Life recently

Hello to all our friends, family, and supporters, I apologize for not being better at updating our blog but anyway let me catch you all up on what has happened since our last post. So after the Kid's camp in October the next big thing for us was our first trip back to the US in 8 years, but unfortunately because the adoption was not yet legal only me (Precious), my mom and sister Faith were allowed. My dad stayed behind to take care of my siblings. We were there for 6 weeks starting at the end of November right up to the end of December. On the trip we visited our churches, spent time with family and friends, and just enjoyed being on US soil (or I guesss snow) for the first time in 8 years

These are some of the people we visited. We didn't just see though we also did things

like decorate for christmas.

and decorate a ginger bread house

we also had a big thanksgiving with my moms family and Faith even made a snowman. We got back to the Philippines just in time to ring in the new year as in we arrived at our house 10 in the morning on Decembr 31, and it seemed as though the God thought we needed to get back to our life right away cause not even days later all the kids went back to school but we recovered and did catch up on our sleep eventually. Before the school year ended we had another kids camp in April. Now this camp was like every other where on the day off challenges just kept coming our way, such as the sun, because the venue for this camp didn't have a complte roff, we also had an unexpected number of crafts either disappear or the kids made two instead of only one causng some kids to not be able to do a craft. But the Lord prevailed and we have another successful camp under our belts, Glory to God. Like every camp we have had there were games, crafts, coloring and activity pages, and mot importantly speakers. Our theme for this camp was Jesus is my superhero and the kids were taught that the only true superhero in their lives was Jesus

THe year or school year started ending and us kids were excited for summer to begin. I got second in my class with high honors, Mickaila Graduated 6th grade and will be joining me in highschool next year, she garduated with honors the same as Fath and Andrew. The twins got a ribbon for being a friendly neighbor, at leat that is what the ribbon says.

Now it is summer break and the kids are enjoying their rest. Our family vacation where we actually go somewhere will be in a week or so. In terms of the adoption our case has been handed to a friend of ours and he is handling it, and because he is we had to start from square 1 but we are moving so much faster than before. We are expecting that by the end of this year or the beginning of next the adoption will be legal and final so that by 2025 our whole family can visit the US for a summer. We ask that you pray for the adoption as we have been in this process for 4-5 years. We also ask that you pray for the kids next school year that they will all try their best and have a good year. By the end of this year it is our goal to have a youth camp and another kids camp so it would meanthe world if you guys would pray for that too. Our family tanks you so much for your prayers and support and again I apologize for not updating the blog sooner we are all just trying our best. God bless to each and every one of your and to God be the Glory

These are pictures from our most recent kids camp. This camp has been the biggest and most difficult camp we have done so far with 300 kids and a staff of 16 young people. Half of the staff just started helping with my kids ministry and were staffing a camp for the first time. We were definitely unprepared for this camp we were expecting 100 kids and ended with 300 plus. but even with so many kids and very little staff we pushed through the camp and went with the flow. In september we started classes. thankfully it was half face to face half modules so we didn't have to stay home all the time. Just recently My schedule has changed from 2-3 days a week to 4 days every week. classes for the elementary kids start around 7:45 every Monday to Thursday and my calsses start at 6:45 every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Lastly I would like to tell you all that me my mom and sister are coming to the Us the end of this month. We will be flying in on November 21 and will be flying out on december 28 if any of you would like to see us just let either me or my mom know so we can set a schedule.

Hello to all our friends and family it has been a great summer. For most of it we planned a summer youth camp for 12 different barangays/villages and we got up too 220 young people to attend we had divided lecture team building activities and a special guest speaker Pastor Ben Dupalco. The camp was held here at our Church in Juagdan,Ubay,Bohol On August 4-6,2022 we had our young professionals staff the camp so that our actually young people could participate in the camp as campers, although thats not exactly what happened they all still had fun.

