Hello Dear Ones,
Today is Tuesday the first of May. No school today as this
is "Labor Day" in the Philippines. It is good to have a day
off. School will be over the 25th. Samuel is going away the
end of this week for the 8th grade trip, a rite of passage
here before graduation and will be a freshman next year.
Alison gets to attend her first middle school banquet soon
and is very excited. Julia has already had "shadow day"
where you follow around another 6th grader to see and
experience middle school. Her final orientation for that is
tomorrow. Laura will be sorry to move on to third grade, she
loves Ms Lock. Even when we go on campus for some other
reason Laura has to go to her class room, see if Ms. Lock is
there, and give her a hug.
My job at school is very busy again. Mostly finding lots of
volunteers to proctor tests. I will not have the job of
volunteer coordinator next year. I will be working on campus
from 7:15 till 10:00. I will be teaching in the middle
school, Bible class, grade 7 for two periods. Then I will go
to the Learning Center and work till 10. In this way we will
still get credit -- not only for us but for all missionaries
in our mission --and I will be available to do what I need
to do for our work here--church planting.
Camp has been wonderful this year. Roger is extremely busy.
The results, as always are amazing. We currently have 3
young men in our church who got saved at camp as women and
are there each Sunday and are becoming the men God created
them to be. They are always sending Roger texts of
thankfulness to the Lord for what He has done for them. The
church is growing and we will be having a Sat night service
starting this May. This is a good option for those who have
to work on Sunday and it gives the younger generation
somewhere to be other than the streets and in trouble. I
think the stat here is that over 75 percent of the
population is 25 or less, so this meets a real need. I
currently have 6 ladies in my discipleship class for church
leadership every Sat morning and another 4 that meet with
Pastor Emmy's wife on Saturday afternoon. WOW! Roger
had 18 people show up to be cell group leaders last Friday
night.
Re our older kids, Tara has had a least 7 cases of strep in
this first year as a kindergarten teacher. She and James are
selling their town house and looking for new digs. Our son,
Jon, should be graduating around the 11th of May from Navy
corps school. He is assigned to Marine div 1 at camp
Pendleton.
While I am fully acclimated to this land and people and
enjoy it here, this is a tough year because there are no
plans to see these older kids at all. Used to be when I
thought of them I could comfort myself with the idea that I
would see them in so many months. God is good, when it was
tough for me to be here He gave me that joy to sustain me
and encourage me. His timing is perfect, while I really miss
them, those early years were the better time to have had the
ability to see them.
There is a group of men from Antioch coming over the 14th of
June and we look forward to their coming. I hope they can
bring some items for our Sunday school classes. We need some
toys (like garage sale stuff). We will be moving right
before they come so it should get pretty interesting!!! ha
ha ha ha. I do not enjoy moving, but am looking forward to
this new home since it has such a nice large yard for the
kids to play in. We need to do a lot of work on it. Secure
the perimeter with more barb wire, and fix the outer gate.
We also need to do some major repair work on flooring and
other items to numerous to mention. God is so good that we
can get in there the first of June and hopefully do this
stuff before we move our things in.
OK that is all for now. Alison told me the other day she
could live here forever,--the only thing is she misses the
family. God is so good to give the kids a real love to be
here. The other day at lunch the girls decided that when
they grow up they would return here to live and run an
orphanage, the big debate at lunch was who was going to do
each job. They even had Tara, James, and Jon on staff!!!!!
Tara was the teacher, James and Jon security. I remember
when they all cried and wanted to go home!! That is how
Roger and I feel also. We are so thrilled to be here doing
what God has called us to do---we just miss YOU our family
and friends.
Keep us in your prayers,
Tammy