It has been quite a week here in the Philippines!  We have had the opportunity of  helping  host a Work and Witness team this past week, where Connie has been cooking many of the meals.   This has been a good distraction from our empty apartment now that Courtney is back in the states.  We thoroughly enjoyed having the opportunity to share with the team and to make new friends.  They were a great bunch of folks!

Speaking of Courtney, she has arrived safely and has already been blessed with a job at the Boys and Girls Club in Lewiston.  She received word of the job while she was here in the Philippines, completed her application, sent it in, and told them that she would be back to interview as soon as she returned to the states.  She starts work this next week.  God is so very good!

After Typhoon Labuyo (Utor) rolled through, we were able to help out the Philippine Field Office as they prepared over 120 sacks of rice to go to Nazarene families who were displaced by the storm, which hit hardest in the Northern Province of Isabella. Nazarene Disaster Response is delivering the supplies this week.

Today we received news that our house may be ready for us to move in next week.  Connie is really looking forward to having a place to start settling into and calling home.  The house is located approximately 3/4 mile away as the bird flies, but anywhere between 15 minutes and 2 hours depending on traffic and the routing that must be taken.

Speaking of traffic…we went to the edge of the Manila Bay yesterday to the convention center at the Mall of Asia.  One of the World Missions Communications team members (Ervz) was teaching a workshop and we wanted to support him.  The distance from the seminary to the convention center is 13.6 miles.  It took just over 2 hours to get there and 2 hours 55 minutes to get home.  There were no accidents, no flooded streets, just normal Manila traffic.  Let’s see…that is about 5.44 miles per hour.  Anyone up for a race?  I am not sure how many times I clutched for jeepneys, trucks, busses, motorcycles, cars, pedestrians, but it was definitely a workout!

Oh…and a couple more final photos of the WMC-AP team.  They truly love to have fun together!

On a very sad note…new reports are coming in today of a very serious ferry accident that occurred last night.  A ferry and cargo ship collided in the area of Cebu, Southern Philippines.   Many confirmed fatalities and around 200 missing.  The ferry sank within minutes of the impact.  As it was at night, many of the passengers were asleep inside.

Official news coverage of the accident

Check out the Asia-Pacific Regional website for more news and photos of the week.