Church@MBC.
Amazing. We enjoyed a full day at MBC. We spent the study hour
visiting and then speaking with the teens. The worship time was great
and then I spoke. MBC still feels like home for us.
Still sick and very weak, but making it.
Um… Diarrhea.
Today we spent the afternoon at the Rich’s for hotdogs and visiting with
old friends. It was a wonderful time, but I was feeling quite sick. I
made it though.
Angela got a chance to do some shopping downtown, and she had fun.
Time flies when you are having fun.
Today brought another visit with friends from ICS and then lunch
together for more Korean food. I treated myself to a bowl of HOT soup.
Great stuff. The afternoon gave us time to rest before spending a
wonderful evening with old friends of ours.
Seems like I (Jeremy) have picked up a stomach bug. It is greatly
hindering my enjoyment of the food and fellowship, but I press on.
Meow…Meow…Meow…Meow…Meow… and so it goes, seemingly nonstop.
What a wonderful time we are having here in Korea. God is blessing us
with refreshing conversations with old and new friends. Fellowship is
renewing our souls. Words cannot express properly our hearts of
appreciation for even the shortest of moments of time with people here.
Food wise, this day would be categorized Korean food day. For lunch we
ate with the staff from ICS who were there. We had some awesome slurp
worthy noodles, spicy chicken, and sweet and sour pork. For dinner it
was off to a snack shack close to the church where we each had a typical
Korean dish ranging from Ramen to cold noodles. Yummy. After prayer
meeting we were drawn to Baskin Robins — oh my! My stomach is crying
out for mercy, but my will to eat those long missed spicy foods prevails!
Jet lag, for the most part hasn’t been a burden. We have had trouble
getting to sleep at night, even when feeling exhausted, but we sleep
well once that battle is won. Also, we aren’t sitting around, so I
don’t think we are giving ourselves time to realize how tired we are.
Meow…Meow…Meow…Meow…Meow…Meow…Meow…Meow…Meow…Meow…Meow…Meow…
We made it safely to South Korea.
We left Madagascar and flew to Bangkok via Reunion. Those flights took
a total of 10 hours with the layover. We had a five hour wait in
Bangkok where we enjoyed Burger King and Mister Donut for breakfast.
The flight from Bangkok to Incheon stopped in Hong Kong for one hour and
total flight time with stop was eight hours. So 21 hours in transit got
us here. We rested well last night.
Day one in Korea is almost over. I must say we have had a wonderful day
visiting with the Rich family.
Eating wise: Breakfast — bacon, toast, and American cereals. Lunch –
Lim’s chicken. Dinner – Pizza Hut Meat Lovers and Pepperoni pan pizza.
BURP!
Our weekend in Tana was good. However, the hustle and bustle reminds us
why we don’t like life in the big city. I think it is safe to say, just
as my parents often said of large cities, we like to visit Tana but
wouldn’t survive living here.
When we arrived in Tana we were crawling through the traffic downtown.
We had just had a talk about the danger of having windows rolled down
and people trying to grab things out of the car when a man reached in
Angela’s window and tried to grab her necklace. The incident happened
just as I was pulling forward which worked in our favor and the guy was
unsuccessful at stealing the necklace. Nonetheless, lesson learned with
a clear example.
Despite that incident, we have enjoyed our visit here. It has been nice
not to be in the kitchen all day — for Angela, and the boys have
enjoyed a change of scenery.
We have been freezing, though! Being here on the plateau during winter
has shown us just how accustomed we have become to the weather of the
rain forest. We are thinking we’ll be freezing in places with air
conditioning this summer as we switch hemispheres.
I can’t get online to see what I have or haven’t posted. So… I’ll
pick it up from here.
May flew by with all that was happening.
The volunteer team left at the beginning of the last week of May, and by
the end of the week our teammates, Cara and Heather arrived. That week
also saw Rivo, Fred, and I spend time going over the volunteer team’s
visit and discussing ways to make it better in the future.
The following week I was busy getting things done in the Norton’s house
(our teammates) in preparation for their move into the rain forest in
July. The end of the week brought the first trip out into the rain
forest for Cara and Heather as we returned to Torotosy and Ampitavanana
to deliver Proclaimer devices which will play the audio of the New
Testament in Malagasy for the villagers. Also, the weekend brought
visitors, the Wallers and Cokers. We had a great weekend of fellowship.
Sunday, June 6, I preached at Christo as it was my last Sunday with them
until 2011. It was a great time of worship, but emotions ran wild at
the end of the service as we said goodbye.
The week following was our time to pack and get ready to leave on
Friday. Monday and Wednesday was spent finalizing the Nortons’ house
and we had plenty of time to get packed in between. We were all ready
to go by Thursday, so we took the morning to go to the pool in
Ranomafana. That afternoon our family returned to the Cristo to say
goodbye one last time to Rivo and Hanta. We prayed with them and
visited for a bit before returning home. We are so blessed to be
working with them.
We drove out of the rain forest on Friday morning, June 11, at 6:30AM.
We are excited to hear about how God will continue to work there while
we are on STAS.
