Is it possible that I could typing this up on the actual drive home? Yes. I have internet through my dad's phone to my computer! Crazy technology! Why not use this long long drive to accomplish a blog entry?!
Well... at this moment, I'm somehere between Salina, Kansas and Olathe, Kansas! Getting excited to see lots of friends and family over the next few days, as well as sleeping in my own bed!
Approximately 2000+ miles, one province, 6 states, a bag of sunflower seeds, countless potty stops, and amazingly, only one slightly sketchy hotel room later- We've seen lots of awesome places (and some less than exciting) I'm so thankful to my family for humoring me and picking me up in BC rather than just the airport in KC! We've had lots of laughs and it was a great way to catch up with them, but also to give myself ample time to process and think about the upcoming weeks and months. No real solid plans yet, but I trust that the Lord will continue to be faithful and guide my every step!
So really, I don't have much else to say, so maybe I'll just show some pictures? Sure...
Dinner with the Family in Bellingham, Wa
The Original Starbucks in Seattle!
Top of a mountain in Wa, snows over my head! Brr!!
Well, expect more blogs. The journey certainly doesn't stop here! And be sure to look out for more pictures on Facebook!
Well, friends. As they say, the first half of TREK is over, now comes the second half. This is the part where I go. Go back home or wherever God takes me next and tell the stories of the great things he is doing; in the world, but also in my heart!
Props to Vancouver musician, Lance Odegard for the title of this blog. You see, long story short, there's a band that kind of became a favorite amongst the trekkers and even our friends in The Philippines called 'Gungor'. They're great, check out this song of theirs:
My apologies in advance, because this will probably get stuck in your head!
Well, they just happened to be in concert in a neighboring city during debrief!! How exciting; of course several of us wanted to go.
BEST CONCERT EVER!! (I'm pretty sure that that's a totally accurate statement, but don't quote me.)
So much talent in this band. Anywhoo... Lance Odegard is a local musician that opened for Gungor. To be honest, his portion of the show was mostly less than exciting. Except for a particular song that stood out to me. It was called - you guessed it! 'After departure, before arrival'. He told us before he started the song that he had only written this song that day and last minute decided to include it in the show. I felt like God had done this just for me. He shared that it came from Genesis 12 when God told Abram to leave his country for something unknown. A verse that I've clung to over the last few years is Hebrews 11:8 'By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.'
Here I am sitting in a dark auditorium amongst my fellow teammates. We've just returned from our time in the Philippines and are faced with a giant question of what's next? I was just overwhelmed as Mr. Odegard began singing the song. To be honest, I don't really remember the lyrics of the song, I was just so caught with the title and thinking about the call of Abram.
Well, I've just left TREK. I've departed, but I've yet to arrive. Not only because I literally am not home yet, but just thinking in the bigger scheme of things. Home is not here, home is not a house in Kansas, it's not even a house! My home is with my creator.
So. I've departed. I've departed onto a journey where God is calling me to be faithful and obedient to his guidance. Sometimes the road is a little rocky, the path might be narrow, but man, the company is great and the view is breathtaking!
I know you still want to know what's next, guess what? So do I! I don't really know. But there is something so precious about trusting in the Lord. It's completely terrifying, but so exciting and beautiful!
Such a mix of emotions. What in the world have I been doing these last 5ish months? I'm not even sure yet. Am I different from when this first began? Am I excited to be back in Canada? Am I ready to go back to Kansas? What has God taught me these last few months? What have I learned about myself?
So many questions with so few answers. I feel like I've just been given a 10,000 piece puzzle and asked to solve it. I almost don't know where to begin. I guess you find the corners then the borders and start piecing. But the picture that I'm seeing on the box is so fuzzy that I'm just not sure what it's supposed to look like.
Hmm. What's the progress on your puzzle? Do you have any advice?
There’s not really any other way to describe these last few days here with our Filipino family. I’m very much looking forward to seeing friends and family at home, but with that comes not seeing my friends and family here in the Philippines. Last night we took some time out with the Arcano family and some others that we have worked alongside to do some sharing and a little footwashing. It was great to reflect with our friends on the last few months and encouraging hearing the things that they had to say.
Pastor Sam shared that life won’t really go back to normal after we leave because this has become normal. And I totally agree. Going back to Kansas doesn’t really mean going back to normal life. Not really sure what normal looks like anymore. But the good thing about that is that I have the world at my feet! I’ve already expressed my nervousness about lack of future plans in previous posts, but I’m still trusting that God will guide my every step.
So… what have we been up to the last couple days? Well… we climbed a mountain, ate some more interesting foods, attended and led more bible studies, and started saying our goodbyes.
We’ll be leaving Baguio this Sunday morning, around 7am, after a special 6am Sunday service for us. It will be a 5-8 hour ride to Manila (depending on lots of factors) where we will catch our first plane at 5pm to Taipei, then from Taipei to Vancouver. We’ll arrive around 8pm the same night (after crossing 15 time zones!)