Next week all of us start school yeheyyy. School here has been difficult because ever since covid started we have had to do modules (printed school work) it wasn't until the end of last school that we actually started started limited face-to-face classes. Now this school year we will be doing the same for the beggining of the school year but starting November we will be starting complete full on face-to-face classes. Since school is starrting my parents would like to help some of the families who can't afford to buy their kids school supplies. We are gonna help them by creating school packs for all those families that need help including backpacks, notebooks etc. If anyone is willing in helping us out please send the money to our CETEN account but then send us an email or a message us the amount you sent so we can direct it for this specific reason. If you are also willing this coming October we are gonna have another kids camp/VBS this time on a small island called Guindacpan it will be the first kids camp there ever and we are expecting about 200-300 kids which is a lot lot more than we have ever done before. This camp is gonna be difficult cause there are gonna be a lot more kids and we might not have all our staff cause most of them are in college and their classes keep them so busy that they most likely won't be able to help staff the camp so please pray that we will have some volunteers from church or our staff that are in college will not be too busy to staff the camp.

Busy Spring

WOOSH.... That sound at its loudest is what it was like for us in the middle of December, as we where hit head on by a super typhoon we called Odette. She was really upset and decided to unleash her fury on the island of Bohol. Our house was one of the more secure ones in our area so most of our neighbors and friends from a nearby village used our home as an evacutaion center. We had upwards of 50 people sheltered in ur house the night of the storm and 20 people that lived in our home for the next two weeeks as they rebuilt or built new shelters for their families. We lost power and phone service with no clue as to when to expect it back. Our priority at that point was to get word to everyone that we where okay and to get a generator to run our water business and get clean water out to people. God blessed us with many wondrful people that donated and helped send money that two weeks after the storm we had a generator and were able to have the water bussiness running on limited hours and we were able to give water to people who came to us for it. Clean up began and life continued on the best we could. We were blessed with no injuries or death in our area but did sustain a lot of property damage, to our house the other houses in our community, the church and the orphange. We are still rebuilding some 6 months after the storm. It is a slow process and we have to set priorities as to what is done based on budget. All while this is happening I am still trying to recover from Chemo as I finshed that just a month before Odette. I was also having all of my follow-up appointments to set a date to have another surgery to reverse the cholostomy that was done In April. I was able to get an all clear from my oncologist and set a date for surgery the end of January. Again it was a complicated procedure as everything was not as clean as it should have been. It was supposed to be an hour surgery that ended up being three hours. It was also supposed to be a minimum of ten days in the hospital but with God all things are possible and I was able to come home 7 days later. I was really blessed to have Jonahs sister here for a couple of months post suregery to take care of things so I could recover. The rest of winter was uneventful here but the start of spring was also the start of a busy couple of months for us. The first week of April brought visitors from our sending agency in the US (CTEN). It was a couple that came on recently as the co-directors at CTEN. They had served in Cebu for five years. When we had the typhoon the end of last year they helped raise and send the money to buy a generator so we could run our refilling bussiness. They wanted to come see the "Beast" in action meet us. It was great to spend a couple of days with them and they blessed us with some gifts to use for our upcoming kids camp. About a week after they left we had our churches 2nd annual kids camp. It was a wet fun day. We had about 120 kids come. It was a day of challenges and growing as the old church building was not stable enough for a rainy day and the new church was not quite ready for meetings. We inaugrated the new church building and made it work as the kids camp was the first event to be held there. I was so proud of our team in that they went with the flow of things and worked together to make it the best day possible for the kids. the middle of April was a little bit of rest while we planned for more visitors, our shurches annual Thanksgiving, a wedding and another kids camp to coincide with our churches national gathering. The end of April our pastoral care couple from CTEN came for a visit. It was a great time to meet them and we where so blessed by there visit. A few days after they left we went to Anda for time with family as we celebrated my nephews wedding. It was a beatiful beach wedding and we pray God blesses them with many wonderful happy years together. Just a few days after we returned home from the wedding it was time to pack again, this time for a five day trip to Negros for our Churches annual national gathering. This year we where excited to go as we were preparing for the first ever national kids camp. The churches denomination has held gatherings for about 52 years now and always there has been activities for the adults and even the youth but never anything for the kids. Well with two local camps under our belts why not challenge ourselves and do it on a national stage. As it was a new idea we had only 120 kids, but the kids all had a great time of learning and growing in their faith. We have even heard from some of the kids since camp and they are always so excited to tell us what they learned and remember from camp. 41 people, only 6 adults and the rest young people and kids many of whom have never traveled before. It would require a lot of patience and answered prayers to make a trip like that work and that is exactly what happened on our trip to Negros. We had a few delays and were utterly exhausted by the time we got there but am so proud of all our volunteers who staffed the camp as they gave their all to the kids even when they felt they had nothing left to give. Some of our staff even went above and beyond to make the kids comfortable. It was very hot in the room where we were meeting so a few of the young men used covers from the tubs that we had for storage tubs as fans and they would spend hours at a time walking circles around the room fanning the kids and other teachers to make them all comfortable. Since we have been from Negros we have spent some time recovoring and trying to finish up the school year. We have also had visitors from Tagum that came to do a teachers training with about 20 of our childrens ministry volunteers. We learned a lot and can not wait to start making changes that will have a greater impact on the children and youth of our church as they grow deeper in their relationship with Christ. The younger kids are all done with school and Precious has one week left. We have also been able to make great strides in the adoption process and have hopes of it being finalized this year still. This has changed some plans for us as Precious, Faith and I were planning a trip to the US for a month this summer but instead we are putting it off for 6 months or so in the hopes that we might all be able to come later this year or the start of next. We are also in the planning stages for our next big outreach event which will be a youth camp. this camp will be the first weekend in August and will include the young people from 11 villages in our area. We have two big goals for this camp and they are to evangilize the unbelievers and to give the believers to grow deeper and learn more to grow their relationship with Christ. God bless. Current needs 1. prayers and support for the upcoming youth camp. 2. Funds to build two Sunday school classrooms 3. Funds to help us continue to rebuild our home and the orphanage 4. Prayers that the adoption can be completed soon 5. For our visit to the US

