41 teachers, 400 children, and immeasurable joy.

hello friends!


so how DO you spell busy-ness anyways? with the hyphen? without? i am unsure. my apologies to all grammar nerds.


things have been good - but busy - here! we have been having adventures (ie experiencing new things) which i am loving! 


on wednesday last (the 21st), we lost all power in the house all day - from the middle of the night until 9pm. i have never experienced such a total loss of power for so long! it was a new experience for sure. we had to eat supper by candlelight (you may be thinking that was romantic, or something... more like an adventure as that meant we knew even less of what we were eating..), and we ended up playing some music together (on guitar and small drums we have in the house) as many common household things (including the shower!) were "out of order". some of that experience was positive, some negative, but such is the life of a missionary. i suppose i should expect crazy things like this to happen to me more often.
it has been interesting - and wonderful - to see how God is answering my prayer that He would reveal Himself to me in every place, every day, and that i would notice! this is one of those times, because as i realized how much i still take for granted, even here, while the power was out, He pointed out to me that, in Him, i have all i need. power or no power, God is the same and His death is as real as when i can access the internet. humbling.

it was REALLY dark. adventures live on!

we also began our first vbs (vacation Bible school) this past week! WOW, how tiring, but how awesome! we are working with about 400 children (that's a LOT of kids, for the record). the teachers number 41 - which is fantastic! i am teaching with one of the young men who works in both of pastor sam's planted churches, ralph. we have worked out an effective (we hope!) system of teaching together and engaging the kids. we are doing 2 lessons per day because there were some admin difficulties with having an entire week with the kids - so we have only 2.5 days instead of 5! 
a normal half-day in our vbs classroom looks like this:
- morning prayer, pledges (that's a filipino thing, i think - they pledge to the filipino flag, the Christian flag, and the Bible. new to me!)
- game (they LOVE duck duck goose! who knew it would be such a hit across the world!)
- bird lesson (the theme of this vbs is "flying with wisdom", so we have a bird lesson every day as well as a Bible lesson)
- break 
- graduation song practice (every class is preparing a song for vbs "graduation" - sort of a closing ceremony for the vbs)
- Bible lesson
- activity papers (sort of a comprehensive way of seeing if the kids are absorbing the material as well as making it fun for them to learn about the Bible)
- Bible memory verse
- craft
- more games! (if we have time)
AAAAND that's only half a day! we do that routine twice per day plus lunch in the middle. i love it! 
God is affirming in me the part of my personality that loves teaching. this has been encouraging, as education has been one of the undergrad degrees i have been considering for the last couple years. 

some of my vbs children! SO cute!

the people here have so much joy! i really believe that we have lost this in north america. the people here find joy in even the smallest of experiences or people. it encourages me to see the beauty of God and His creation more - and to SEEK it as well. i believe God has a lot to teach us through His creation, and definitely His people. i am being inspired every day to take seriously every second with which God blesses me, and to use them all for His glory. 
it astounds me how selfish my heart is, too. the people here drop everything without a problem, if it involves helping another. they offer to help us out with the most mundane of tasks, lend us EVERYTHING, and often give us small gifts just because - they love us because we ARE, not because we DO. for example, the kids in my vbs class have given me many small notes, probably totalling over 50 in only two days. each says something encouraging, or has a picture of me that they drew, or stickers that they want to give me, or sometimes even small songs that they have written! they always want to hold my hands, or hug me, or play games with me. it is .. amazing. God is showing me what joy truly is, and i desire it more and more every day.


on a fun note, i had my first experience shaving somebody's head! BEST. EVER. i highly recommend this to any girl. 
let me explain. 
our team had a small lice scare, which involved a LOT of mayonnaise for the girls, and serious hair removal for the guys. thank God that we seem to be rid of the lice, but please pray that they would stay away! SO gross. 
anyways, i got to shave brady's head, and it was AWESOME. a highlight for me on trek so far, i'd have to say. 

future career?