We left the rain forest early on the 11th of June to take care of some
business in Antsirabe. I needed to take care of bank and other things
that required us going during normal business hours.
We got to Antsirabe and started the process. We got an unexpected
blessing of spending lunch with Doda and Liz and kids before they headed
to the airport for their visit to the UK. Everything was going as
planned and we accomplished the bank and other small things easily.
The afternoon was slotted for taking care of finalizing everything for
our guards. When I went with Tolotra, one of our guards who helps us
with paperwork, to CNaPS it turned out to be more than we had hoped.
The rest of the afternoon was spent writing letters and getting them
printed, getting forms, and then waiting in line at the banks to cash
checks. We finally finished all the of the stuff needed and got to the
vet just in time to buy our dog food before they closed for the weekend.
We checked into the hotel and then went to visit the Nortons.
We had a great time visiting the Nortons and shared dinner that night
and then breakfast the following morning together. We pulled out of
Antsirabe around 9:30 AM, headed to Tana where we are staying for the
weekend before leaving Monday afternoon, June 14th.
Ahhhhhh. Breathing a little easier now.
We’ll be in South Korea from the 14th to the 22nd. We’ll post about our
time there.
Our truck’s air conditioning works great. However, recently the selector on the dash panel became jammed and wouldn’t switch to defrost or between venting air on the floor or through the panel. No real big deal, but frustrating none the less.
The truck is out of warranty. So, I set out to try and see what I could do. The selector knob is really just a lever attached to a cable that turns a set of pulleys. Once I got the panel off and could see how it worked, I quickly found the problem. The white plastic pulley gear in the picture above had rattled out of place. A quick snap back in place and the whole system is back up and running again. Yeah!
Jared got a tool kit from the volunteer team and I had him bring his tools and help. Of course, he was glad to help.
I believe I left off with our visits to Ampitavanana.
I want to start by saying that the whole team were great sports in
dealing with the weather. As the season changes to winter here, it has
brought a lot of rain. God gave us breaks from the rain when He wanted to.
The team spent two days, Wednesday and Thursday, ministering to the
villagers in Ampitavanana. On Friday morning we got ready to hike to
Torotosy, which is about an hour further past Ampitavanana. The Jesus
film kit and other stuff was too much for the group to carry, so we
hired eleven men to carry all the extra gear to Torotosy. The men were
happy to work and literally ran down the trail. We all headed out about
mid morning and arrived in Torotosy after about three hours of hiking.
We did stop for a snack lunch just beyond Ampitavanana.
Once we arrived at the village of Torotosy we waited for the fokotany
president (man in charge) to finish lunch and then did our official
introductions. After the introductions we quickly set up the tents and
then the Jesus film stuff. The team entertained the kids and then it
was basically waiting for darkness. It was raining off and on, but not
enough to stop the show. We were able to show the whole film and then
give an invitation without interruption. When the film time was over,
we told the folks we would play more games in the morning. After the
equipment was put up we retreated to the camp site and eventually to bed.
Saturday morning was clear and beautiful. The team played games and
shared the gospel with many people. Many of the people of the village
had never heard about Jesus before the team came.
While the team was playing and preaching, Rivo had collected a group of
people and was teaching them how to read the Bible. He gave a quick
lesson and then explained our system to the group. Basically, we pass
out a Bible to a person who commits to teach ten other people. We then
give them lessons to teach. So far this has eliminated the bickering
that goes on when someone doesn’t get a Bible. As soon as we say they
have to teach someone else, most people back off and say they only want
to be learners. Rivo got ten teachers and presented them each with a
Bible and a list of passages to find and read. We’ll (they 
) return
next month and give out the first in a series of lessons to each person
who shows us the Bible we left with them. When they have shared the
lesson with 10 people and then had them write their names on the lesson
sheet, we’ll give the next lesson. We are testing this method in two
villages and will see how it goes.
We packed up and left Torotosy about mid morning. We made it back to
the hotel around mid day and everyone rested and got cleaned up. It
started raining, so we again postponed the showing of the Jesus film in
Kelilalina.
Sunday we had worship together and then everyone had lunch at our
house. We sang happy birthday to Jared and a couple other folks. We
rushed back to the hotel to have the afternoon time with kids from about
2PM to 4PM. God provided a clear evening, so we headed back to
Kelilalina and set up the Jesus film projection unit. We started the
film and saw roughly four hundred people come out to see the film. As
the film could be seen and heard all over the town, there were people
standing along the road several hundred yards away watching the film.
God provided clear skies and we were able to successfully show the film
and give a challenge to follow Christ. After cleaning up the equipment,
the team headed back to the hotel for their last supper at the hotel.
Everyone was exhausted.
The team left for Tana on Monday morning. They were a blessing to me
and to the people they shared Christ with.
Some notes. Three of the team members didn’t get their luggage when
they arrived. However, they accomplished the week without their stuff.
All but one of the bags was delivered the night we returned from camping
out in the village. One team member did not get their stuff until they
returned to Tana to fly out. Amazing. No complaining. I am humbled by
the attitudes of the these folks. I am glad to see God work, even
through us.
I am sure to be digesting this trip for months to come. All glory to God.