The Ride of a Lifetime…

Can you recall the feeling of standing in line for the biggest roller coaster you've ever seen? I can, it was called “The Boss”.  Staring at that ride with all of its twists, turns, and drops was intimidating and exciting all at the same time. The further I got in the line the harder my heart pumped, partially from a tinge of fear, but mostly from a lot of excitement.

That experience of waiting to ride “The Boss” is pretty comparable to what we’re going through now. It feels like we've been standing in line forever waiting to get to the “good stuff”. As we approach our departure date on the 18^th all of the twists, turns, and drops are becoming more visible. We can see that first giant hill and to be honest it’s pretty intimidating, but with all the support we've had from family and friends it’s not as scary to go as I thought it would be. For me the best part of getting on a coaster is standing in line with your friends. It’s like we have all of our supporters getting on this crazy coaster with us, and with God at the controls I know everything will be OK regardless of our circumstances.

We just spent two weeks in Indiana in Erin’s home town saying our final goodbyes, so now we’re spending our last two weeks in Oregon in Alex’s hometown. We’ll be staying at Alex’s parent’s house because we already packed up our apartment before the Indiana trip. Our time is filling up with last minute travel details and get togethers.

We leave from Portland on the 18^th. The total flight time is around 15 hours not including layovers. When we arrive in Manila we’ll be staying at the guest house until we can find an apartment. We’ll get most of our furnishings in Manila and start helping out wherever we can until we start language study in January/February. As I write this I can picture “The Boss”! Please be praying for this massive transition. We are genuinely excited and ready for this move… it’s been a long time coming.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! We love your support!!

P.S. We’re at 87% of our monthly support goal! If you’re interested in partnering with us check out our Get Involved page for more information.

Leaving On A Jet Plane !!!!

 These last few weeks we’ve been having trouble finding interesting things to tell you that you don’t already know. Well that is no longer a problem! We finally have our official departure date! We bought our tickets and we will be flying out of Oregon on October 18^thand arriving in Manila on the 20^th. It’s starting to feel like we’re actually going to leave the U.S.

Our time in Oregon has been fantastic. We’ve been able to get involved in so many ways with Keizer Community Church. Alex and I are gearing up to teach the summer Kids Wednesday Night program, be praying that we will be able to make an impact on these young hearts and minds. We’ll be watching a video series that shows what it’s like to grow up as a missionary kid; then we’ll be teaching from the Word to challenge the kids to examine their own lives. Our hope is that they will focus on serving God with their lives.

 I was able to work with some lovely women to put together a Ladies’ Tea, which was a little hectic but really fun. This last Saturday it all came together and went off without a hitch.

 

The best part of all is the many families we’ve had over for dinner. It’s been interesting to talk with people in the setting of our own home, we’ve loved hearing their stories and spending time with them. Another fun and practical thing we get to do is a CPR class that the church is hosting. I’m looking forward to having this training because we’ll most likely be the closest thing to medical help in the village we’ll end up in.

Praise God, we’ve reached 83% of our monthly goal! We’ve come to appreciate the body of Christ in so many new ways. Thank you to all of our friends that have gotten involved in our life! 

Prayer

·         Kids Wednesday Night Program.

·         Continue to prepare ourselves for the field.

·         Connect with people who want to be involved.

Praise

·         We bought our tickets!

·         More people have joined our team bringing us to 83% of our monthly goal.

·         Time spent with family has been so precious.

We'll arrive in Oregon February 5th and plan to leave from there to the Philippines late September.

F.A.Q Round 2 - Bad Weather, Bugs and Balut!

Here's the second round of questions that we've been hearing from people.

     Q: Is there anyone you know who was hurt in the recent typhoon?
         A: We don't know anyone who lives in the Visayas where the storm hit hardest, but it was truly devastating for the people that live there so any time you think of them pray for their recovery. Our New Tribes Mission Pilots have been flying around to as many of the little islands as they can to help the more remote people. Pray that this will be a platform for future missionaries to be able to reach these remote people with the gospel.

     Q: What kind of animals will you encounter?
         A: "In the waters of the Philippines there are more than 2000 different kinds of fish. Added to that figure, the country counts about 200 different kinds of reptiles and 25000 different insects. The smallest monkey and the biggest fish in the world, they both live in the Philippines!" In truth, I'm not looking forward to the bug portion of this quote... they have tarantulas, giant centipedes, and 14 different poisonous snakes. On a more positive/fun note they have the Philippine Mouse Deer.  This is the world’s smallest hoofed mammal and they have the Philippine Flying Lemur. It is one of two species of lemurs that can fly, and this one is found exclusively in the Philippines.



Don't these guys look cute! They're geckos that the people of the Visayas call Mga Tokó. They'll most likely be living on our walls.... I'm not sure how cute they'll be then. Of course, if they eat bugs I think I could warm up to them.

     Q: What is Filipino food like?
         A: The Philippines is considered a tropical climate so there is a wide variety of fresh fruit. Also, the Philippines are an archipelago so with all the coast line there is a lot of sea food. They are also famous for their rice terraces so there is plenty of rice and rice products like rice flour, noodles, spring rolls, sticky rice balls and many other varieties.



The Banaue rice terraces

Brace yourself for this next food. You may have heard of it before, it's called Balut. It is a developing duck embryo that is boiled alive and eaten in the shell. It is commonly sold as street food in the Philippines. People generally season it with salt or a chili, garlic and vinegar sauce. Needless to say, I will be avoiding that one as long as possible. :)

     Q: Will you have to build your own house?
        A: The first 2-3 years we will be living close to the city so we will rent a house during that time, but when we move out into the jungle to live with a tribal group there is a chance that we will have to build our own home. It will likely be more similar to an American house than a tribal house. Obviously we want to blend in with the community, but we also want to be able to rest and recharge so we can work with the people. That means we get to find the balance of what is familiar/comforting to us and where we need to change the way live.

Missionary house in The Philippines.

Hopefully this was interesting and enlightening for you! If you have more questions you'd like answered You can e-mail us at alex_williams@ntm.org or you can leave a comment at the bottom of this post. If we get enough questions I'll put them into a blogpost for everyone to see.