The Reunion

In 1994, we moved to the Philippines to teach the children of missionaries.

Students at the school in 1996

Matt along with his fellow students

Ruth giving a book report

And we had lots of fun times with our new friends.

Erin holding Carrie

Carrie, James, Rachel, Charles, & Toby

Carrie and Sarah at age 5.

Sara now lives in Australia, but last month she and her sisters came back to the Philippines for a visit along with Toby the blond boy in the picture with the puppies.

Toby helped make the picnic fun for everyone.

Matt and Erin married and now serving as missionaries here in the Philippines. It was a real pleasure to have a couple hours with my former students. I am pleased to say that they can all read and do math without taking off their shoes to count higher than 10. Thank you, Matt, Erin, Rachel, Ruth, Sarah, and Toby, for taking time to visit us. We really enjoyed seeing you again.

“Do I look unintelligent?” The Fetcher

This sign was not hanging at the school our children attend, but still, as a fetcher, I feel saddened. I do my fair share of fetching and I hate to see my fellow fetchers discriminated against. I am getting lots of practice fetching.

For example, if Carrie stays after school to help with a bake sale, I have to go fetch her when she is done. Would you buy a cookie from this girl?

And, if Thomas has to stay for a tennis game I have to go fetch him too. The only difference between a dog fetcher and me is that someone throws the ball for the dog to fetch. I, in a manner of speaking, throw the kids out and fetch them too. I keep asking myself why.

This sign made me happy.

No more eye doctor appointments. Just look up your age on the chart, if you can see the chart, and then see what grade you need. By the way, the sales person saw me taking a picture of his chart and told me that it didn’t really work that way. While I was in the hardware store looking at a shelf, the sales person came up to me and told me that the shelf was an instrument for putting things on and gave a demonstration. I had a cup hook in my hand, so I said, “You mean that I could put this hook on the shelf like this?” and put my hook on the shelf. The clerk was happy with how quickly I had learned the proper use of a shelf. I am wondering if I look like an unintelligent fetcher.

January Cell Phone Pictures

I am glad that my cell phone has a little camera in it so that when I see something I want to ponder I can get a picture to study later.

For example, this is a photo I took in a men’s bathroom. There were three sinks and third one had this sign above it. This is troubling! Who lives here? How much does it cost to rent space in a public bathroom? Where does he sleep? Why doesn’t he share his sink?

At first I was impressed by the lack of safety straps and the mass of wires. When I got home and studied the picture I was impressed by the friendliness of Filipinos. I am thinking, “Don’t fall or electrocute yourself just to wave at me.” Later I became alarmed at the dangerous situation. The wood board the guys is sitting on is connected to a wooden pole that is rotted out.

I think I would have said something if I had noticed when I was taking the picture.

This is a picture of our parner Vicky. She is riding around in luxury while all the rest of us use ordinary cars and trucks. Her cab is loaded with Bible teaching materials and clinic supplies which she has prepared to sent to the village overland. Vicky will gladly trade her motorcycle side car for a helicopter which will allow her to take these kinds of things all the way to the village. We are praying that will be a reality in the near future.

It's Christmas Time in Manila

Celebrating Christmas was different for us this year. We missed having our sons, Charles and James with us. We are very thankful that they could celebrate Christmas with loved ones and that God provided for their transportation and work schedule needs.

[James with the Johnson Family]

Charles was able to travel from Boise to Oregon to attend a Christmas gathering with the Bamfords. With James we were wondering if he would be going anywhere right up until the last moment and then his boss gave him 10 days off and we were able to find tickets for him to fly to Michigan and spend Christmas with the Johnson family who very generously opened their home to several missionary kids. Thank you Johnsons!!! Thank you Lord, for allowing the trip to happen!!!

Here in the Philippines, Carrie and Thomas started their vacation by inviting several friends over for a cookie decorating party.

Can you guess which one I did?

Heidi volunteered our family to watch the young children of families who are in the Tagalog language study program so that the parents could have a chance to finish Christmas shopping or spend time together.

Five families generously donated their children and we spent three days reading stories, playing with clay, and getting to know some very sweet children.

On Christmas Eve, our friends the Spicers invited us over for dinner and games. We have known the Spicers ever since we moved to the Philippines 16 years ago, so it is lots of fun to spend time with them.

Thank you Spicer Family!

On Christmas morning I took my post at the front door at 6:30 am and started handing out Christmas candy. On Christmas morning the neighborhood children hit the streets and yell “Mamasko Po!” at every house hoping for a coin or a piece of candy. We prepared 250 small bags of candy and could have used about 100 more.

We are looking forward to 2011. Please pray that in January :
• the NTM helicopter will get its needed paperwork processed so that the flight program can open,
• the book of Mark will get its first check,
• two new families who will be working at Faith Academy find housing.

May God bless you and your family in the new year,
Jonathan and Heidi

Goods To Declare

Besides working on translating the book of Mark we, as a family, have had lots going on over the past few months. First of all, Carrie was asked to be on the girl's varsity soccer team. Good job Carrie! Over the season her team did very well. The season finished up with two tournaments. One was here in the Philippines, and the other was in Thailand. Going to Thailand was a very special treat for Carrie because she got to spend time with a friend of hers who moved there last year.

Carrie plays defense.

While in Thailand the team played soccer, had ministry time, and had tourist time.

It looked like Thomas wouldn't be going anywhere, but on very short notice he was invited

to go to an NTM ministry location in Northern Luzon with some of his friends.

