Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The End of Summer

The Lord allowed us to spend most of June and July with our Isnag friends. If you haven’t read about our time in the village, please read the last two posts to our New Tribes Mission blog.

http://www.ntm.org/wp/jonathan-heidi_bamford/

This is the story about what happened after we flew out to town. When we got out to town, we found out that some of our Isnag friends were at the hospital needing assistance. Heidi and the ladies headed down to see if they could help them line up the kind of doctor appointments needed.

By mid afternoon the next day the ladies had the appointment they needed and we were ready to head for our home in the big city and to the two conferences what we would be helping with in the following weeks. We decided to take the long way home so that we could show our visitors a couple beautiful beaches here in the Philippines and visit the old Spanish city of Vigan.

We knew when we left town that we would probably not make it to the beach that night, but that we could probably find someplace to stay the night along the way.

We did find a place and it turned out to be the worst place I have ever paid to spend the night. It did have a lot of atmosphere, loud, dirty, ugly. It was great because it made everyplace else we stayed look like a palace. I ask you, how many mornings to teenagers wake up early begging to go for a car ride? We were all ready to hit the road and a couple of hours later we made it to the beach.

It was nice to have a couple of days to relax and play games with the kids. After that we drove south to visit an old Spanish style city.

We toured in horse drawn carriages and visited a pottery making business, old bell tower, small zoo, and a weaving business. The Catholic church in the background was built in the late 1500’s.

Old bell tower

Thomas, Heidi, Carrie, and Jonathan

We drove south from Vigan and spent one more night at a beach before arriving home. At home, everyone quickly got involved in unpacking the house and getting ready for the N. Luzon conference which was only a couple of days away. At the same time, Carrie and Thomas were preparing for school and registering for classes which coincided with the N. Luzon conference.

Our good friends, Patrick and Miriam graciously offered to stay home to support Carrie and Thomas while the rest of us participated in both the conferences. We had a few different responsibilities during the conference, but our main responsibility was to provide a child care program for the children of missionaries who would be attending.

It was great to have Bethany and Jacob along. They were a huge help. Jacob taught the Bible story and made sure that the outside play area ran smoothly and Bethany was in charge of the craft area for the older kids. Several other people helped as well, both on Luzon and Palawan. Thank you Peggy, La-arni, Jennifer, Chai, Brenda, Steffi, Eli, Kyle, Wheng, Mayline, Elsie, Rebekah, and Veronica.

When it was all over we had the same number of kids as we started with. If that isn’t success I don’t know what is.

We moved home for a couple of days and re-grouped in order to travel to Palawan and do the same children’s program again for those serving down south.

As you can see, butterflies and moths were the theme of our programs this year. We studied butterflies and moths, colored butterflies, made butterfly books, and made string art butterflies during craft time.

A moth landed on my shirt served as a good illustration

The kids enjoyed lots of fun activities which included Bible story time, clay time, and jump roping.

Jacob teaching the Bible story

Heidi and Bethany with those who were interested in jumping rope

Clay time

Jacob and Bethany looking for just the right hat

After a month of travel, Jacob and Bethany bought their last mementos and gifts before leaving Palawan. We arrive home on a Saturday, had a farewell dinner with the Rivettes that night and they left on airplane the next morning.

Thank you, Jacob and Bethany for coming all the way to the Philippines to visit us and help us with the conferences. Thank you Rivettes for all you did to make their visit here enjoyable.



1 comment:

Zoe said...

We love your blog updates! So good to hear about your busy summer of travel and work!