Tainan, Taiwan

Ok, so this whole blog is not going to be about the city of Tainan, but I like how Tainan, Taiwan sounds.

We really enjoyed our time at Chiayi Girls National High School. The girls were so wonderful to us and were so eager to hear the message we had to share with them. Here's a video of us singing "Unify Us" in Chinese with one of the classes.


In our time at Concordia we have worked with high school, middle school, and some of the elementary kids that are in an English Language Program. It's been fun to work with a variety of ages. The little ones have so much energy and it's fun to have little kids hanging off of us. Here's a picture of us with one of the classes. Try to find Ua!


I am continually amazed by the enthusiasm and energy that kids have singing songs with us. Here's a video of us singing one of my old favorite songs, "Allelu, Allelu" with one of the elementary classes.



Our main contact here in Taiwan, Matt, is a missionary from the United States that has been here in Taiwan with his wife, DeeDee for the past four years. He has taken such good care of us, making sure we get where we need to be, driving us to the train station and back, bringing us to tea stands and then ordering for us (since we still don't speak Chinese) and so much more. Here we are in front of a tea stand with Matt.


Matt and DeeDee invited us over for a wonderful dinner one night. We got to meet their adopted daughters Lilly (2 years) and Olivia (6 months) and got to play with them a little bit. Here's Luke and Olivia.


We really enjoyed our time at their place, telling stories about our time in the Philippines, hearing more about their ministry, and getting to know each other better. It was also fun watching them interacting with their daughters. This is Matt and Lilly.


And the five of us with Matt and DeeDee after an amazing Indian meal.


Now on to the part about Tainan. We have spent both of our weekends in Taiwan in Tainan, visiting two different churches. We spent this past weekend at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. The pastor's daughter, Esther Chen, worked at Wapo the summer of 2005, so she worked with Dave. I was a TIM teamer that year and so I met her as well, when I was TIM teaming for Chellie. We enjoyed the time we got to spend with Esther and the kids from her church. She and her brother Enoch brought us around a night market and took good care of us while we were there. It's fun that in the last 4 months we have seen 5 different past international staff from Wapo, in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Here's a picture of me and some of the girls at Esther's church after singing songs and playing some games on Saturday.



This is us with Esther's family in Tainan.



The time we had with Esther seemed so short. We wished we could have spent more time with her but are glad we had a weekend together. Esther bought a platform ticket at the train station so she could wait for a couple minutes and say goodbye as we got on the train. She also might take the train here to Chiayi the day before we fly out so she can spend more time with us and accompany us to the airport. Here's Esther waiting with us for the train.



This past wee we spent two days in Taichung, at Morrison Academy, and international western style school. We took the HSR (high speed rail) train to and from Taichung. This is also what we took to Chiayi when we first arrived in Taiwan. This train is amazing! It is so smooth and it goes so fast! Here's a picture of it that we found in one of Lilly's books when we were over at Matt and DeeDee's.


That's right, it says it goes 186 MPH!!!


Here's a picture of us with a class at Morrison Academy. In this class alone there are 13 nations represented. Many of the kids are children of missionaries and have grown up all over the world.


During our time at Morrison we did programs with a couple songs and then talking with the kids and answering their questions. We visited elementary, middle and high school classes. Here's a picture of Jenny with our little host brother and sisters. Oldest to youngest: Sabrina, Johnathan, Zoe.


Morrison Academy is like a little United States in Taiwan. Being there brought some weird feelings for me, of disliking things about our American culture along with the familiarity of home. It was a clash inside me that started now and I think will only continue as I go home; trying to fit who I've become back into the place I come from, a place that now seems almost foreign to me. Return culture shock.....

Tomorrow we will take the HSR back to Taipei, to fly back to the Philippines. We will spend the night there, and in the morning start our long journey home. We will fly to Hong Kong, then to San Franscisco, and then finally on to Minneapolis/St. Paul. We should be landing on Tuesday night a little before 10pm, probably won't be all together with it after almost 24 hours of traveling.

