I’m taking my talents to America soon
I hope those sports fanatics like me caught the reference in the title there…stupid LeBron.
I left off the last update at the beginning of the week of July 19th-23rd. It is now Monday July 26th for me and not a whole ton more has happened. The trip is pretty much finished now, I just have shopping and sight seeing left, so updates aren’t going to be plentiful…I see at most two more from the actual trip and then maybe a couple recap ones. I’m getting losing patience for these journal and blog entries so they’ve been shorter and more to the point. I’ll try to keep them interesting but not a whole ton interesting is going on now so don’t expect much.
On Thursday, we left around 5 to go over to Brother JR’s house for dinner. We show up and get introduced to another team of Filipino’s from American, also from California. I chat with them until the first team from America that I hung out with at the medical mission in Ilocos Norte show up as well. We sang a couple of worship songs led by the second team and then I was asked to share a quick devotional for the group. There ended up being a lot more people there than I originally expected. On top of the 20 people from America there were at least another 15 from GCF (Greenhills Christian Fellowship, Darwin’s church). It was a little more pressure than I thought I would have when I was asked to give the devotional, but oh well, it went well regardless. I shared a parable from Peter Rollins and talked about how works are evidence of faith and our lives need to have works evident in them. Works do not save us, faith alone and the grace of God saves us, but our lives should still have works that spill over from this faith.
It was a fun time and there was really good food. I need to be careful when I grab food though, my eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach. It was set up buffet style and I immediately grabbed a bunch of the first dish, what I thought was chicken, and moved down the line grabbing some more chicken, beef, and a cold vegetable egg roll thing with garlic sauce on top. It would have been better if it had been heated up, the egg roll that is. I also was given a bowl of not so good soup. The “chicken” that I grabbed immediately and a lot of actually turned out to be fish, as I learned after my first bite. There was still a lot left on my plate, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I just shuffled it around and cut it up and spread it out so it didn’t look like there was a lot left. Instead of taking it up to the sink too I just shoved it under my chair so they would find it after I left (I also didn’t eat the soup because it wasn’t very good). I was too embarrassed to take it up to the sink and hand it to one of the girls washing the dishes with so much food left on it. Oh well. I managed to sneakily slide it under my seat, although the girl next to me was a little suspicious I think. As I reread that I realize how silly what I did might seem if I was sitting at a dinner table as you might probably assume. That was not the case, we were all sitting in chairs arranged around the outside of a large room.
It was a fun time of fellowship with some neat people. I now have a place to stay in San Jose if I want with the youth pastor of one of the groups that were there. He was a really nice guy and I just might take him up on that offer, I’ve never been to California so now is as good a time as ever I think. I handed out my email address and name and hopefully I’ll at least be able to connect with some of them on facebook.
On Friday I got an invitation to go teach at a Nazarene Bible college nearby in the afternoon. It was a welcome invitation because it was at least something to do with my time. Other than the dinner the night before I literally did nothing all week. I’m not complaining because Darwin was busy and I didn’t want to interrupt his work, just stating a fact. They wanted me to teach both Greek and Hebrew to a class in under 3 hours. It was difficult but I think I go the job done. The professor whose class I was taking over had actually spent over 11 years in the States so we were able to converse very well and had a good conversation over lunch. One interesting thing did come up though. We somehow got around to the topic of different English translations of the Bible and he promptly told me that the only good version is the King James Version. He quoted an author of a book in the States that firmly believes that the King James Version of the Bible is the only valid English version. He said he used to use NIV until he saw the light. I thought it was interesting and I’ll just leave it at that.
The students responded real well and seemed very excited to be taught the languages. There were around 12 of them and I actually pushed back a test they had scheduled for the day so they might have just been excited for that…but I’ll just go with the former. In 3 hours I taught them how to read and write in both Greek and Hebrew and both of the alphabets of both languages. It was interesting and a ton of information but they did well.
On Saturday we had a water baptism with Darwin’s church at a nearby resort. It wasn’t really a resort by American standards because there was no hotel or overnight place, it was more just a beautiful pool complex nestled in the mountains that you go to for a day. It was called the Neverland Mountain Resort. The setting was absolutely gorgeous. The mountains surrounding it were beautiful, the only downside was the weather. I didn’t even bother bringing my swimming suit because I knew it wouldn’t be great. It was about 75 and cloudy all day and obviously the pools weren’t heated to the water was chilly. Not ideal swimming conditions for me, but the kids loved it and swam all day, which was good. It was a fun day of just hanging out and talking to people.
Sunday was another relaxing day full of fellowship. Church was normal in the morning and after church we had a goodbye party for the intern Pastor at their church. He had been there for 2 and a half years and based on the tears and heartfelt goodbyes he was a wonderful man and will really be missed. I only knew him for a couple weeks, obviously, but he was extremely friendly to me and a great friend. We connected because we were two of the younger people in the church and it was good hanging out with him.
Today is Monday and my last week here. Its absolutely insane that its my last week. I’m having a hard time comprehending it, but I’m also very ready to be home. I’m miss my family and friends and I’m really looking forward to this next school year. The rest of this week has sight seeing around Baguio and souvenir shopping in my schedule, as well as putting together pictures and videos and debriefing the whole trip with Darwin. A week still seems pretty long but I know it will fly by so please continue to pray for me to use this last time I have here the best I can. Friday we drive down to Manila and very very early next Tuesday morning I fly out.
Thank you for you prayers and support, I can’t begin to explain how much I have felt and appreciated them. Please continue to lift me up in prayer as I am finishing this up. Sorry no pictures this time to keep it interesting.
God bless!
