Friday, December 24, 2010

Christmas Letter 2010

December 2010

Dear Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas!!

We’re so grateful for another full and rich year! We love living in the metro St. Louis area!

Dan continues to represent the Nazarene Youth International (NYI) as Global Bible Quiz Trainer and is leading a small group from our church in a interesting book study. Janet still enjoys working at JoyFM (go to www.joyfmonline.org to listen) and we both enjoy the “percs” of Christian music radio – Christian concerts and terrific co-workers. Dan spends a fair amount of time volunteering his computer skills there as well!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

It's been awhile...

Yes, we have not done a very good job of keeping these posts updated.

In June, as we were getting adjusted to being back home, Janet had to spend a lot of time back in the office at JOYFM.  I (Dan) had a training tour to do in Central America without my special assistant (Janet). In 10 days I did Bible quiz training in 7 locations in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.  If you would like to see a video report of the trip use this link - Central MAC Training

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Shopping, APRC Fun Day, & Palm Sunday

22 – 28 March, 2010

At lunch on Monday, Greg was telling us about the small Cokes that seem to be a Filipino favorite – they're called sakto, because it's “exact-o” the right size! It's less than 7 ounces and a cute little bottle but, often, Americans like to have 2, not just one...



Monday, March 22, 2010

Evenings of fellowship and a Sunday Wedding

March 15 – 21, 2010

Not that I've been feeling anxious, but Judy's turn at staff devotions on Monday morning were calming, as we pored over 4 scriptures telling us not to be anxious or worried. “Cast all your cares...” It's a blessing to be part of this group of Christians who work hard, accept us as we are, and are willing to share their concerns with us and with each other. 

Monday, March 15, 2010

March 8 – 14, 2010

We already knew that this would be a busy week! Monday morning's staff devotions were my responsibility this week, having been “drafted” by Faith, who keeps asking others to take her turn! Anyway, since I was sharing my testimony, Faith said she'd choose and lead the music and bring a snack to share! We enjoyed suman, the Korean sticky-rice wrapped in leaf strips, sprinkling them with a little brown sugar (it's granulated sugar that's brown, not like the brown sugar in the States that includes molasses). God demonstrated his leading as all the songs Faith chose fit perfectly with the Scripture topic I used for my testimony.

Monday, March 8, 2010

MISSIONARY RETREAT!

Friday morning, we were scheduled to be on campus for only the morning, as Dan needed to be part of a conference call scheduled from the States about the national quiz to be held at Mt. Vernon Nazarene University in July.  The call ran a little long, so we arrived late for lunch in the canteen, and ate a quick lunch almost by ourselves!  We drove home to Camden to finish packing what we would need for a weekend at the beach and returned to APNTS.  The rest arrived in bunches for the next few minutes and soon were ready to leave in the Coaster Bus. Having left before the weekend rush of traffic and with Greg Taylor driving, we made good time down the C-5 and the SLEX; through Santa Rosa and Tagaytay, we recognized this path as the way we'd taken by ourselves a couple of weeks ago.  Past the sugar cane refinery, though, we turned left/southwest this time and continued, watching the sun set as we followed it to the west coast of this big island.  Twenty of us arrived at Coral Beach Club Resort after dark (2 more arrived the next morning) and checked into 8 rooms in record time.

Friday, March 5, 2010

March 1 – 7, 2010

Tuesday morning, during our morning devotions Dan noted that God had directly addressed a question he had been thinking about while in the shower a few minutes earlier.  It was the issue of questioning whether his work here was useful.  The devotional writer made it clear that the issue is the Lord's responsibility not ours.  We are simply to do be obedient. God is so good at answering our smallest prayer.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Devotions and another 'Adventure'

February 22 – 28, 2010
Our co-workers in the APRC listened silently as Dan led devotions Monday morning, shared one of the stories of how his son Derick was used by God while an inmate in a state prison. They were touched by how God worked in response to Derick's prayers, and how Dan's life was affected as well, even though not one of them is a parent yet. We continue to be amazed at how God is using these experiences to help others understand how He can work in unimaginable ways and places. So many illustrations are available from those difficult years, only Heaven knows the possible results as long as we are faithful in sharing.