I can not believe that we are already coming home. These past four months have gone so fast! I am sad to be leaving Taiwan. The missionary teachers here at CMS have taken such good care of us and I am really going to miss them. On the other hand, I am very excited to be coming home, so many familiar faces that I just can't wait to see!

This is my last blog from our trip overseas. I hope I've been able to show you a little bit about what we have been up to for the past months. God's peace!

A week in Taiwan

We have now been in Taiwan for one week! We have stayed very busy and the time is going so fast. We are staying at Concordia Middle School in Chiayi. It is a private Christian school where they have missionary teachers from the U.S. that teach Bible classes as well as regular classes taught by Taiwanese teachers. We are staying with the missionaries and it has been really fun getting to know them as we do programs in their classrooms and also spending time with them outside of school. We played Ultimate Frisbee with them one day after school. It was a blast and it felt so good to get out and run around. We haven't gotten to do that much overseas. It's very humid here and we were all pretty sweaty after the game. This is a picture of my shirt after the game. Dave calls it my "reverse swimsuit."


We have done many programs at Concordia Middle School, going from class to class doing 40 minute programs for the classes. They are short programs, but so many of them add up. We have had some days of 7 programs.

We have been splitting time between Concordia Middle School (actually middle and high school) and Chiayi Girls School. The two schools are very different and we have gotten very different responses at the two. The kids at Concordia have teachers from the U.S. so seeing foreigners is not as exciting to them. Some of the girls at Chiayi Girls School have never seen someone from the United States. Also at Concordia the students have Bible classes so they have heard the gospel many times. For some of the girls at the girls' school, our program was one of the first times they have heard the gospel.

Here's a picture of us with one of the classes at Concordia after our program.


Here's a picture of us with one of the classes at Chiayi Girls' School.


The girls at Chiayi are so excited to meet us after the programs. After every different class they line up to come by to greet each of us, the boys with a handshake and Jenny and I with hugs. The first day I received over 200 hugs! Then there is usually an incredible number of pictures taken with us.


During lunch our first day at Chiayi Girls School, one of the classes came back to eat lunch with us. Then they showed us around their school campus, making a stop at the snack bar to buy us milk tea. Here's a picture we took along the way.



This is a picture of us with Ming. Ming is originally from Taiwan but now lives near Denver, Colorado in the U.S. She was back here visiting and helped give us a tour of the area and came to school one of the days. Yiwen, the music teacher we are working with at Chiayi, translated one of our songs, "Unify Us," into Chinese for us and Ming also helped us learn it. That makes 7 different languages of the song: English, Chinese, and 5 dialects from the Philippines.

During our tour of the area we went to a Taoist temple. Ming told us a little bit about what was going on. In Taiwan there is a lot of ancestor worship and worshiping different gods. This is a video of them processing into the temple with the gods.



We still don't know all that much about the different religions here, but I think visiting the temple was a good thing, to know a little background about where some of the students are coming from.

The culture here is so different from the Philippines. Where as the Filipino culture is very laid back, the culture here is more like the U.S., so that has been a change for us. It has also been very different staying with the missionaries. They are all around our ages and from different parts of the U.S.. The other day I realized how weird it was that people were speaking English when they weren't talking to us. We haven't had that since we left home in January!

One thing that we have been really excited about here is the tea! We have been trying different kinds a tea almost everyday. I really enjoy the milk tea with pearls (little jelly-like balls/bubbles that you suck up through your straw as you drink the tea). You can go to the tea stand and mix just about any flavor into your different kinds of tea.

We are really enjoying our time here and it is already going so fast. Two weeks from tomorrow we leave Taiwan. I think three weeks here is going to be so short.

last blog from the Philippines

It was hard to leave Baguio on Wednesday, leaving the seminary apartment that had become so much like home to us and saying goodbye to Pastor Luis, Pastor Rolly, and Vicar Eric. When we left the bus station, I felt like we were leaving the Philippines....on a bus.... Good thing that wasn’t true because I’m pretty sure we would have ended up on the bottom of the ocean. I looked out the window of the bus as we drove, trying to take it all in and remember all that I could, knowing that this would be the last time we would be driving through the mountains, seeing the Filipino homes.

