Scooter, take two.

Ok ladies and gents, here it is- the new scooter.  In Korea, we rocked a 50cc junker because we knew we were there short term, and that we'd eventually be selling it off.  Plus, you can only ride it (without freezing) about half of the school year.  Here though, you can ride just about all year long, barring moments of torrential downpour in the rainy season (and even then, I might take it out just for fun).  So here in the Philippines, we decided, with some advice, to get a brand new scooter that would last us a long time, and will be a great investment for my(Russell's) transportation needs.  First, it gets like 70 miles per gallon (side note: gas is about $5 a gallon).  And second, then we can afford another vehicle that we can use for whole family activities, ministry outings, and for Jess to get groceries, etc.  Without any further ado, here is our new Honda Wave Dash!

Dash, Wave, Dash!

Had to suck in my gut for this model pose.

If Honda gets ahold of this picture, the Honda Wave Dash's sales
just might triple.

Ministry Highlight - Threads of Hope

Bracelets from Threads of Hope

Some of you who have been here will remember these, and many of you who haven't been here will have seen these.  I'm talking about the colorful little thread bracelets that KIM passes out.  They come from a ministry called Threads of Hope.

Alex Kuhlow and his wife Chris are missionaries in Manila.  As with any missionary, they sometimes needed time to get away from the city and rest.  They frequented an island called Mindoro, where they eventually got to know some of the natives.  Mindoro is a tourist destination and many of the islanders make their "living" by trying to sell wares to the tourists that visit.  Well, tourists don't usually like being bothered by these people, so it's often the case that the families who live along the beach don't make enough to support their families.  The Kuhlows found out that to make ends meet, families often would sell their children into prostitution to get dinner on the table.

Alex Kuhlow with about 150,000 bracelets.  This is about 2 months
 worth and will sustain about 500 people in Mindoro.

It's an unfortunate reality in impoverished parts of the world like this, but a ray of hope shines where Christ is introduced.  The Kuhlows partnered with some of these families as another part of their ministry, creating Threads of Hope.  The island women make threaded bracelets, bookmarks, etc. and the Kuhlows began to take them and sell them to people they run into- then return all the profit to the families.  After a while, people all over started asking for the bracelets.  It soon became international as the Kuhlows sold more and more of the "threads of hope."


You can read more about the story on their website, www.threadsofhope.com.ph/. We're beginning to see that there are many ministries all around us, and that God moves in many ways in the Philippines.  It's great to be a part of it!

Major League

From left: Brian Hommel, Micaiah, Jess, Russ, Russ Ortiz

We had to include this post to show you just how cool and important we are.  Haha, nah, we just wanted to share something cool that we got to experience in our first week in the Philippines.  Jeff Long and Kids International Ministries have a lot of connections all over the world, some of whom are pretty high profile people.  This week we hosted a couple guys working through Unlimited Potential Inc. who did baseball clinics around the area.  Who is it, Russell, you might ask.   Oh, just a couple of Major League baseball players, that's all.  No big deal.

Russ Ortiz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_Ortiz), who played mostly for the San Francisco Giants and Atlanta Braves, and who pitched in the World Series, was one of the guys.  The other was Brian Hommel (http://www.upi.org/html/Staff/Hommel.html) who played with the Milwaukee Brewers.  It was really cool to meet these guys.  Brian is currently the chaplain for the Arizona Diamondbacks and gave an awesome devotion on Sunday night on John 15.  Russ loved Micaiah, and was constantly making faces with her whenever she was around. 

Probably the coolest thing about these guys was how humble they were.  Both expected to be treated just like everyone else, and hung out with the teams here all the time.  It's good to see God bringing high profile people to work with the least of these.

Hooray!

We're finally here- we've made it to the Philippines.  Many of you will already know this by now from facebook and whatnot, but here's a few details about what's been happening since our last post.

We  had the awesome opportunity to stay with some friends (Steve, Jum, and Tyler MacLearn) in Songtan, South Korea, our previous home.  They were so good to put us up for a week.  What was really awesome was that Tyler is 7 months old, just a month younger than Micaiah- so they had some good, quality play time.  We love hanging out with Steve and Jum as well, and on our last day there, Jum cooked us some of her famous Thai food.  We almost didn't want to leave.  Almost.

Micaiah and Tyler having fun!

We also got to spend some quality time with good friends Howard, Terri, Amanda, and Matt Rich.  They're this awesome family who taught us a ton in our spiritual walk while we were living in Korea.  It was great to see them and enjoy their company.  On our last day there, they took us to stay at the Dragon Hill Lodge on the Yongsan Army Base in Seoul.  We had a good time hanging out with them and ate some more Thai food with our friends, Ryan and Abby Dixon (and their adorable son, Ezra).  Afterwards, Micaiah zonked out at the hotel.  She had a long day!

Faceplant snooze!

Up-close face smoosh!

Jess and Micaiah enjoying some in-flight Toy Story 3. 