Monday, February 22, 2010

February 15 – 21, 2010

Our devotion time, with our APRC coworkers on Monday, included a good discussion on things in our lives that are good, but that take too much of our time/money/attention from our relationship with God. It was led by Herald, who had arrived at work in the IT department with a cute girl's wig on! He left it on until we were finished with our singing, devotion, discussion and prayer, then whipped it off as we all said, “Amen!” – he'd had a haircut, shaved down to about 1/8”! Since Herald is a soft-spoken guy, it was twice as funny as if someone else had done it!  This was an added object lesson of reducing the stress in his life.




Monday, February 15, 2010

Mangadang umaga (beautiful morning)!

February 8 - 14, 2010
One of Dan’s coworkers, DJ, led devotions Monday morning. We all had a good laugh over his topic title because “Distraction” sounded, with soft Filipino vowels, like “destruction” to me and Dan! So DJ exaggerated his pronunciation so we’d be sure it was “DistRACtion” he was talking about. And Faith is so sweet! She remembered that I had mentioned last week that I love popcorn, so she brought some microwave popcorn and made it for the devotion time snack!


Monday, February 8, 2010

It's February already...

Monday, 1 February 2010
It’s February already?!
After a few days of trying to coordinate schedules, Olive and Faith and I finally found a time after lunch to just begin recreating the October financial records, but were stopped shortly into the process since all the basic lists are not ready for us to complete even 1 transaction. But it’s OK, really. Olive must now coordinate the necessary information so it can be loaded into our program. Now that we’re ready to begin is truly the right time to clarify this. We’ll try again in a few days once the developers know which things we need.


Sunday, January 31, 2010

Second week in Manila

Monday, 25 January 2010
We’re starting our second work week at APRC, and continuing to get a handle on our duties and expectations. It was Judy’s turn to lead devotions so Bibles and hymnals were distributed around the large table in the conference room and we sang 2 familiar hymns. Judy did an excellent job of leading the music, the discussion, and the prayer requests. Filipinos know how important it is to spend time with each other and caring about each other’s needs!



Sunday, January 24, 2010

First 'regular' week, settling in...


Monday, 18 January 2010
Up at 6 a.m., it’s time to start our new routine.  We need to be at work by 9 this morning (just working the morning today), but 8 a.m. starting tomorrow.  This is such a nice house, with 3 bedrooms (obviously we only need 1 of them) and 2 baths upstairs.  After showers, we began to get acquainted with the kitchen. For now we’ve got Terri’s French press to make coffee and we have cereal and juice to get us going.  Dan is brave to drive in the Manila traffic! 

Monday, January 18, 2010

Arrival and Orientation Week

Tuesday and Wednesday, 12 January 2010

Five a.m. is really too early to be at any airport… but we are at St. Louis Lambert International Airport, waiting for our first-leg flight to Atlanta, on our way through Tokyo to Manila, Philippines.  Erica rode with us, having spent the night, then went on home for more sleep.  We left our heavy winter coats, scarves, and gloves in her car; we’re SO glad we won’t have to use those again for a long time! 

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Blessed confirmation

Thursday Jan. 14 - Another amazing confirmation 
Our first full day here in the Philippines began with devotions using a soft back version of Chambers, ‘My Utmost for His Highest’.  I’ve use this material before and its always beneficial. This particular copy belonged to my (Dan) mother until she went to be with our Lord this past August. She had often commented that she enjoyed how God is using us and she lived missions though our experiences. We understood this connection as she often told us how she had felt God’s call on her life as a teen but her father would not hear of it.  So it felt right to bring this along on this assignment.


Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Arrival in Manila

We are here.  After 25 hours of travel and both of us with the 'blessings' of varying degrees of cold symptoms (thank to the flu shots we got last week) we can't say it was the best trip we've had but it was ok.
God is Good. Our pass through immigration and customs was one of the fastest we have experienced.  Greg Taylor met us and we are spending the first couple of days with his family while the house we have been assigned to gets final preparations.  Greg and his wife Terri will also be leading our orientation training for the next couple of days.
It's time for rest now as we adjust to the 14 hour difference (ahead) from home.
Nite all. The future looks good from here...

Friday, January 8, 2010

Another winter away...

This has never been an objective of ours but who are we to argue with God.  In fact we have not even considered it, but as we moved through the fall this past year, He presented again for the 4th year in a row, a need to serve a portion of the St Louis winter in a warmer climate.  This time it is the longest assignment yet, 90 days...