We are now back in Manila preparing to leave the Philippines for Taiwan tomorrow. I can’t even believe that. We are leaving the Philippines tomorrow. It is very hot here, and once again, we are not used to it. After being in the cool highlands this feels like an oven. It has been at least 88 degrees Fahrenheit when we are going to bed late at night and in the 90’s when we wake up. I have to get used to sleeping without my sleeping bag again. I have trouble getting comfortable when I have sweat pouring off of me, just lying in my bed.

When we arrived at Gloria Dei, where we have been staying when in Manila, the first one to greet us, before we even stepped out of the van, was Buboy’s daughter Gwen. We heard her cute little high pitched voice shout, “HELLO!” as we pulled up. She kept repeating it until we could respond. It was 11:30 at night but she was awake, excited to see us again. It has been good to be back here, seeing the familiar faces of Buboy, Pastor Chris and his daughter, Chelsey, Pastor Levi, Jiggs and Adeling.

Each time that we have stayed here at Gloria Dei, we have been a little more exploratory in our ventures out of the church and school compound. When we were first here our first week in the Philippines, we only went out to the Mercury Drug Store, about 30 steps from the compound. We would buy everything we needed here, including all of our meals. The second time we were here we ventured a little further down the road where the college is located, finding a restaurant called EJ Sizzlers where they serve really good hot Filipino food.

This time we walked down the main road a couple blocks to where there is a Jollibee. Jollibee is the Filipino equivalent of McDonalds but it is much better. We were skeptical to try it a couple months ago, but now here it has become our backup plan, because we know that we enjoy their food, it’s cheap and they have AIR CONDITIONING...which feels glorious in this heat.

Yesterday we got to go to a studio and record a CD of the music we have sang here in the Philippines. There were a total of 28 tracks, including program songs, sing-a-longs songs, and some cultural songs that we have learned here. We thought it was going to be a pretty long and painful process but it actually went really well and we had a lot of fun. There were only a couple songs that we decided to run twice, because of some small mistakes. Pastor Chris was there while we recorded and he brought in his one and a half year old daughter, Chelsey. She is pretty cute!
After we recorded we got to listen to a couple songs from New Dawn 95-96 and New Dawn 04-05. They also recorded in the same studio when they were here. It’s exciting to know that our music will be distributed to the churches that we visited and we hope that it can be a good ministry tool. We also won’t mind being able to share this CD with our friends and family back home.

When we were in Nueva Vizcaya in Kayapa we saw a guy with a monkey on his shoulder. We were hoping we would see a monkey during our time in the Philippines and then there he was walking down the road! We were all pretty excited about this! Here's a picture of the monkey, eating a roll, sitting on the guy's shoulder.


I don't think I have posted a picture of a Jeepney yet, so I figured I better do that before leaving the Philippines. This is one of the ways that we got around the Philippines. Most of the Jeepneys blast loud music and cram as many people into them as they can. The ones in Manila are much noisier that the ones in Baguio. You see them all over the place around here, all decroated differently with their own style.


I can not believe that we have already spent three months in the Philippines. So much has happened and I am thankful for every minute of it. I am not the same person that I was when I arrived here. This has been a stretching experience for me and such a time of growth.

I am so sad to be leaving the Philippines and the amazing people that we have met here. It’s hard knowing that I may never see some of these wonderful people again. I am so thankful though, that through our time spent together God has used us to impact each other. I have seen Christ in the people here, through their generosity, the way they take care of us and the way they love us, and I hope that they have seen Christ’s love in us the way we have in them.

This will be my last blog entry from the Philippines, tomorrow we will be in Taiwan. Even though I am sad to be leaving the Philippines, I am so excited for what Taiwan will bring: meeting many new people, a new culture, new foods, and new opportunities to spread Christ’s message of unity and peace.