On the 19th, we flew into Manila.  This was the first time we had flown to Manila via Korean Air, and it brought us to a different terminal than we had previously seen.  We began to wonder if we were in the right airport (haha).  We got through immigration, baggage claim, and customs just fine, and went to wait for our pickup.  We didn't know who was supposed to pick us up, but after a few minutes of waiting, we began to get a bit antsy.  On our three previous trips, we had been picked up from a different terminal, and this one was new to us, so we were beginning to wonder if we were at the wrong place, and if we were going to be picked up at all!  We had no cell phones, and no contact number in case we needed to reach KIM.  That was probably bad planning on our part, but everything's crystal clear in hindsight.  After about 30 minutes of waiting, Colene Long picked us up.  She's the wife of Jeff Long, who is the president and founder of KIM.  It was good to see her, and a relief as well.

Jess and Micaiah outside the YMC, where we are living.

Many people have been asking us what we're doing now, and what our plans are now that we're here.  Welp, we've been put on mandatory relax time.  In order to help us transition well (get banking stuff in order, get a car, get visa stuff taken care of, etc.) we're not going to be taking on any official KIM responsibilities for about a month.  We'll still get to interact with teams and people in the community a bunch, we're just taking it easy for a little while.

Mommy giving baby a bath in our bathroom.

Another question we're getting is, "Where are you living?"  Most of the missionaries through KIM, as well as a lot of teachers at Faith Academy, live in a set of condos just up the road.  Currently, there aren't any available for us to live in; in fact, there won't be any until June, when some of the teachers from Faith Academy pack up and leave.  Until then we'll be in temporary housing at some townhouses that KIM controls.  Currently though, the townhouse we'll be in is being painted.  So, right now we're staying at the YunJin Lyso Ministry Center (YMC).  We have a single room, with a bathroom.  It's not too shabby, and yes, it has air conditioning, though we only run it for a portion of the night to help with costs.  Here are some pictures of the room we're staying in for now.  We'll update you when we go to the townhouses.

One of our first purchases here was a crib for Micaiah.  Not the best
quality, but it will work just fine.  She didn't sleep too well without one
the first couple nights.

Instead of dressers, we have these cubbies to keep our stuff in.  They
work pretty well!

The bathroom, or CR as they call it in the Philippines,
is pretty nice.  A few ants crawling on the wall here and
there, but all in all pretty nice.

That's about it for now.  Keep checking back for more updates on what we're up to.  Can't wait to start telling you about ministry activity we'll be doing.  Things are exciting here!

Victory Christian Fellowship

Today, we got to visit the church we attended while we were teachers in Korea.  It was great to see old friends and catch up.  They're thinking of taking a trip to see us and serve with Kids International Ministries sometime this year.  We're excited for that too.  Here are some pictures of our visit...

Flights to Korea

The hard part is over.  After many many hours of travel, we have arrived in Korea and are enjoying some time with good friends.  The trip wasn't without incident though.  Here's the scoop:

 The first leg of our journey was from Pittsburgh to Chicago.  That wasn't too bad, only a little over an hour, and Micaiah did pretty well.  A little antsy, but not fussy.  She enjoyed looking out the window.

 The people around us enjoyed making faces at her and seeing her smile.  There was a family behind us who I could have sworn were Korean by the looks of them, so I said "Anyanghaseo," which means hello in Korean.  They just stared blankly at me.  After listening to them talk later on, I'm pretty sure they were Japanese.  Oops.

After arriving in Chicago, we had to find the international wing of the airport which was pretty confusing in and of itself.  On top of that, Micaiah blew out her diaper so Jess had to change that while I stood in line to get our tickets for the next plane ride.  We had to go through security again, and they did a full body scan on me.  Not only that, but they went through half of my stuff twice and it took a really long time.  By the time we got to our gate, it was already boarding.  We got ushered to the front of the line because we had a baby.  

It's great having Micaiah because we could request a bassinet seat.  We got to sit in bulkhead seats.  Next to us was a Filipino-Chinese woman with a 9 month old boy.

Micaiah took a few naps for a couple hours at a time.  It was nice to have the bassinet so we could have our arms free.  

We really didn't get any sleep on the plane.  Jess dozed off for half an hour, so I tried to snap a picture of her but the flash woke her up before it took.  Lookin good, Jess!  She looks in this picture like we both felt after getting off the plane.

The stewardesses loved Micaiah, this one in particular.  She came to our seat every 10 minutes and just talked to Micaiah- Jess and I were pretty much chopped liver.  She asked if she could walk her around and we were just fine with that.  

Toward the end of the flight, it was the middle of the night in Pennsylvania time, but only early afternoon in Korea time.  We wanted Micaiah to be awake, so I tried to walk her around.  It is nearly impossible to keep a baby awake when they want to sleep.  She won.

Before we boarded the plane, we checked our stroller at the gate.  At the time, they asked if we also wanted to check one of our carry-ons at no charge.  We were fine with that, so they took it.  When we got off the plane, the stroller was there, but not the carry on.  A guy led us to a kiosk where we had to stand in line for 30 minutes to tell them our bag was missing.  We were getting pretty frustrated at this point because our friends, Howard and Terri Rich, were waiting outside to pick us up.  Finally we got to see a service attendant, and they told us our bags were with all the other checked bags.  Why the guy that led us to the desk didn't tell us that in the first place, I don't know.  

