What we've been doing...

We were in Manila last week. When I got into the taxi at the airport, I heard and felt my pants rip out at the back... Oh dear! But when we got to Leah's church I was able to change. We stayed at the SIL guesthouse for the first time. Pretty nice! The ladies at the guesthouse, in addition to doing lanudry as part of the deal, repaired my britches! We attended the Philippine Missions Association (PMA) annual meetings in Quezon City and that was interesting. They are working on trianing the Christian Overseas Foreign Workers (OFWs) who go to work in limited access countries. We think it is a good thing, but since we see the destruction of the families which is the results of one spouse going overseas, we hope they will concentrate on recruiting and training singles. Not good to give a 'spiritual' stamp of approval to believers who are leaving their families and the bottom line reason is to make money.

Then we went up to Faith and had a nice time with the Ballentynes, getting to know the girls in their dorm a bit. A nice bunch, but kinda rowdy. Most of them are younger and it is the first time in boarding for most. We sure do enjoy Tom and Wendy! The next day we rode into town with them and then took the LRT and a taxi to immigration for the new fingerprinting. All foreigners now have to register for a card which has all our info in it. No more ink on the fingers! Our fingerprints, photos and signature were all digitized into a computer and put on a card, like a driver's license. We will have to pay P2,500 per year each for these.

We took the MRT and then the LRT to MegaMall, where we thought we would meet the Ballentynes, but they had gone on to St. Lucia already. I really hate all those stairs going up to the trains! We wandered around the mall a bit and then took a taxi to St. Lucia. They were in a movie, so we went an hour early over to Friday's and just rested. Nice! And we had a nice dinner later!

The next day we went at 5am to the airport and arrived way too early. Our flight was at 9:30 and was delayed until 10:20. We ate breakfast and I got my feet massaged by the blind people, and that was nice! Dad talked for a long time to a young lady who is Iglesia ni Cristo.

Since we have been back we have had breakfast here with Phyllis and Donna and went out to lunch with them, then I picked up Patty at the airport and took her shopping at SM, and she spent the night. the next day she left and Siony Rapista arrived to work with me on planning the women's retreat in Gingoog in April. She spent the night, and Jimmy came to pick her up, along with Harold and Edison. While they were here, the Wedels arrived to drop off some books and borrow more. They had just picked up Jason for the break. After they all left, the Staigmillers arrived.

Angela is really uncomfortable now, and the swelling in her legs in much worse. She has to spend most of her time laying down with her legs elevated. We went yesterday for an ultrasound and found out it is a boy (!) and he is breech. She will probably have a CS, and she is okay with that. Today they have another look at her veins and then we will go see the OBGyn with all these test results.

One thing I left out was that Dad was supposed to preach last Sunday, so he was working on his sermon in between visitors and stayed up late on Saturday night and got up early the next morning. We got to church and there was someone sitting on the front row who looked like a speaker (barong)... we checked the bulletin, and yep, there was a special speaker, not Dad! Sigh. This Sunday we will be in Gingoog for church and a board meeting, and we don't know if Dad is supposed to preach or not, and hate to aks! :-) We'll find out! He will take a sermon just in case!