Goodbye highlands

This is our last day in Baguio City. We leave on a bus for Manila tonight at 5pm and will be in Manila until April 13th, when we will fly to Taiwan. We have really enjoyed out time in Baguio. It is nice and cool here and we are not looking forward to going back to the summer heat of Manila. I can’t believe that our time in the Philippines is almost over! This past Sunday we realized that this was our last time attending Sunday worship in the Philippines. We were at St. Stephen's Lutheran Church here in Baguio, for our second Sunday (the first time that we have been at one church for more than one Sunday). Here is a picture of us during our program at St. Stephen's the week before.


This past week we got to attend the wedding of one of our contacts, Pastor Jerry. We originally didn't think that we were going to be able to make it, because we were scheduled to be doing a program that day in Nueva Vizcaya. Pastor Rolly was our hero and was able to reschedule it so we could attend the wedding.

We got to travel with many of the pastors that have been our contacts all over Luzon, so that was a blast! Meriam, the bride's, family sent a bus to Baguio to pick up people coming to the wedding. This was in addition to the normal bus going from Baguio to Tinoc. Both of the buses were packed, with many familiar faces from the churches we have been to. We crammed into the back of the bus with Pastor Chris, Pastor Rolly, Pastor Joel, Pastor Felipe, Pastor James, and Pastor Jimmy.

The wedding was on April 4, 2008 and 9am and when we went up to the church, there were already soooo many people there. Pastor Jerry leads over 10 congregations in the mountains, and it seemed like almost all of them came! People traveled for so long to come and support Pastor Jerry and Meriam and to be part of the celebration. In the Philippines, if you are free you can come to the wedding and to the wedding feast. Everyone is welcome at the wedding celebration.

This is a picture of the outside of the church with all the wedding decorations.


The beautiful bride, Meriam, getting ready to walk down the isle.


And here she is with her parents.


The wedding ceremony was beautiful. Pastor Jerry asked us to sing two songs during the ceremony. There were soooooo many people there. They crowded into the church, outside the back door, cramming in the windows, and sitting outside. There were around 2,000 people there! The only word to describe it, as well put, by one of the pastors, "WOW!"

Pastor Jerry seemed a little nervous about all the guests being taken care of and getting where they needed to be, so it was good to see a smile on his face during the ceremony.



This is a picture of the Lutheran Church in the Philippines pastors with the married couple. These guys are some of the ones who have taken such good care of us during our time here. They are all a lot of fun, and fun to watch interacting with each other.


Here's us and Vicar Matthew with the couple.


After the wedding we walked down to Meriam's family's home for the wedding feast. There were people lining the whole walk down to the house. We were seated at a table. Out came the rice wine and the food. The night before they butchered 3 pigs for the feast that night. The day of the wedding they butchered eight pigs, which was about 1500 pounds of pork and made 1500 pounds of rice! They also had huge clay pots filled with rice wine. It seemed like there was a stream of rice wine coming from somewhere, they just kept bringing out more. They feed everyone! The night before we got to watch them preparing the pigs. They use pretty much every part of it, so that was interesting to watch, and even more interesting to eat. While we were sitting at the table they came around and put a handful of pork on our plate: a slice of liver, a big slice of fat layers with the skin on top, sausage made from the intestines - cooked and filled with blood and onions, and a couple other big hunks of meat.
This is a picture of my plate at the wedding feast


As I was sitting at the table I was trying to imagine this feast being transported to a wedding in the U.S. It made me laugh really hard. The meat was really good but I am not to good with the huge chunk of just fat and skin. Thankfully they bring out plastic bags so that people can take home their leftovers. So we filled up a couple bags with the parts that we just couldn't eat. The bride's father was so excited to see that we were using the "native way" and that we would "have a snack later if we get hungry."

While we were eating at the table all of the people that had been lined up on the way down filed through the house, getting a bag of food. They fed everyone!