So we went to the baggage claim, and by that time our baggage carousel wasn't listed on the boards anymore.  So I had to ask someone where our baggage was.  The carousel it was on had stopped moving, and some guys were taking the left over bags off of the line.  We had 2 blue suitcases and 1 black suitcase, along with the blue carry on that we checked at the gate.  When I got to the luggage, I saw our 2 blue suitcases, a black suitcase, and our carry on all together sitting separated from the other luggage, so I grabbed them, put them on a cart and hustled out of customs to meet our friends.

When we got back to our friends apartment, we realized that we had forgotten Micaiah's checked bag.  We've never checked a bag for her before, and we were in a hurry, so it had completely slipped our minds.  I called the airport and asked about the bag.  They told me they had not just one of our bags there, but two.  I didn't know what they were talking about, so I called Jess.  She then went and looked at our bags to see if she could figure it out.  Here's what happened- the black bag wasn't ours.  In my rush, I didn't even get a good look at the bag.  I just grabbed it because it was black and in a bunch with all of our other bags.  So now some poor guy in Vietnam is without his luggage because of me.  Ahh, I felt like such an idiot.  We had the airport deliver our bags for a charge, and sent the other bag back with them.  Finally, everything was right.  

When we got back to the apartment, we went straight out again to get some Chinese food.  If you've ever eaten Chinese in a country other than America, you'll see that American Chinese food is actually more like Chinese fast food.  This is what I got at the restaurant.  Can't remember what it's called, but it's a soup with tons of seafood in it.  And yep, I ate it all up, octopus and all.

Anticipation, Oppression, Affirmation

It's exactly 24 hours until we fly out of Pittsburgh to Chicago, then to Seoul, South Korea.  It's weird that the time is actually here.  We've had this in the works for about a year and a half, so it's always been that cool thing that's always in the distant future.  But now it's here.

I hate to admit that I'm a bit of a procrastinator.  In high school and college I would put off assignments until the last possible moment and then stay up all night doing them.  Well, I guess I've made procrastinators of my whole family now, because we've waited until the last days to get sick.  Jess got shingles on New Years, I've got a lingering cold and sore throat (doesn't seem like much, but try flying overseas with one - sinus pressure!), and we took Micaiah to the doctor yesterday for a routine check-up and found out that she has severe eczema (we suspected), an ear infection, and possibly the start of chicken pox!  Now, I'm not usually one to blame the spiritual world for physical circumstances, but it seems like more than a coincidence that all this has come down in the last minute.  When Jess went to the ER for her shingles, she got prescribed a medicine.  My mom went to pick it up at Walmart for us, and told someone in line for the pharmacist our situation.  This was the woman's reply: "Well, they must be doing something right because the devil sure doesn't want them doing it."

God's given us a lot of affirmation along this journey toward missions.  I just think it's neat that we can find affirmation in sickness.  We have a lot of people praying for us, and if you're one of them, then thank you.  We get on a plane in exactly 24 hours- don't pray that these sicknesses go away.  That's right, don't pray them away... pray that God will work through them to bring glory to Himself.  We're so thankful that He has led us into this life.  We're so thankful that He led you to this blog, even.  Keep praying, prayer warriors- you're right here with us.  Love you guys!

Answered Prayers

So many people have prayed for us.  It's wonderful to be covered by the body of Christ in intercession to our Savior.  We've been so busy lately with plans and making sure we get every bit of time we can with family, that we haven't looked at the blog in a while.  We returned today and looked through our prayer requests, and are pleased to report that one of them has been answered!

We were sort of worried that shipping our things there would cost a lot.  To ship it all via UPS or Fedex, it probably would have cost us a thousand dollars or more.  Luckily, the Philippines have an awesome system of shipment called Balikbayan boxes.  Basically, you fill a special box as full and heavy as you want and they put it on a cargo ship going east.  It's pretty cheap, only $90 for a box thats 28x22x18 inches.  The closest drop off location for Balikbayan boxes for us was Cleveland, but they weren't making a shipment until late January, so we went to Columbus, OH.  We got to meet a great couple there that dealt with the boxes, and were under budget for shipping.  Big prayer answered.

Also, we were able to find plane tickets for just at a thousand dollars a piece for Jess and I, and Micaiah gets to ride for $100, and ride in a bassinet.  Cool deal.  Another prayer answered.  OH YEAH, I guess we haven't even mentioned on this blog that WE'RE GOING!  Haha, I guess we forget who we tell and don't tell about our goings on.  We are at 100% support in one-time needed and monthly.  That's not to say that we won't ALWAYS be able to put additional one-time or monthly support to good use.  We just have the minimum needed to get us by while we are there.  So, we booked our plane tickets for Jan. 12th.  There's a ticker up there at the top of the page showing the exact second we will leave. BAM!  Another prayer answered.

Folks, God is so good.  We love Him, we want you to love Him, and we want to show some Filipinos that we love Him by loving them.  Life is good.