Fountains are cool!

Last Saturday, we spent the day with friends from the seminary and Brian's Uncle LeBron and Aunt Anne. LeBron and Anne are visiting for the 25th anniversary of APNTS, so we're so excited to steal them and spend time together whenever someone else isn't wanting them. ;) We went to Greenbelt, an open air shopping area in Makati. It's a gorgeous place to sit, drink coffee, and catch up. Justin got tired of sitting after a while, so he and I wandered around and found this really cool fountain. Justin had such a blast playing in it, he cried when we had to leave. Here are a few of our favorite pics. When you come to Manila to visit us, we can go here together! :)

Justin at 9 months

Justin is continuing to grow and develop personality more and more each day. Now, he's crawling, pulling up on everything, finding mischievous things to do, trying to eat and drink everything we do, desperately wanting to walk and run, and the list goes on and on. Here are some pictures from the last month....

reading books

future gymnast

playing with Daddy while eating

Halloween Costume - Fuzzy Caterpillar :)
and Mommy was a butterfly...

and quite proud of himself for crawling to the door and trying to push it open :)

100 Years

On October 5 it was such a privilege to join our Philippine church family in celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Church of the Nazarene. We celebrated ALL day long and were amazed at the testimonies of God's faithfulness in the last 100 years and the hope of what will happen in the next 100 years. The church we attend baptized 100+ people and took in 100 new members on the day of the celebration - amazing! In the afternoon, the Metro Manila District met on the APNTS campus for continued celebrations. Despite the rain and mud, 2000+ people gathered to worship and commit to serving God for the next 100 years.... here are just a couple pics. :)

Taytay Church of the Nazarene:

Metro Manila District Celebration:

Long time, no blog!

Well, it's been a very long time since we've posted any blogs... but when I think about the last month, I'm not at all surprised. :) So, this will be my attempt to catch up a little bit. October was super busy since it's the last month of our semester. But in addition to all the normal end-of-semester writing and cramming sessions, I (Julie) am attempting to finish my thesis proposal so I can (hopefully!) graduate in April, and Brian has been gone for the last 2 weeks, so he was trying to finish all his assignments AND prepare for his trip! Brian went to Singapore for regional meetings and then straight to Bangkok, Thailand for a youth leaders camp and meetings with field and global youth leaders. He's had a great time and will be home tomorrow morning, so needless to say, I'm quite thrilled that my 2 weeks as a single mom with a 9 month old is coming to a close! :) But, I can't really complain... Justin has been simply amazing since Brian left, and we have really amazing friends that take such good care of us. So even though I should be working on my thesis tonight, I'm too distracted and excited that Brian will be back tomorrow.... so, I'll post a couple more blogs and make Brian write about his trip and the exciting things God did and is doing as soon as he gets back! :)

hanging out with friends, Mami and Kenji, at the mall

our wonderful friends and neighbors, Yuri and Yasuki

playing with Isaiah and Ian and their grandfather visiting from the states! :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

That's right.... in the Philippines Christmas anticipation begins with the first of the 'ber' months... Septem-ber, Octo-ber, Novem-ber, and Decem-ber. Last weekend when we went to the mall to do our weekly grocery shopping, we were greeted with the first few Christmas decorations and Christmas music playing. Some might say they don't like all the commercialism and the meaning gets lost when you start this early, but personally I love beginning to think about Christmas even now. I LOVE Christmas music and have always felt that only the month of December was not long enough to fully enjoy it. And I LOVE the anticipation for a wonderful time of year with family and friends. In Guam Christmas was special because of church plays, special parties, and bell ringing with our Salvation Army friends. This will be our 3rd Christmas in the Philippines (and maybe our last, sad), and even though our bank account suffers from so many pot-lucks and gift exchanges, I can't wait to go to all the parties and spend tons of time with friends and family. I love reflecting on how Christ came to earth and the significance of the life he lived. I love hearing about the birth of Christ through the context of so many friends' cultures and personal experiences. So, yes, to Brian's chagrin, I proudly sing along with the Christmas music playing in the store.... may the Christmas celebrations begin! :)

Justin's funny faces

72 Hours of Prayer

We are requesting your prayers! We have had the privilege to help organize a 72 hour prayer room for our APNTS community. If you're not familiar with the concept of 24 hour prayer rooms, it's a focused time and location where people come together to seek God. But instead of just praying silently, people can do whatever they want - sing, play an instrument, draw, read the Bible, paint, etc. We were able to experience this at the 3rd Wave Conference in South Africa a couple years ago, and it was extremely meaningful. We've since been wanting to do one at APNTS, and here we are!

So, please be praying for our campus community for the next 3 days. It begins at 11:30 AM on September 16 and will continue until 11:30 AM on September 19. Our seminary's theme for this school year is "Out of Many, One", borrowed from the Church of the Nazarene's centennial celebration. So, the focus of this prayer time is unity, understanding, and community. Please keep us in your prayers, and we'll let you know how it's going. We're expecting God to do amazing things - things bigger than our dreams! Also, please enjoy the video Brian and our friend Junichi created. :)

Choir Practice

So, most people don't think of me (Julie) as a singer. I am DEFINITELY more of an pianist than a vocalist. But, as some old friends remember, I had a music scholarship in college... and one of the requirements to keep my scholarship was to sing in a choir. This was not something I looked forward to, but it ended up being quite a rewarding experience. It was during my short choir career at SNU that I formed some of my closest friendships... amazing and talented girls who are still some of my best friends today. I was reminded of those choir memories this afternoon....