Well, hopefully we'll be headed to a bible study very soon, assuming the rain lets up (by the way, I've officially survived a typhoon now!) So I'll leave you with a few pictures!
Grace washing my feet.
Praying with Britt after washing her feet
Eatin' some dog.
My irritation at waking up so early made more determined than ever to just get to the top.
Well, That's it for now. Expect to hear more again soon.
I've written lots of blog posts over the last couple weeks. You haven't read them though, because none of them have made it out of my brain. So here are some random thoughts:
Easter isn't:
-A pretty new dress
-A sunrise service at church
-bagels and doughnuts and orange juice
-Ham and boiled eggs (since were on the topic of food)
-A day spent with the family
-Months of easter candy in the grocery store aisles leading up to the actual day only to be discounted at midnight
-My favorite Cadbury commercial (though I did youtube it. I don't know why it's so funny.)
So then, now that we've established what Easter isn't, what is it? Well, I'm sure you already know what it really is, but it was interesting for the first time ever in my life to celebrate a big holiday like that away from my family (also, my favorite holiday).
John 11:25-26
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."
Yup. Just like that. Easter is Christ. Easter is our Risen Christ! No more, no less. It was good to be away from the distractions of commercialized Easter and dependency on others, family or church, to create some emotion. Truth is, Christ is risen everyday. And shouldn't we celebrate that everyday? There's nothing wrong with pretty new dresses, spending time with friends and family, and there's definately nothing wrong with doughnuts! I guess it was just good to strip Easter down and really worship my risen Lord.
Easter Sunday was also the day of our 3rd and final evangelistic concert! I LOVED IT! I had so much fun rockin' out and worshipping the Lord with my teammates and friends, and praying with people and hearing people pray to accept the Lord! Now THAT'S a great way to spend Easter!! We were in the middle of downtown Baguio City at Malcom's square/People's Park, so there were TONS of people there and people strolling by. Really, I had such an awesome time!! Are you feeling my excitement? =D
We're legit.
So yeah. What else has been going on? Oh, you know... just spending a little time on the beach... :) We had our team retreat in Palawan Island. It was a great time to reflect on the last couple months as well as thinking a little about the future. Also, part of our purpose was to spend some time with the youth at Pastor Jonathan's church. Who is that, you are wondering. He is Pastor Sam's twin brother and the pastor of a church in their hometown of Brooke's Point. Because of a few reasons (cholera outbreak in the area, and Muslim extremists who were out 'fund raising') it was decided that we shouldn't spend more than a day there. So our time in Palawan ended up being a little more relaxing than intended. But we got to see some more of God's beautiful creation, and He sure did a great job there! ;) Lots of pretty beaches and neat caves and such.
Sunset from the baywalk in Puerto Princessa
Just where I belong! Out of the water. :)
Fi-ya Pow-ah! Diving board on the beach! How fun!
We got up at the buttcrack of dawn to see the sunrise.
Heading into the Underground River
Well... we just finished our youth camp yesterday. For three days and two nights we held a camp for youth ages 10-16 here at the church. We had 14 students show up, which was just about the perfect number. I wasn't feeling totally stoked to do it, but ended up having a really good time. I enjoyed spending a lot more time with the youth of this church! Our theme for this years youth camp was 'Lord of the universe; Lord of my life'. We started off by watching the sermon 'Indescibable' by Louie Gigglio. You can watch it on you tube if you'd like. It was pretty interesting. He talks about the universe and how it's incredibly huge and amazingly made and how our Lord is so great and beyond our understanding but still chose to humble himself 'to death, even death on a cross'. From there, we shared the gospel and talked about how Jesus is our Lord and Savior. And for our final day we discussed the cost of discipleship. After every session was small group time, I was paired with the 10-11 year olds. They were pretty quiet, so it was hard to guage their level of understanding, but some of the things that they shared were encouraging and showed signs of learning. So! Yeah. That brings us up to some current events.
Today we had our 2nd baptism service in one week! We went to La Union to the beach there today for the service. And, well, I mean, since we were already there- why not just go swimming?! So today was a pretty chill day, though now everyone is completely wiped out. Tomorrow, we will get a chance to finally visit the Camp 7 church, Pastor Erick's church. Looking forward to that and trying to figure out what we are going to share with them, also, we will be singing our team's 'theme song' -Everything by Tim Hughes. And- The guys are preaching tomorrow! It will be interesting to see them in action and to hear a sermon in english! :)
This next week was reserved for VBS at the Ambiong church, but it was cancelled, so now we're not sure how we will spend our last couple weeks here.
And about that- we only have a few weeks until we return to Canada for debrief. There's definately a mix of emotions there. There are people and even things back home that I miss, for sure, but it will be so hard to leave all of these awesome friends behind here! We've already had to say some goodbyes to some friends, and that was pretty rough. So in the span of 2 weeks, I'll be telling everyone that I've spent the last 5-6 months with goodbye. Yuck.
