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November 22, 2004
November 22 Update
It’s typhoon season here now, so damp, rainy days and musty smelling clothes. We need the rain and the cooler temperatures are welcome too. Wil would like there to be enough rain to close school (!) but he has two days off next week that the president has declared national holidays, so his wish will be somewhat granted.
This week we have two days (Wed. & Thur.) of Strategic Planning scheduled with the PMA staff and board of trustees. Pray that as we meet and seek the Lord that He will reveal to us His plans and purposes for us and PMA in the coming new year. In the middle of this Karen will still be teaching her class on Teaching Principles and Practice. Good thing is that our planning meetings will be held at the school where she is teaching. The second day of planning is also American Thanksgiving Day. We will be going to have Thanksgiving dinner with two other American families that evening.
We have much to be thankful for, including the fact that our home country has a day set aside specifically to remember God’s goodness to our nation. But at the same time we struggle with memories of Ben hospitalized here in Manila this time two years ago, and last year, when by Thanksgiving we knew Ben wouldn’t be with us much longer. Pray that we will experience God’s grace and comfort as we move into the holiday season.
We want to let you come visit us here at home in Brookside Hills Subdivision, Cainta, Rizal, Philippines. If you go to the photos link you can come in and have a look around.
Posted by David at 11:36 AM
November 15, 2004
Mid-November
Dave checked his journal and found that November 14, 2002 was the day Ben came down with the high fever that led to him being admitted to hospital here in Manila. So for two years apart from the Lord, Ben has been the focus of our thinking. We were playing a game the other night and found that Ben had drawn trees around the edges of the instruction sheet. Such tiny reminders, but so welcome. If he were still here with us he would probably have received a scolding for scribbling on the instructions!
Wil changed the focus of his English paper from the day of Ben’s death to the day we spent at Epcot, one of the Disneyworld theme parks. He said that the good memories of Ben enjoying that day helped him through the painful ones of Ben’s last weeks. He could remember lots of details of the 12 hours we spent at Epcot, whereas he only remembered what happened in the hour or so after Ben died, and his paper was to cover a day! And the paper was due a year to the day from the day we spent at Epcot!
Today is the end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, and has been declared a holiday here in the Philippines, so Wil is at home and had a friend stay over last night. We praise God for the good friends He has given Wil, and for the improvement in his school work. He got an A- on the last science test! I have to concede that he is now taller than his mom, much to his delight. As he goes up, the chubbiness decreases. He may be a basketball player yet, though at the moment they are doing soccer in intramurals.
I’m into my second week of teaching the course on Teaching Principles and Practice. I realize that I am asking my students to make a paradigm shift from rote memorization to analyzing and processing type thinking, so need to be patient with them as they wonder what on earth we are doing. Asking them to consider factors in effective teaching was too large a step, so I’m working on ways to break down that concept and help them begin to think in new ways. Fifteen weeks to go! That course, plus the Precepts Bible study I’m leading on Hebrews are keeping my mind focused and making me more productive.
We conducted a Missions Involvement Seminar at Faith Fellowship, the church we attend, on Saturday November 6. It was part of missions month and we had 40 participants, mostly cell group leaders. It was the third one we and other PMA staff have done since our return in July. We are finding ways of improving the seminar and hopefully making a more effective tool in helping local churches discover the plan of God to reach people from every tribe, tongue, people and nation with the Gospel and help them see how they can have a part in it.
The theme for 2004 at Faith Fellowship has been “The Year of the Lord’s Favor” taken from Luke 4: 19. We see this phrase in the front of the church every Sunday. But when we look back on 2004 we find it hard to see it as a year of God’s favor. There was nothing favorable in Ben’s illness and death. But the other day I read the passage from Luke 4 again in the New King James Version and there the phrase is translated this way:
“To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Yes, we can accept the events of this year as coming from the hand of our loving and all wise Father in heaven. And from Romans chapter 12 verse 2 we know that God’s will is ‘good, acceptable and perfect.’
Posted by David at 3:25 PM