Philippines

I am writing this on Thursday, June 19th, around 10:00 a.m. This time next week I will be in the Philippines. This time yesterday I was seriously doubting that I would be ready. However when I woke up this morning (after an unbelievable night of sleep!) I had this e mail waiting for me...

Dearest Don and Laurie, Good morning!!! Yes, I will purchase today so that, I can give you when you arrive and it will be ready to mail it as soon as you arrived. That is no problem. We are so excited with your coming back to the Philippines with your daughter, your cousin your mom and your dad. We are all praying for your safe travel coming back here and to work with you all again. We love and missed you all. You are all blessings from God to us here in the Philippines. We thank you so much for your dedication for the God's work. God bless you all. Love and Prayers, Josie

With all the work, shopping, packing, cleaning, and traveling I had lost sight of what this trip is all about. Josie is our contact person at the preaching school and this is typical of how the people there feel. I will get everything that I need to and when I get over there none of this stress will matter.

Monday morning when I get off work Leigh will be waiting with the car packed and we will be on our way to Chattanooga. I have a couple of Dr.'s appointments and will probably do a little last minute shopping. We will go to bed pretty early because we are supposed to be at the airport at 4:15 a.m. We will be meeting my aunt and uncle there who will be dropping off my cousin Julia who will be going with us. At 6:25a.m. we will leave Chattanooga and should arrive in Chicago, IL at around 7:05 a.m. We will leave the airport there and do a few touristy things there since we have a 6 hour layover. At 12:50 we leave there to go to Tokyo, Japan. It will be 3:55 p.m. (on Wednesday) when we arrive there. Our layover is only 3 hours here. At 6:25 p.m. we leave for Manilla. It will be 9:55 p.m. there and NaNa and PaPa will already be there. We are going to get a couple of hotel rooms to shower, change clothes, and get a few hours of rest before we get on a van to go to Dagupan, the village where the preaching school is and where we will be staying. We will arrive there Thursday morning and I will stay until there until Monday night, July 7th.

That evening I will leave the group for the 5 hour van ride back to Manilla. I will get a hotel room there that night so I can be at the airport by 7 a.m. for my 9 a.m. departure. I will be traveling home alone since this trip is actually set for three weeks. Unforunately, the Montgonmery 911 Dept did not think that they could spare me for that long so I have to come home a week earlier than the rest. I will arrive in Tokyo at 2:25p.m. There I will have about a 3 1/2 hour layover. I leave there at 5:45 p.m. and will arrive in Chicago (now here's where it get's tricky...) on the same day at 3:45 p.m. I love traveling back in time! I leave Chicago at 7:45 p.m. and arrive in Chattanooga at 10:20 p.m. My mom will be waiting there to pick me up and she will be packed and drive me back to Montgomery. (She will be staying with us for the week while Daddy is still there.) So, Lord willing, I will be back here around 2 a.m., Wednesday, July 9.

While we are there me, my NaNa, and Julia will all be teaching lots of VBS- like classes in Dagupan and surrounding villages, we will also be going into the public schools to teach "ethics", adn doing humanitarian works. The school and everyone associated with it has been terribly effected by the recent Typhoon in the area so there is lots of work to do. Please keep this work in your prayers. I am so looking forward to it and feel that I am going to be blessed immeasurably by going. I won't have much access to e mail, much less blogger world until I get back. I did find my camera and will have pictures to post when I get back and (the plan is...) I am going to keep a journal while I am over there and then just type it into here when I get back.

Until then.....