Let's end on a happier note.
So I mentioned thinking a lot about the future. And this is what has been decided: I'll be moving to Australia to attend a culinary school. I'm super excited, I'll be fulfilling a life long goal. All in the hope that I'll someday open my own bakery 'Bread of Life'. Too bad that all of that's not true. Not even one bit. I'm not a very good cook (so perhaps I really should take some classes). The real truth is that I have no idea. As of June 13th, I'm done with TREK and will eventually make my way back to Kansas, but from there?! Well... no one really knows. This is something that has been on my mind a lot over the last month or so. I have been praying about it a lot and was excited yet somewhat disappointed with a picture that the Lord gave me. It was an image of me holding a flashlight out with a beam piercing through the woods on a trail. The flashlight only illuminates a small patch in front of me, and the rest of the trail is total darkness. I was excited just to get this picture from the Lord, but dissapointed because I knew excactly what it meant- Basically, I don't need to see the whole picture right now. I think there are going to be lots of little steps of faith in the future... I have a feeling that doing Trek was only the beginning. Hmmm.... But in the mean time, I still have no job when I get back or plans of any kind.
So! I'm taking suggestions! :) If you want your input on what I should do next or just in general, please feel free to comment!
Yes. This week I begin my international singing career.
We've been doing lots of practicing over the last two weeks in preparation for 3 'evangelical concerts' during this holy week. We start on monday with a concert here in Balacbac Road. Wednesday will be in a neighboring community - Don Togan, and our final performance will be on Easter sunday in a park right in the center of town, next to the market! Very exciting times! Pray for us this week as we bring the gospel to the residents of Baguio City! Pray that people's hearts would be open to hear the Word! Pray also for us, we are definately not professionals by any means, but we aim to give our best to the Lord and from there, it's in his hands! Pray for humility, that we would in no way be glorified, but that all of the glory would go to God! And lastly, that we would just have a rockin' good time worshipping together!! :)
We just completed another busy week of vbs here at the church. We're tired, but thankful for such a successful week! Pray for us to maintain energy, we have our retreat in about a week and a half. Not sure of all of the details about that yet, but I'm looking forward to a little R&R!
*Exhale*
Okay, we're off again... worship team practice... Trek team leads again this week! But I'll leave you with this, during practice one day this last week, Zach and Tim were rockin out the air guitars (or hangers) with the band. I love Zach's little swagger, and Tim 'breaking' his guitar! Enjoy:
It's been a while, eh? (Yes, I realize that I just wrote eh. Those Canadians... they're wearing off on me)
I'm going to have the weirdest Filipino/Canadian accent when I come home. That's okay.
So, what's new with you? Feel free to comment and let me know. I think it's okay and a little expected that I would be a little out of touch with people, but I still want to know what's going on in other places. Life still goes on.
So... what's new here? Lots I suppose. Life is busy. I just realized that my last post was over two weeks ago, about the last VBS we did. Well, that one is over and we are onto another one! The VBS at camp 7 went a million times better than I ever expected. I had a class that averaged about 50 students everyday, the entire 4th grade class. They were all very sweet and incredibly well behaved. How crazy that we were invited into a public school to conduct a vacation bible school. Where not only is prayer allowed, but welcomed! Things went very well and we are hoping that there will be many more opportunities for the church to partner with this elementary school in the future. I was very excited that by the end of the week over half of my class had prayed to accept Christ. Then comes cynical Andrea... I began to question how many of them really understood or only did it to be pleasing. But I keep reminding myself that it's not my job to judge the hearts of others. I'm simply called to share the Word. Hmm... anyway. That was just a little bunny trail.
Last week was a little more low key. We stuck around the house for the most part because we had concert practices in the afternoons. Next week we will have (hopefully) 3 evangelistic concerts around the city, during Holy week. A couple days during the mornings we went out into the surrounding community and went door to door inviting all children ages 4-15 to participate in the vbs this week. We had about 160 students sign up, though, as expected, only about half showed up today. But I'm thinking that there will be more students that show up as the week progresses, especially as the current students invite other friends to come too.
We're getting to know the Arcano's more and the members of the church too. I'm finally getting to the point where I can tell you which children belong to whom, and even name some of them. But don't test me yet. I'm not that confident.
So now you know at least a little of what's going on. I will leave you with some tidbits of wisdom that I have acquired these last few weeks:
Ipis: Tagalog for cockroach
Ipi does not mean one cockroach, you will be laughed at if you say ipi
Mga ipis is the plural form of cockroach
Remember to shake out your underwear before usage: May contain ipis
Don't kill the spiders: they kill the ipis.
Remember to keep us in prayer, and not just that we would be safe from mga ipis.