There were lots of festivities after the feast. We sang a couple songs during the afternoon. All of the pastors and Dave, Luke, and Ua got to join in the native gong dance that Jenny and I have done before. They were pretty funny to watch and looked like they were having a lot of fun.


I am so glad that we got to go to the wedding. It was so special to be able to experience the culture and to be there for Jerry and Meriam. It is definitely an experience that I will never forget!

On April 7th we went to Kayapa, Nueva Vizcaya and did our last program in the Philippines there at an outdoor school gym. We did a program in the afternoon for the kids and then another one in the evening for everyone. Here's a picture of our last program.


As we leave the Philippines on Sunday, I am really going to miss the people of the Philippines. They have been so wonderful to us, making us feel so at home. They have taught us what it means to give and to love without hesitation. I hope that someday I can come back here.

Here's a picture of us with some of the people in Kayapa, after our program.



We went shopping in the market yesterday to buy some souvenirs and gifts for people back home. Sam, the council president of St. Stephen's Lutheran Church, was our guide/haggler/body guard. This is picture of Sam and Pastor Felipe.

While we were in the market Dave almost got pick-pocketed. A young man came up behind him and reached his hand into his pocket grabbing our team cell phone. Sam turned around and saw him. He yelled at him and they guy looked very scared, shoved the phone back at Dave and ran away. Sam almost chased him down. It all happened so fast and Dave didn't even feel anything. I'm glad Sam knew what he was doing and took such good care of us.

At the market we also bought some cultural Filipino clothing.
Here's some of the pictures we took in our cultural dress.







This might be the last blog until we are in Taiwan on April 13th, unless we have time in Manila. Hope all is well back home!

We climbed Mount Pulag!

Mount Pulag is the second highest mountain in the Philippines, (Mount Apo is the highest). It is the highest mountain on the island of Luzon. Mount Pulag is 9,587 ft above sea level at the summit.

We woke up at 2:30 am, had coffee and bread with peanut butter and began our trek around 3:15am. I started out wearing my underarmor long-sleeve short, a t-shirt, three other long sleeved shirts, a fleece zip up, my rain jacket, my new North Face pants and a hat (Thank you Annie!). Within the first 10 minutes of hiking I was already so hot and regretting wearing so many layers. I peeled them off and carried them most of the rest of the way. We hiked up the mountain in the pitch black dark. There were a couple times that the moon came out but most of the time, we could just see by the light of our flashlights.

There are three different eco-systems that make up Mount Pulag. At the bottom is the Pine Forest, then the Mossy Forest and then the Grasslands. As we were entering the grasslands Dave had a potential cloud rat sighting. The Cloud Rat is an endangered species that live on Mount Pulag. It is the largest species of rat in the world.

We were hoping to make it to the summit to watch sunrise but we didn't make it in time. The sky started to lighten as we walked through the grasslands. It was really foggy and even with the light you couldn't see much.


Even though we didn't make it to the summit to see the sunrise, it was still so beautiful. We didn't really stop to watch it as we were pressing on hard to reach the summit as soon as we could, but we took some quick pictures and watched it as we walked.


We climbed up over many peaks not knowing when we would get to the summit. There were many times when our host sister, Augosta, who was leading the way told us "Ok this is the summit." I think this video says it all.....


The last push to the summit was tough and my legs wanted to just quit. We arrived at the summit at 6am, 2 hours and 45 minutes after we started. The view once we reached the top was incredible! When we first got up there, there were clouds coving most everything, and we couldn't see much other than the sunrise. This is what we saw.

I immediately put on the rest of my layers, as it was soooooo cold and windy at the summit. At that point I was SO glad that I had those extra layers to put on! It was definitely worth carrying them that whole way. Even with my layers it was so cold!

We ate breakfast of rice, sausage, and orange juice on the summit. It tasted really good, but my hands were freezing, which made it a little more difficult to use a spoon. Here is a picture of us on the summit with Vicar Matthew and Pastor Luis!