HAHAHA we just had to.
(i know it's sideways. sorry. computer didn't rotate it.)

well, that's about all this computer can take now! 
love to you all. hope all is well wherever you are.
tejal :)

filipino birthdays :)

hello everyone! 


well it has been another long, awesome, fantastic week here. 
this blog post will be a bit shorter than my last couple; if this is devastating to you, my apologies. if this is good news to you, i'm happy to make  you happy! ;)


WELL this past week we have been doing a lot of things! we went to another prayer fellowship, to ambiong youth twice, balacbac (turns out i was spelling it wrong before, sorry!) youth, and have had tagalog lessons!
we also were able to build stairs down from the road to one of the balacbac church women's houses. it was SCORCHING hot outside and the work was difficult, but it was neat to be able to bless her in this way. her father lives with her family and he is definitely not getting any younger, so it is concerning to think about him climbing down, essentially, a cliff to get to his house. we were all relieved when we finished those stairs, knowing that it would make the family safer when they climb down to their house. 

the stairs we built with old tires. hopefully they last!

i also celebrated my birthday here this past week! it was a fantastic day :) i was able to skype my family in the morning, which was a huge blessing! it feels like an eternity since i saw them last, and so skype is a great invention :) ate evelyn made us chocolate pancakes for breakfast right after that - YUMM :) that was also the day we built stairs, so that was cool to do that on my birthday! my team also went on an adventure to the corner store and bought some new, filipino snacks - so that was fun! i officially love the purple coconut cakes they have here. delicious!
my team threw me a very cute, very awesome birthday party in the evening! it was fun to be able to celebrate with them, and to know that in them i have found another family. they bought me two novels for my birthday - they know me well! 

the cake the arcanos bought for me! caramel cake - delish!

this past week we also went to the baguio botanical garden! it was so beautiful! they had flowers there, and more flowers, and more flowers! so fantastic! we also explored some tunnels made by the japanese when they were here. they were very cool! brady took a video while we walked through the loop being very overdramatic and ashley nearly had a panic attack. this is a normal day in our team. 

the official sign at the botanical garden. clearly, i am aware of this photo being taken ;) 

well that's all for now!
love, 
tejal :)

210 steps for Jesus

hello all! 


so WOW what a whirlwind of a time! everything here is crazy, awesome, stretching, fantastic, scary, and eye-opening!


in the past few days i have been up to a lot! we mostly have been touring a lot of the city of baguio with pastor sam and his family. 
one day, we were able to go to the philippines military academy! it was very cool to be able to see actual tanks that were used in the 2nd world war - and also a good reminder of the peace that we mennonites believe in! we had fun climbing in and around and on the tanks though - who says adults have to behave like adults? ;) 

charis and i have discovered we have a mutual love for flowers, and have been taking pictures of some of them! there are so many beautiful kinds of flowers here and i am blessed to see more of God's beauty displayed this way!

i wrote to a friend in an email recently - "i've also been blessed to go to a couple Bible studies here and i will go to more as time goes on. the people here are literally dirt poor and yet they are so generous. it's amazing. their teeth are falling out because they choose to buy us coffee instead of toothbrushes and paste for themselves. they are genuine though, with beautiful hearts. they love Jesus more than most people i've seen. they are not unhappy despite their circumstances. their houses are made of scraps of cardboard and metal they have found in order to live. they have furniture that looks like they picked from a garbage dump. they keep their houses meticulously clean though and they have pictures of all the trekkers and missionaries they've ever met. they pray for all of them nearly daily. they demonstrate the kind of faith i want to have." i don't think i could articulate any of these sentiments more accurately, so i decided to just copy and paste this in to my blog! it has been an amazing experience thus far. 

i have attempted to keep up my running habits here - but the altitude is so high that i feel like collapsing after only a fraction of the distance i normally run!!

yesterday, sunday, we went to church with pastor sam - twice! he has planted 2 churches and we attend both every week. one is in a small upstairs room in ambiong, called the ambiong church. that was in the afternoon, and it was very encouraging! pastor sam talked about generosity - i think! most of the sermon was in tagalog, but i understood parts - the parts he spoke in english!

