enukwan?

How can you sum up one month in just a short time? I could tell story after story, and give detail after detail, but that would be overwhelming. It has been a month and one week since I last had internet access. I get some of the messages that come to me through Facebook on my phone, but it is quite unreliable and limited. Here are some of the highlights since the last time I had internet:

-          Flying in the helicopter to Kebgen. Four people had already died—I got to give medicine to the rest.*

-          Brian Glass & Jon Miller worked with 40+ villagers and finally finished Allie’s and my house in Emrang.**

-          We moved to Emrang on the 15^th of March. We live in an amazing place, and we actually have running water right outside our house! **

-          I am a 1^st grade teacher—something I never pictured myself doing. Although I would much rather teach these kids than American kids, it must be amazing to teach in a language you know. They don’t speak any English, but they are very skilled at figuring out what we are trying to say and teaching us how to say it correctly.

-          We see patients sporadically throughout the week in our little clinic. We assess and diagnose them. We decide what treatment they need and give it to them. I am most familiar with treating Malaria and worms. Variations off of that take a little more time to figure out.

-          Brian comes every weekend to lead out in “church” (more like a Bible study). We have usually around 10 people that stay for the whole study. There are a few adults that are quite faithful and seriously interested in learning more about the Bible.

-          Allie & I enjoy visiting when we don’t have lesson plans or laundry to do. We also enjoy working in our yard and have been planting pineapples, flowers, and tomatoes. We will be planting more food as we have time.

-          We take our showers outside under our 2-foot tall bamboo water source.

-          It is interesting to live 3 or 4 hours from the closest motorized vehicle (although there is a lawnmower in Kementian, which is only 2 hours away).

-          We are SO excited about Allie’s parents coming in the beginning of May! We will be going to the lowlands for our first time since we came here in January. By that time, it will have been three and a half months since we’ve seen a motorized vehicle (besides the lawnmower and occasionally the helicopter).  

-          We are also excited about the George kids coming soon, including Christina, Stephanie, and Timothy.

-          Getting accustomed to chronically dirty feet. ***

-          We never have a lack of opportunities for hiking, as that is our only method of transportation. We hike to the bathroom and school (those aren’t too far, thankfully), we hike to visit the neighbors, we hike to visit Kementian, and the list goes on. There really isn’t anywhere that we don’t hike to. (Allie & I made the 2 hour hike from Emrang to Kementian yesterday so we could get internet today, and turn right around and go home)

See blogs from other missionaries in Palawan:

Allie Westermeyer: AJourneyTowardHome.blogspot.com

Jon &Beka Miller: RealMillerMoments.blogspot.com

*See blog entitled “Into the Depths of the Jungle”

**See blog entitled “Unqualified”

***See blog entitled “Beautiful”