We stayed on the summit for about an hour and a half just looking out at the amazing view all around us. The clouds cleared after a little while and we could see many of the surrounding provinces. I can not even describe the beauty of that place. The pictures do not even do it justice. Aside from the wind, that was whipping around pretty good at the summit, it was so peaceful up there. Here is a picture of Dave and I at the summit of Mount Pulag.


A little after 7:30 we started back down the mountain. The hike down was very enjoyable. It was nice to be able to see where we were going without flashlights and everything was so beautiful. Hiking down wasn't as strenuous on the cardiovascular system but it was tough on the knees. At times I felt like we were running down the mountain.... That was fun! Here's a picture of us on the way down with (left to right) Pastor Luis, Augosta (our host sister) and Vicar Matthew.


We arrived back at the house we were staying a little before 10am, so less than two and a half hour hike back down. After a merienda (snack), all of us took a nice long nap! Hiking Mount Pulag was an amazing experience and I am so thankful that we got to do it.

traveling around the mountains!

****Laura (sister of David Peet), you should just read this because Dave won’t put in this kind of time….from Dave****

Before we left Baguio we packed down and left some things here at the seminary that we wouldn’t need to make our backpacks lighter for hiking. Dave emptied out his bag figuring out what he needed and we just had to try it….. So here I am inside Dave’s backpack.

I got all the way inside it all zipped and strapped up. The rest of the team wanted Dave to put me on his back and walk around our apartment at the seminary but we quickly decided that would be a bad idea!

Driving through the mountains we have seen some amazing views and to the people that live here it’s just a normal everyday thing. This is the view from the house we stayed at in Sinipsip. You can see the terraced fields. It’s pretty amazing to me that you can make crops grow on the side of a mountain with cliffs that seem like they go straight down.

When we were in Guinzadan in the province of Bauko, our host sister, Alarene, informed us that their town fiesta was going on and she wanted to take us to it. When we arrived at the fiesta, called Begnas di Bauko, we assumed that we were just going to observe the festivities; that we would just slip in and watch from the crowd. But as soon as we arrived a woman came running up to us welcoming us and asking us if we would sing a song for the battle of the bands. When we agreed to sing she rushed us up to the stage to sit in chairs up front. We received a welcome from the Municipal Secretary, Tom, as their special visitors from the U.S. We ended up singing 5 songs throughout the afternoon there, with Ua on an extremely out of tune guitar using a piece of a phone card as a pick. We also got to participate in some of the festivities. They did their native gong dance and the girls dragged Jenny and me out to dance too. The men walk around dancing and playing gongs and the women dance around in a line and circles with them. It’s a good thing Jenny and I had gotten a chance to practice this dance when we were in Tabuk. During the dance I unknowingly got engaged when I accepted a guy’s outstretched hand. Sorry Dave…. And uh, Mom and Dad there’s something I have to tell you…. Haha, thankfully the guy is already married and they don’t actually stick to that cultural tradition anymore. So here is a picture of Jenny and me dancing out in the middle of the square.

During the Begnas Luke got to attempt to catch a greased native pig with four other guys wearing native cultural attire. It is a piece of woven cloth which is wrapped around your waist and through your legs, looking like a combination of a diaper, a kilt, and a loin cloth. I would put a picture up but I don’t think Luke would be very happy with me. :)

We have been doing more hiking now that we are up in the mountains. We are realizing how out of shape we are and our lungs are relearning how to work hard again. It seems unreal at times looking out over the mountains as we hike around. This is picture of Dave in Catlubong looking out at the gorgeous view from the church.