the morning service was outside in a basket ball court, in a part of the city called balakbak ("bah-lak-buck"). it was also a very good service! the only thing about getting to and from the basketball court involves climbing 210 stairs! the way to the service is going down, but going up is so hard at the end!! i kept telling myself that i was climbing the stairs for Jesus... all 210 of them! crazy! i will hopefully be in good shape by the end of our stay here!

here's another picture of our team. we are doing well, and settling in. we always appreciate your prayers, so thank you! 

love,

tejal

ps. i don't know why half this post is white... sorry! 

sour cream fries.

good day to you all!


for me, it is 9am, thursday, march the 8th. but most of you at home will be reading this in the evening around 7:30pm, wednesday, march the 7th. crazy!


we made it safely here to the philippines, and are settling in to our new home in baguio city with pastor sam and his family. they have a nice house, averagely sized, and there are 11 people living here right now. it is fun to be able to continue to room with ashley and charis, especially because we already know how to live together. 



the last couple days have felt longer than life. we arrived on tuesday morning around 6:45am philippines time,  after 34h of travel time and then proceeded to stay up all day in order to offset any jet lag. that seems to have worked quite well, because, even though we are tired by about 7pm, it feels normal to sleep at night and be awake during the day. 
pastor sam has been good to us in letting us relax quite a bit for these first few days. both yesterday and tuesday we were able to have some free time in the morning, which we have primarily used to go for walks, journal, and enjoy the surroundings. 

goin for a stroll in baguio - see those mountains?! beautiful.

during the afternoons, we have been taken around the city by pastor sam and sometimes ate (pronounced "ah-tay"; it is a term of respect used for older women. kuya, pronounced "kui-yah", is the term of respect for older men) evelyn (pastor sam's wife) as well. on tuesday we went to the mall - and it is HUGE! ohmygoodness. think 5 full floors, 2 being underground, and a food court the size of my church. insane! yesterday, we were able to go see an area of the city called camp john hay, which i believe was, in part, founded by ashley's grandparents! they were missionaries here in the philippines for 34 years! they spent 2 terms (i'm unsure of how long their terms were, sorry) in baguio itself as well. it has blessed me to see ashley so excited, because this is the place of her ancestors! so to speak ;) 

a mansion called - you guessed it - "the mansion". HA.

a miniature statue of liberty! so awesome. ash was pumped!

then, yesterday evening, we were privileged to go to a prayer meeting at the ambiong ("ahm-bee-ong") church, one of the 3 churches pastor sam has planted). it was very touching to see how real the people were there. we spent a short time reading 1 john 2:24-29, then pastor sam did some teaching on the passage. following this, my team introduced ourselves to the members who came to the meeting. after that, the filipino attendees shared some prayer/praise items (items of thanksgiving and prayer requests in their lives) and we proceeded to pray for them! it was a cool experience, and i was definitely very blessed by it. i am looking forward to more of this sort of experience as we are here!

then for supper, we ate takeout from jollibee, the local mcdonald's clone. it was actually pretty decent! i was wary about it, as i don't particularly enjoy fast food, but it seemed to match the style of the rest of the food here - deep fried. a jollibee specialty is their sour cream fries! i was excited to try these, because sour cream and onion chips are my favourite chips! i was not disappointed. the fries were fantastic! i vote we start a sour cream fries movement in canada. anyone with me? 


i'll try to get more pictures of me/my team up soon. keep checking up on this blog and hopefully next time i will have posted more photos. 


today our schedule looks much the same - relaxation in the morning and some touring in the afternoon. please pray for safety and openness to this new culture. 


another prayer request would just be that details get properly sorted out. as the financial person on my team, it is a bit stressful to be taking care of my team's budget, and we are having a bit of issues with that right now. i'm not going to go into any details, but please pray that God's timing would prevail and that these issues would be resolved in a manner that displays Christ's love to all and in a spirit of Godly stewardship. 


until next time! 
love,
tejal :)

onwards to the land of chicken adobo and perfect weather :D

hello all!