New school year

Hi all. Hope you are all doing well. I tried to put pictures but it won't let me. We have started a new school year the second week of September. It was decided that for the second year in a row that we would have no face to face learning. We are doing module learning. We have learned from the teachers that they do not recieve budget from the government for printer paper and ink and the like. We are trying to help the teachers by giving them 5 packs of printer paper. We have also provided the teachers with some ink. The teachers go through one pack of band paper a week to print all the modules. Also at the start of the year we provided all the students from our church with some basic supplies that they would need for the year. It is hard having all the kids doing school at home again this year but we have an excellent tutor that is able to help most of the kids with their Filipino (taglog) work. I can assist most of the classes but taglog is way out of my league. We have a routine for the most part. The weeks of my IV chemo is a little bit harder because I am really tired for a few days after, but the tutor and Jonah have been very supportive and try to help take over for that week. As many of you know or have heard. I was admitted to the hospital the very end of April for severe abdominal pain and vommiting. I had a CT the next day and within a couple of hours was in the operating room to remove a mass from my colon. The biopisy results came back about a week later and showed that I had the early stages of colon cancer. I was in the hospital for ten days. The first seven days I was not able to take anything by mouth. I had three IV lines going for most of that. Both hands had a line and I had a line in my foot for several days. between the surgery and hospital stay I lost about 20 pounds. The beginnnig of June I started Chemotherapy. I was very concerned about the side affects and had so many people praying and God has proved to be a miracle worker and faithful. I have eperienced very little to no side effects. I go for a round of IV Chemo and then have two weeks of oral meds, one week off and then Iv agian I had to do this for 8 rounds. I have my next round this coming tuesday and then my last round the 9th of November. Three months after I finish my last round of chemo I can go back to the surgeon and have my cholestomy reversed. It has been a long road on this journey but we want to thank God for his faithfulness and for everyone that has made this journey with us. God has tested our faith and made everyones faith stronger in our family. It has been really hard to do our regular ministry with the youth because of restrictions with group meetings. We have continued with our Sunday school class. Precious still puts a lot into the Sunday school with a little help. She is doing that and also managing school and she helps out around the house a lot. She makes supper for the family most nights. I sometimes feel bad that she had to grow up so fast because I was in the hospital and Jonah was not around a lot because he was so busy going to buy supplies that I needed at the hospital. The hospitals work a lot different here. They have what a patient would need but it is so expensive compared to outside of the hospital. also the nurses are mostly there to had out meds and handle the IVS etc. Patients here have someone called a watcher with them at the hospital. That person does all of the personal care for a patient. This person most often seeps on the floor or in a chair next to the patients bed. I was very fortunate to have two wonderful women from our church that stayed with me. Most of the time it is only one watcher per patient. They allowed two for me because I was harder to care for most of my stay because I could not do much for myself with an IV in both arms and one foot. That is all for know will try to update again in a month or so.