Great News; Let's Hope For Some More

After my last post I received some encouraging responses almost immediately about my possible return. In fact I received enough of a response that I'm not going to be referring to it as a possible return anymore. I'm going to be referring to it as my return to the Philippines for a second school year.

The Lord answers prayers at the perfect time. I very much feel like the Lord has confirmed my suspicion that I should return for another school year by showing that he will continue to raise the support. When I got all this good news Isaiah 12:1-2 immediately flashed through my mind:

1 In that day you will say:

“I will praise you, LORD.
Although you were angry with me,
your anger has turned away
and you have comforted me.
2 Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD himself, is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.
Just so you are aware, one church has already stepped up and said that they will provide a month of support for next school year, which is fantastic. That's one, we need eleven more through any possible combination of donors. Please prayerfully consider being a part of this mission.

One of the things that I decided to do recently was to read the Old Testament more and I'm currently sojourning through the Prophets. I've been very surprised with how much things resonate with me as I read them. Certainly that above passage in Isaiah was one that just made my heart shout.

Things are winding up here for this school year, this week is the final week of classes and tests are next week. I've even got two of my three tests written and I'm close to finishing the third. I'm looking forward to finishing this semester; everything has been great but those 6:45 AM devotions are getting to me.

Let us all celebrate the return of the "Filipino Englishing" section, something that has been conspicuously absent from this blog for far too long. There have been some good ones lately, like "translationing" but the best by far was one of my students who wished to jokingly refer to another student as untrustworthy. Instead of that word he went with "trustworthless" which I like a lot better. Another good one has been a bit of a joke between myself and some of the students when we're on the basketball court. Whenever we can't handle a pass or dribble a ball off of someone's foot out of bounds we say to each other "don't too much!"

Thanks for reading, I hope you are well and in the mean time, don't too much.

Nick

Very Fellowship

I mentioned in the last post that we had an inter-seminary fellowship coming up. This momentous event has now been completed, and I can confirm that it is in fact "very fellowship." The other schools that are a part of the fellowship are Philippine Bible Seminary located in Vigan, Ilocos Sur and Philippine College of Ministry located in Baguio City. The founders of these schools and Aparri Bible Seminary had connections with one another when they first arrived in the Philippines back in the 1950's. This was the fifth fellowship which was started with the intention of strengthening the bonds between the schools and their respective students. I enjoyed it because I got to see some people I already knew (mostly from Vigan) and also to meet many new people. An added bonus was watching all the students fellowship; a long time ago one of the students promised me that they would always make me smile. That is a promise that they constantly deliver on. This time the main source of amusement was how many of the students developed crushes on students from the other schools and vice versa.

My part in the fellowship was eating (it is a shared responsibility) and officiating basketball games. Six of them to be exact. By Friday night I was tired of running up and down the basketball court. In related news, I've just about "basketballed" through the bottom of my shoes. The soles are getting thin, this is mostly because the court here is pretty rough concrete. My current personal goal for basketball is to improve my leaping ability. Silly me, I thought losing a bunch of weight would make me jump higher; but it seems to have made me jump faster and only a little bit higher. I'm lucky to have the chance to get out and play a little.

Graduation is March 14 if you can believe that; precisely 4 weeks from now. All the students are asking me if I'm coming back next year, I've been telling them "I hope so." I started talking with my travel agent yesterday about returning the Philippines in June. Please pray for that situation. I'm basically to this point: I know that I'm supposed to be in the Philippines right now, and I think that I'm supposed to be in the Philippines next school year, and I haven't seen or heard anything that would lead me to believe that the situation has changed. On the contrary, the need is greater here and I feel I can meet that need.

Because of that I want to come back and that means I need funds. I need a little less than $10,000 for this to happen; and if the Lord wants me here then he will provide. Please prayerfully consider being a part of this mission. I am willing to go and there is a need that I can meet, I only need the means to travel and live while in the Philippines. Corollary, I'm coming home for a few months in April and if you know of any jobs that are available and would be a good fit for me, please let me know.

While you're praying, please pray for my family. Especially the Taylors. They have had a rough couple of weeks; my uncle Rob lost his mother and grandmother within a week of each other. This is in addition to the deaths previously mentioned in my extended family. Word is the family has had their fill of death; here's hoping things will calm down so people can adjust to new realities.

"Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his love endures forever." Psalm 136:1

Nick