The General Church of the Nazarene is celebrating its 100 year anniversary on October 5 of this year. Anniversaries are a REALLY big deal in the Philippines. So, on October 5, every church will have their own special service in the morning, and then all the churches on our district will gather on our seminary campus for more celebrations that will probably last into the night. As part of these celebrations, our church and a few others are forming a 100 voice choir that will perform. Last year, Brian joined our church's choir for their anniversary celebration, but I was pregnant at the time, and it didn't quite work out. So, even though singing in front of people is not my most favorite pastime, I promised Ate Enzy (our choir director) I would join for this special occasion.

We went to our first practice today. Some of the members have already been practicing, but we weren't able to join together with them until now. One of the songs we are singing is the 'Hallelujah' chorus from Handel's Messiah. Let me first explain that this is not abnormal for Nazarene churches in the Philippines. While growing up in the states, it seemed the only time anything from Messiah was performed was at extremely large churches, colleges, or by professional musicians at a concert. But Filipinos are quite ambitious and indescribably talented musically, so this is something people have definitely sung and heard before in a small church setting. So, back to the story.... We started practicing the 'Hallelujah' chorus, and I was immediately flooded with memories of my freshman year of college... sitting in choir practice with Shelley, Jeanna, Stacy, Shelly, Rachel, and Jessica, my fellow Music major and minors..... laughing at Dr. Alexander's antics as he guided us in our vocal practice and played all parts on a grand piano.... singing my part over and over and over and over again until I actually remembered it.

Today's experience was quite different.... there was no piano... Ate Enzy simply gives each group their starting pitch... without any assistance! This amazing woman knows the song so well, she can sing all the parts, direct a huge choir, and hear when a few people are off and need more practice. :) Everyone has music in their hands, but the majority of people don't read music... they can simply hear their parts and memorize when they come in. Thankfully, I actually remembered my part from 10 years ago (Thank you, Dr. Alexander!)... or I would have been in a lot of trouble. ;) And today I was singing with friends from seminary and church - Linda, Jana, Emz, Ate Marnie, and Ate Nenita..... amazing ladies that have also become close friends and will be for life.

As we sat there sweating (no air-con) and singing our hearts out, I was overwhelmed by how God works in our lives. Ten years ago, when I was complaining about having to sing in a choir, who knew that that experience would open the door for me to have this experience right now... making new friends and memories and being so amazed at our surprising God. In my English class the other day, one of my students from Myanmar was talking about the gift of music. He said that in his opinion, the music made by instruments is quite remarkable because it needs no translation. Anywhere in the world, we can use instruments to praise God and it doesn't matter if we speak the same language. So, thank you God for the gifts of music, of choirs, of friends old and new, and exciting adventures that exceed even our wildest dreams! :)

This is our choir director, Ate Enzy, when she came to visit Justin and me at the hospital. :)

Basketball with the Boys

This is Brian writing. I am aware that I rarely post, but am trying to discipline myself to get better in this respect!

A year and a half ago I felt strongly that God was calling me to interact with some youth who live across the street from our campus. This is a squatter area of small shanty-houses constructed of loose boards and tin. The young people here have typically limited English because of limited education.

I began conversations with them, which started with me learning Tagalog slang that they thought was hilarious! Slowly I began to learn some of their names. Last year some other students invited them on campus to play on our basketball court. These guys love basketball! Most of them are not in school and are unemployed, so basketball is a welcome diversion. We played 3-4 days a week last school year!

This school year some students left and others have schedules that limit their ability to sponsor these guys to be on campus to play. I was busy with work and school and for the first few weeks I did not see or talk to them often. But God continued to lay on my heart the critical importance of being in the community where I live and among non-believers. To be honest I gave excuses to God. "I'm so busy studying and my job with NYI is my ministry," I told him, but when I was honest these were smoke screens for my own laziness. So I put in my schedule to finish work early and play ball with the guys every Tuesday.

While I feel like I have a good relationship with these guys, it is a somewhat superficial one. I have quickly found that to discuss issues of the heart, issues that deal with emotions typically don't make their way into less-than-conversational-english conversations! I've struggled with this but Julie continues to remind me that as long as I am there and care for these guys God will do the rest. One thing I have felt God leading me to do is be intentional to pray for them both in my quiet time and also when I am playing with them or watching them play.

Last Tuesday I had a meeting that ran late. I hadn't gone out and reminded them that I would be at the gate at 4:30 to play, so I thought I wouldn't play ball that day. However, I told Julie I should go check just in case. As I walked towards the gate I saw one of the guys and he looked at me, smiled, and made a dribbling motion with his hand. They had been waiting! Five minutes later 25 guys were filling the court playing or watching. Since I wasn't in playing clothes I decided to just talk with the guys.

As I sat next to one boy, U-choy, a unique thing happened. He began really talking to me! He was asking questions, struggling to find the English words with his limited vocabulary. This is rare because often we are content to let my limited Tagalog ability and his limited English be what they are and just hang out, but not really talk. But here we were having a meaningful conversation. It was a huge encouragement to me, a sign that our relationship was growing, even if it was a slow growth.

I have to continue to pray and trust that God can and will do the work that I can't do. I want to make myself available completely no matter the results that I see or don't see. I want to be bold when God leads me to be, but also to be consistent when I don't see anything happening. This is hard for me to do because I feel my value as a missionary rests in results. I have to be reminded on the one hand, that one plants, and one waters, but only God makes things grow. And I must be reminded, on the other hand that I must be ready to be obedient whenever God provides the opportunity to be more direct about Jesus.

Please pray for U-choy, Jerky, Ivan, Rene, Jun, JR, Din Din, Doods, Andrew, Edward, and all the other boys who play basketball on the APNTS campus on Tuesdays from 4:30-6.