All Saint's Day was recently celebrated October 31 - November 2nd here in the Philippines. It is also known as Todos los Santos and Undás, All Saints Day in the Philippines is observed in remembrance of the dead. Families return to their respective provinces to clean and repair the tombs of their deceased loved ones, and to pay their respects.
The cemeteries become extremely busy and almost carnival-like.
We celebrated Mikayla's 17th birthday today!
She is a blessing and we pray she continues to grow in wisdom and grace and always seeks first Him and His kingdom.
Mikayla
Yesterday some of her friends came over and sang "Happy
Birthday" to her, ate pizza, cake, ice cream; and enjoyed
watching a movie together.
Cell phones are main communication devices here. It is important to keep your load so you can send text messages or reply to text messages as needed. Many little stores around here sell load so it is rather easy to get load when needed - as long as you have the money to buy more load.
I suspect that if Paul was writing 2 Corinthians 1 today he may have talked about feeling like he was out of load when despairing of life itself. Saying you feel "out of load" is a way of expressing feeling spiritually and/or emotionally empty or tired from the daily stresses of life. But, I'm sure that just as God is teaching me in our hard times here, He was teaching Paul that only in identifying with Him in His death and resurrection is true peace found. In remembering His goodness and grace, and in prayer our spiritual and emotional tiredness can be lifted. And thankfully, His love and joy and peace and hope are free.
"Lord, You have assigned me my portion and my cup,
and have made my lot secure." Psalm 16:5
_ 2 Cor. 1: 3 - 11(portions of)_
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings
of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.
...8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters,
about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia.
We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure,
so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
...and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope
that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers.
We appreciate your prayers for us! Keep praying!!
A good friend and I took our kids to a local mall for an hour of play time at Dave's PlayWorld and lunch at McDonald's to celebrate James and Jerard's 4th birthday! It was a fun morning outing!
On the way to the play place!
Lunch at McDonald's
First merry-go-round ride for James and Jerard
A rare picture of mom with the kids!
James and Jerard are four years old today (10/26).
Active birthday boys
Partying in the sala (living room)
Pirate James
Ninja James
Gun-toting Jerard!
These two boys are blessings. Pray with us that by their 5th birthday the adoption process will be finalized!!!!!
