jesus' way of peace! 

We have a home again!

On June 27th, after a month of living in a hotel following the devastating explosion in our building, we finally moved into a new home. While there are still a few things that need to be fixed or bought, we really love this new space. It’s actually quite a bit bigger, with three bedrooms instead of two, as all the two bedroom units available were much smaller than what we had. We have a bigger kitchen and living space, Darnell has an office (its also a guest room) and the boys’ room is bigger too. I also love that the kitchen is open, so I can see the boys while I cook/clean. And all this for the same price…. not bad! We’re thankful to have this home, even if it’s only temporary (at least 6 months though), however, I would quickly trade it for all the trauma and stress we endured the whole month of June….. it hasn’t been easy. 

Moving into our new place was interesting, as we have had very little access to our former place and all our belongings since the night of the explosion. In the morning we moved a few suitcases from the hotel and then we were really lucky to get access to our old place, after 3 days of trying and not being able to, because of ongoing investigations. But when we got into our unit there were 15 people in it (no joke!) to do investigations. We were not aware of this and we were not happy! How was I supposed to pack up our entire home in less than an hour with people ALL over the unit! Ridiculous. But we managed to get the place to ourselves and in a mad one-hour rush, we took out most of our belongings. And we were able to go back a few days later to get the rest. Now we have everything and our new apartment feels like home. 

Two days after we moved into our new place, our dear friends Jason and Renee arrived for a 10-day visit after 6 months of volunteering in Northern India. After so much stress during the last month and feeling so unsettled and homesick, the timing of having some of our best friends visit us could not have been better. We have enjoyed each other’s company immensely. While they have a lot of fun with the boys, its also been nice to go out just the 4 of us. Long relaxing dinners out full of laughter (and not just laughing at the boys!) has been extremely enjoyable…. going out with friends and no kids is something we do so rarely- what a treat its been. Here’s some photos of sightseeing in Manila with them…. 

And I have one shot of our house from our first Peace Church gathering here. The boys were saying hi to Tito Bryan :) I'll take more photos of our place and post them another time.

One more day of fun with Renee and Jason today before we have to say goodbye. Better go make the best of it :)