They really take care of us girls here. At first I was really frustrated because it seemed like they thought because Jenny and I are girls we are weak, don’t like being outside and can’t handle much. While the boys were in the back of an open pick-up looking out at the amazing mountains Jenny and are were squished in the pick-up cab not able to see anything but the road in front of us. I knew I could handle being in the back of the truck just as well as the boys. I grew up loving being outside, climbing trees, running around and being active and there was never anything that I couldn’t do because I was a girl. I think that’s because I was kind of a Daddy’s girl playing sports and most of my friends when I was really little were boys. So recently I was a little salty when they would make Jenny and I sit in the front. I am really starting to appreciate how they take care of us girls though. It hit me when we were leaving Tawangan in a truck and Pastor Jerry opened up the cab door and said, “Here’s your throne. Haha.” It’s not that they think we are weak or can’t handle things, they just want the best for us and to make sure we are taken care of. I have really appreciated that when they have the boys from the church carry our big backpacks for us. In the last week, Pastor Jerry and Pastor Luis have been having the guys from the churches we go to carry all of our bags, including the boys’ bags and the instruments. It is their way of serving us. Pastor Luis explained that it’s what they have to offer to us and they want to help us even though we could carry them ourselves.

On Easter we were at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Tawangan, in the province of Benguet. The day before Easter and on Easter I missed home quite a bit, thinking about my family and how we usually celebrate Easter and home and my church. The Easter service here was very simple and I appreciated the simplicity of it, but there’s something about the familiarity of being home for Easter and singing, “Christ the Lord is risen today! Aaaaaaaalleluia!” We did a program for the congregation later in the afternoon on Easter and before the program they sang us a song to welcome us. It’s called “Welcome to the Family” and here are the lyrics.

As they were singing this song to us I started to feel much better. I still missed home but I found comfort in the fact that I am with my brothers and sisters in Christ, so I am with family. The program on Easter was a lot of fun and the people made us feel so welcome. Here’s a picture of us with the kids of St. Paul Lutheran Church.

These past two weeks we have spent with Pastor Luis and Pastor Jerry as our guides. They are two amazing pastors that have been so helpful and good companions. They translated many of our programs for us as we visited their many congregations. Both of them pastor over seven churches each, many of which they have to hike a long ways through the mountains to get to. They said that we have had a big impact on their ministry and encouraged them to keep going. Seeing their dedication to these congregations was inspiring to us as well. Pastor Luis and Pastor Jerry have known each other since high school and watching them interact is so much fun. We had some really good laughs with them. They both really made an effort to get to know each of us and that was really appreciated. We were only with Pastor Luis and Pastor Jerry for a couple weeks but it felt like so much longer because we got to know them so well. We already had to say goodbye to these guys, but we are hoping that we will be able to attend Pastor Jerry’s wedding on April 4th in Tinoc. Here’s a picture of us with (left to right) Vicar Matthew, Pastor Jerry, and Pastor Luis on Easter Sunday.



This is a picture of us with the people of Good News Lutheran Church where we did a program in Ballay in the province of Benguet. Our program was in conflict with a wedding in the neighboring town that many members went to, and the church was still full! I can’t imagine how many people would have been there if there was no conflict.

We are now back in Baguio, with time to rest. It is definitely needed, as we have been pushing it pretty hard these last couple weeks, with programs just about every day. Ua and Jenny are getting over colds, Dave and I are battling allergies and…well Luke is healthy. :) Our time in the Philippines is fleeting with only a few more programs left. It is going to be very hard to leave the Philippines. I am really going to miss the people here.

I can not believe we are cold!

*not all the pictures are working yet, I will try to get them up later
(written March 10, 2008)
We have enjoyed leading fellowship with youth at the different congregations that we have visited. It has been a little hard at first though, because they are painfully shy and won’t even respond when we say hi and ask them their name. After some songs and games they usually warm up to us and then I really enjoy talking with them. Here is a picture of the some of youth at the fellowship night in Sanchez Mira.

We got to do a program in Tabuk at Grace Lutheran Church, which is out in the middle of rice fields. On our way to the church, Pastor Luis got the van stuck, with one side of the wheels in a rice field.

It was a muddy walk the rest of the way to the church. When we got to the church, the members of the community did a cultural dance with gongs. They said it was a welcome dance to welcome us and to let the rest of the village know that we were there. It really worked. As soon as the people heard the gongs, they started coming from everywhere. They even got Ua, Jenny, and I to dance with them.

Also here’s a better picture of me playing the guitar during that program.