AH SO THIS IS IT PEOPLE. the day. that i leave for the philippines. i am on my way. right now. i'm actually in the vancouver airport, blogging, with brady on my left and charis on my right. most of us are on our computers, also blogging.

of course we had to take some self pictures in the airport. good times ;)

guys! this is so exciting! i'm actually leaving to fly across the ocean to another country to which i've never been, seen, or experienced. all in exactly 1 hour 47 minutes.

so what's new with me these days, you may be wondering?

this past week's theme was practical ministry. we talked about things like children's ministry, expectations for ministry/field, public speaking and testimonies, etc.
a definite highlight for me from this past week was our session on musical worship sets/worship leading because my team had the chance to "jam" (play instruments) together. we have some talented people on our team who are capable of sight reading music and making it sound like they've played for years. brady is our unspoken but agreed leader on the guitar; ashley is playing the djembe/hitting anything that makes noise as a drum, charis and jonas sing, and i am on the piano. thankfully, i have played piano for many years, and the worship music i have played at my church is coming back quickly to me.

we have found out a bit more about our ministry in the philippines too! we will be working with the local pastor there, sam, and his family. his church ministry focuses seem to be fairly expected - the community, and his own congregation. we will be working with the youth of the area, doing vbs (vacation Bible school) programs for children, leading womens/mens Bible studies, jonas and brady may be doing some preaching, and we will also be doing what are known as "Bible surveys". these are, to me, a clever way to witness to the local community. we will go door-to-door and ask if the family has a Bible, if yes, what language, what translation, do they have old/new testament, etc. if they don't have one at all, we will offer them one. in any case, we will offer to explain some parts of the Bible that we find important (ie the gospel).

i am excited to begin to work with my team as just the 5 of us. i believe very strongly that God has gifted us each individually and specifically for this time of our lives (and the rest as well, obviously). we fit so well and all get along nicely - this is one of His many gifts to me at this time in my life. i love my team so much, and each of them has already taught me so much about life, love and faith.
we had a footwashing ceremony on friday as teams. that was very meaningful to me as we prayed for each other, repented of sin, and just made relationships with each other right. God is good!
here's a picture of my team - just because i love this picture AND i love my team.

prayer from any of you in regards to health and safety are very welcomed and appreciated. brady and i are both sick, me quite so. the rest of my team will be lucky to not catch this from us, and we have only just begun our just-over-30h traveling adventure.

you will remember my blogging about the banquet we had monday past. well, on tuesday we were to have a bonfire for the evening event, including supper. we all got bundled up and headed out nearly an hour to a small location obviously used for camping. there, the interns gave each team leader a piece of paper with writing on it, and said "see you in a few hours!" literally. we all looked at each other, shocked. i think most of us were bitter for about 5 minutes, then decided that we were going to have a great evening and that we should really cook the 4 cans of beans and half bag of rice we had in order to eat. and that we did.
i had an incredible evening with my friends, just hanging out, telling stories, remembering highlights of trek thus far, and singing songs. at the end, the interns returned, 2.5h later, expecting to find us cold, angry, and downcast. quite the opposite! we had just enjoyed a great evening of laughter and community, paired with stomachs full of delicious-tasting beans-and-rice (we were REALLY hungry by the time it was done, let me tell you! anything would have tasted good at that point). i think they were a bit shocked.
the point of the banquet-bonfire evening sequence was to show us the differences between our culture here in north america and the culture in our assignment location. here, we have leaders, friends, relatives, etc, to support us and help us grow spiritually. there, we will have.. us. and our ministry hosts, hopefully. it's essentially us and Jesus out there, and we will have to learn to self-feed, spiritually, and possibly even physically. what a lesson!
even on their own, though, we had 2 spectacular evenings full of joy and laughter with 9 new friends we have all come to love very much. i can confidently say that these are 2 of my favourite memories of trek.
here is a very bad-quality picture of us at bonfire (sorry :( lighting certainly wasn't the best!)

WELL this post is too long now; thanks for reading this novel folks. i'll try to blog as soon as i can when i get to the philippines, even if it's short.

love you all :)
tejal