He jumped at the opportunity and spent a week far from the concrete jungle we live in.

Would you believe these boys all have the same birthday?
After the Iwak church service, Thomas entertained some of the people by juggling.

It was something they had never seen before.

Thomas has joined the tennis team and has been making steady improvement. He now beats his dad on a regular basis.

Good job Thomas!

The kids aren't the only ones who have traveled. I made a trip to Bali, Indonesia and another trip to Mindanao, Philippines. The Bali trip was a training seminar put on by NTM. In Bali, I was surprised to find out that although most of Indonesia is Islamic, the island of Bali is mostly Hindu. There were idols and appeasement offerings everywhere.

The traffic drove on the left hand side of the road. I didn't try driving, but I found that crossing the street was dangerous enough for me. I have a lifelong habit of stepping off the curb looking to the left instead of the right.

The NTM meetings were very encouraging. We were trained in people group assessment among other things. My trip to Mindanao was for the Faith Academy School Board. It was good to meet the staff of the school there and hopefully to be an encouragement. Needless to say, I was glad when my travels were over and I could work full time on the translation.

The helicopter has arrived

Thank you to all of you who have prayed for the safe arrival of the helicopter. Your prayers have been answered. These pictures were taken during this past week by Helen Johanson.

The truck containing the helicopter crates arrives at the flight center.

Roger, a friend of missionaries in Luzon, owns a tractor and offered to help with the unloading. Thanks, Roger! (Nice job on your tractor re-build.)

I'm not sure what the pilot in the back of the truck is saying but it probably means, "Go slowly! We don't want to drop this."

I guess there is more than one way to fly a helicopter.

Brian, our pilot, has waited months for his helicopter to arrive.

First landing at the new flight center.

Some assembly required

The funny thing is that although the aviation guys are always busy, every time I offer to help them with their work they can't think of anything that needs to be done.

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Please keep praying for these guys as they work to get the pilots licensed in this country, get the helicopter registered, and make test flights to our mission stations.

Different paths

During the past two months I worked to get the first half of the book of Mark into rough draft form so that it would be ready to check with my language helper during the first week of October.

Because we don't have any flight service into our village, I had arranged to meet Malana in town. When I arrived, I waited for news that he was also in route, but didn't hear a thing. Our village has no telephone service, so there was no way I could contact him.

Fortunately I had other things to do. Our mission is in the process of setting up a new support center and I arrived in the middle of a major step. A team of Austrailian construction workers were on our center building a house that will serve as a house for the center manager or pilot and also double as a guest house for traveling missionaries. The team was also pouring the concrete landing pad for our helicopter flight program. By the time you read this the landing pad should be finished.

The helicopter has arrived in the Philippines and is working its way through the government paperwork. We are praying that within a very short time it will be in the process of being assembled on our new center.

With no news from my language helper, I looked at my "to do" list and saw that I was long overdue to visit our newest outreach on northern Luzon.

David Johanson generously offered to give me a ride to the trail head which saved me hours of trying to catch jeeps going the right direction.

Our trip took us along those golden streets. A lot of rice and corn was being dried on the roads.

We finally arrived at the drop off point. I was told, "Just follow this trail. Turn right at the top of the ridge. You can't get lost."

So, off I went. I saw very few people as I hiked along. I turned right at the top of the ridge, but 3o minutes later I came to a fork in the trail and wasn't sure which way to go.

Fortunately Christina was on her way to meet me and guide me to the village, so after pondering for a bit she came along. (I had tried asking a three year old for directions, but that hadn't worked.)

When we arrived in the village I visited with some of the locals and then went down to see the Talbots. They were at the end of their first two months living in the village as a family and were in the process of finishing their house.

They were also working on building relationships with their neighbors. In this picture Shannon was weighing a baby. One of the babies there is malnourished and the Talbots have been trying to help her gain weight.

I helped Chuck hang shutters so that he could secure his house and also helped a bit with the homeschooling and some other tasks which needed to be done as they prepared to leave for town. In the evenings and at lunch time I played games with the kids.

One afternoon I went with Chuck an looked at a possible landing spot for the helicopter.

After two days it was time to hike out. Some of the family rode on water buffalo. Going up and down the steep parts of the trail proved a little difficult as it is easy to slide off the wide back of a buffalo. I ended up carrying Sophia for during those difficult times

Most of the trail wasn't too muddy, but some sections were. At one point I was trecking along and all of a sudden my boot stuck and my foot kept going. I stepped right out of the boot and into the mud.The people had started loading the water buffalo sleds at 4:30 am. We left the village at 5:30 and arrived at the waiting shed just before 8 am. We loaded cargo into a small van and made it into a small town just before 10. We were a tired and muddy group, but we found a hotel where we could get showers and a good meal. The Talbots and Christina planned to stay the night, but I went ahead with their cargo to the mission center.

The next morning I found out that my language helper had just arrived in town; only a week late. I met him and made arrangements to work with him in January when, Lord willing, I can fly to the village on the helicopter and check the whole book of Mark. I met with him and his companions and found out that they had been unable to come earlier because they were still harvesting.

The Isnag are praising the Lord for the crop he has given them. Last year's crop was destroyed by a typhoon and many of our friends in the US and Australia gave gifts so that we could buy rice to help them through the year. The year of famine is over and everyone has rice again.

I arrived home late Saturday afternoon. It wasn't the trip I expected to make, but it was good.