Life Hasn’t Slowed Down…
We have returned at last to our translation ministry on Palawan.
We arrived back the Philippines at last on Oct 31. This is a big holiday here, but it’s not “Halloween,” it is November 1st, “All Saints’ Day,” which is a big deal here.
It was great to be “home” in the Philippines again, looking forward to returning to our ministry here. We were in Manila for a couple of weeks… getting over jet lag, re-acclimating (or trying to!) to the heat and humidity and getting things started at immigration with new visas.
It was good while at the Guest House to see our some of our partners and coworkers and get caught up a bit.
We flew to Palawan on Nov 14, and then the very next day continued on into the village where we minister among the Palawanos. It was so good to see everyone! And wow, how the kids had grown and the big kids now had families… so many new babies and small children for us to get to know.
Donna’s language helpers are excited and ready to help her resume her journey toward complete fluency. This will help Donna take on even more of a role in the translation.
And Bill’s translation helpers are very excited to have him back, anxious to get to work, and really motivated to get more Scripture produced in Palawano.
While there we spent time with our partners, discussing team issues and being brought up-to-date. We also checked out our house… still standing, in pretty good shape overall, but needing some work. We made lots of notes and took measurements for materials. A work team from the US will be coming in early 2006 to reroof the house and help with other construction, so we need to be ready.
Then we flew back out to Puerto Princesa, as our house in the village is not livable at this time. While in Puerto, Bill has been helping the field with consultant training in the area of culture and language acquisition and doing evaluations of missionaries’ progress.
We were looking forward to Christmas with Bethy, who was due to arrive here in December, and our upcoming annual conference, a workshop on animism and an upcoming conference on regional linguistics.
Then, while in another tribal village doing consultant work, we got the sad yet expected news that Donna’s dad had passed away, so we had to make hurried plans to get Donna home for the funeral and all the family things.
She’s there now and one blessing is that she will now be able to attend Bethy’s college graduation! They fly back in December and Donna is wait-listed to be on Bethy’s same flight (otherwise she will fly the following day.
Bill is in Puerto doing other work and anxiously awaiting Donna’s return and Bethy’s arrival.