Another exciting experience with trans-pacific air travel has left me in my adopted home once again. I've been back in Aparri now for 3 weeks. Many things have happened already; I'll try and stick to some semblance of order in presenting them.
First, my flight to Asia from Detroit was delayed a mere 9 hours because of a mechanical issue with the plane. This was frustrating, but better than the alternative. We arrived in Japan and when we were ready to leave for Manila we were promptly delayed another 2 hours by computer problems. The end result being that I was supposed to arrive in Manila late Wednesday evening but didn't manage to arrive until Thursday afternoon. Though I did have enough time on the flights to watch "Lincoln" and "The Avengers" as well as the newest "Die Hard".
The Friday after I arrived I tried to implement my missionary visa that had been renewed and was told after waiting a mere 4 hours that I couldn't implement it and I would have to re-file for the visa. I was really excited about this because it meant I had a mere three weeks in the country to either file for a tourist extension or get all my paperwork together. I was also excited because this means a minimum of 3 trips to Manila all of which cost money and take time away from the classroom.
I arrived in Aparri and found out that the girls had kicked me out of the mission house and that I would be living in the new Men's Dorm here on campus. The building isn't quite complete, but it's been comfortable so far and I'm a lot closer to the basketball court, although I'm farther from the office. Since I have no furniture (I'm trying to wait it out because furniture is part of the building contract), I still haven't technically unpacked my bag.
I was late coming back because I stayed in the States for a convention, this meant that I was already behind in my classes and so we've been playing catch-up. Basically I've had two weeks of class and mid-terms are next week. We've also had a few scheduling conflicts where classes had to be moved so that students planning on graduating could take everything they needed.
The city of Aparri is mostly on the East side of the Cagayan river valley, but part of the municipality is on the West side of the river, and I'd never been there until a few weeks ago when I attended an Aparri chapter men's fellowship hosted by the Backiling Church of Christ. The highlight of the trip was taking a boat across the river/estuary instead of riding 75 minutes in a car to go all the way around. This boat was built for Filipinos and I could just barely get in the boat because it had a very short roof over the seating area. I was completely bent over and had my knees bent as well and still could barely fit in this boat. It was really amusing for the folks at the west side landing who got to watch me unfold myself out of that boat.
It's apparently a rule of nature that I have to get hit in the face playing basketball shortly after my arrival in the Philippines. That's three years in a row now. I got hit in the eye and lost a brand new contact. Awesome.
It has been enjoyable getting to know the new students, I'm still trying to learn all the names. We have several new students this year and last night was their talent night. They did a good job with their presentations and I'll hopefully have some pictures up soon. I also got to see some ladies who graduated last year at the talent program. That was nice too.
Other than that I've been trying to keep up with my lessons and grading as well as organizing and supervising my student assistants. I've also been playing in the basketball league the students organized which has been fun. Streetball is enjoyable but I like an organized game once in a while; and hopefully the students will play better in organized games now.
I'm still impressed with God's faithfulness; he's so faithful it's embarrassing some times how worried I was about something.
Keep praying for me, I need it.
Nick