We have continued traveling through the mountain provinces. It is so beautiful up here. Pastor Luis from Tabuk traveled with us to Apayao, a remote village in the mountains. He also took us to a shop where they sell Kalinga cultural dress.


Jenny and Luke got to try them on.


Here we are in Apayao with Vicar Eric, Pastor Rolly, and Pastor Luis after the congregation presented us with Kalinga bead necklaces as a token of their love and thanks. Pastor Luis has a daughter that lives in St. Paul, MN about 10 minutes from my house and he visits her there! His granddaughter takes swimming lessons at Como Park Pool, where I took swimming lessons when I was little! It was fun to make connections with him, talking about things around home. Hopefully we will see him again sometime when he is visiting his daughter.
This is a picture of a sign for a dentist. I saw it and thought of my mom, so this is for you mom!

When we were in Baay, Baglin, La Union, at the church where Pastor Rolly is serving, we got to be part of a wedding. We were asked to sing a song after the sermon. While we were waiting for the wedding to start one of the ladies came running over to us to ask if any of us knew how to play the wedding march on the keyboard. Before all of us could look at Dave, someone told her that they had found someone. Dave was relieved but then she came back saying that the person had refused. She asked Dave to play anything on the keyboard, even if he didn’t know the wedding march. Then the keyboard didn’t work so it turned into the five of us singing “This is the Day” as the wedding party marched down the isle. :) They asked us again near the end of the wedding to sing another song, so all together we sang three. We also got to go to the wedding reception.

When we first arrived at the home we were staying in in Baay, there was a little girl with a pet baby owl! It was less than a month old. It was so little and soft, and so calm. I have never seen an owl that close. So here is the pet owl on my shoulder!

Also while we were at Baay we lead a fellowship for the youth, a puppet making workshop and sang during Sunday morning worship.

I met three little friends that I first met as they were peeking into the windows of the parsonage, where we were sitting. Shaina Mar, Archie Lynn, and Lynn Sunshine were all around three years old and so much fun to play with. The only English they knew was “Hello!” so every time they saw me they would yell “Hello!” over and over again, waving wildly. I found out the day that we left that they also knew how to say “Good morning!” so we said “Good morning" to each other over and over again, even though it was 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
We are now in Baguio City. It is up in the mountains, in the highland district on the island of Luzon. As we were driving up into the city I was amazed by all the houses built on the side of the mountains. There are so many of them! We saw lots of parks with open spaces and pine trees! Getting out of the van at the Lutheran Seminary, where we are staying, we all kind of felt like we were at camp. It is so much cooler here as well! Up until the last couple weeks, the coolest it has gotten has been about 84 degrees Fahrenheit (at night) and yesterday it was 68 degrees out. It felt so refreshing and cool and the air here is so fresh. Last night we walked to the SM mall about 15 minutes away. It was drizzling and cool so I wore my fleece with my rain jacket over it. I also wore the hat that Annie gave me to bring on the trip for the cooler weather! I don’t think I actually needed the hat; I just wore it because I could.
At the mall we bought some groceries and went to a coffee shop that stays open late, for our team outing. They also had wireless internet, so it was nice to be able to check e-mail and all of that. Being in the mountains we haven’t had as much access to the internet, so with lots of time between entries I feel like each blog I write is like a book….so long!
It felt good to walk last night, as we haven’t been doing much of that lately. We have an upcoming 3 hour hike that I am a little nervous about. We are able to pack down and leave some things at the Seminary until the end of March, so I guess that will be more incentive for me not to pack as much.

The mountains are beautiful and I think that is one thing that I am going to miss when I go home. It is so beautiful to look out and be able to see the mountains and the ocean! It has also been fun being in Baguio with all the pine trees. It reminds me of home!
We will be traveling around in the mountains until the end of the month. It looks like we will be back in Baguio on March 27th. This might be the only update until then, as it looks like we won't have much internet access.
We only have about one more month in the Philippines before we head to Taiwan for a few weeks. The time is going so fast and I can’t believe we have been here this long! Hope all is well at home!