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!