Update Blog!

First and foremost, Bryce and I need to apologize for our lack of updates! Please forgive our awful communication skills. Since we have left the Philippines and returned to Oregon, we kept saying we will write our newsletter and blog after this happens or that happens. Well, here we are now and entirely too much time has passed since we have communicated with our faith-filled partners in mission. So I will start the update from there.

Upon returning to Oregon, we found ourselves in the lovely town of Sublimity, Oregon. We attempted to find ways to remain faithful to our charisms of serving the poor and evangelizing while we were back. Due to the season of summer and the impending birth of our fifth child, not many of the opportunities worked out. We were blessed to share about our experiences with my women’s bible study, a young adults gathering and with a group of young, married Catholics. We also participated in two Vacation Bible Schools, and worked as a family at our local food share sorting and packing the food. Josephine Marie was born on July 9th (9 days late)! She weighed in at 9 lbs 7 oz, and was 22 inches long! She has been such a blessing to our family!

Three weeks after she was born, we decided to do our family retreat and begin discerning our next step. God made Himself abundantly clear that our next step was to slow down! We were not ready for the mission field and not ready to discern! We did discern that a trip to Louisiana was a good first step and were able to visit before Intake 2016 began. It was a great blessing to be with our community and to include them in our discernment process. Bryce was also able to help them get ready for Intake by working on a trailer for kids ministry. During his prayer time, Bryce was given a scripture that pointed to Spain. After much prayer and discernment individually, as a family and with our directors, we have decided to pursue Cordoba, Spain as our next mission post. We have contacted their Bishop and are awaiting his response. We are now living in Louisiana, helping out at Family Missions Company home-base and are eagerly anticipating our next mission post. Our time in the Philippines was so blessed and we loved the people, the community and our ministries! We will miss all of them; however this journey belongs to God. Please pray for us as we seek to know God’s will for our lives and that we have the courage to keep saying yes!    

St. Luke, St. Theresa, St. Lawrence, & St. Dominic 

going to the All Saints' Day party

Thank you again for all your prayers, emotional and financial support during this journey of living and sharing God’s love with the people of the world. May God bless you all abundantly!

A Day in the Life of a Missionary Family - Malaybalay

     Today was a beautiful day of being a missionary. We started the morning making 2 cups of "hand-brewed" coffee and oatmeal for the family. Up until recently we had 1 pot and 1 pan. Recently we were given a second pot! We feel a bit spoiled, but it sure is nice to be able to make coffee and oatmeal at the same time!

Who needs a coffee maker when you have a funnel and a handkerchief? 

     Then we headed to the house of the "single ladies" (our missionary team of young women) for Morning Prayer with the community - 5 families (including 15 kids) and 5 single ladies sitting mostly on the floor of their little house. It was an awesome time of singing praise songs and joining the world-wide Church in praying the Liturgy of the Hours. It is very powerful to know that we are praying the same words that are being prayed as the sun rises over monasteries, convents, rectories, mission houses, homes and apartments the world over.
     Then we loaded 15 people, 1 guitar, and 1 digital projector and laptop into our little van and drove to the local jail. After greeting the inmates and singing a couple songs of praise I was blessed to be able to lead a teaching on the Peace that only Jesus can bring. Peace that can break through the locked doors of fear, even when we are scared, hurt or angry and the gift of the Holy Spirit which strengthens us with Supernatural power to love, serve and forgive (John 20:19-23). Then we were humbled to hear the testimony of faith in Jesus which has brought forgiveness, peace and strength to an inmate who was falsely accused. I have been floored to hear many stories of how the regular visits of the missionaries have changed people's hearts and set them on fire for Jesus!

     Then we came home and ate a quick lunch. Angel started working on home-school with the younger 3 children while Eddie (our 11-year old son) and I went out to find some groceries for a family who can't go back to their home in the mountains to work, while they are awaiting their daughter's surgery. We also bought some medicine for a patient we helped to see the doctor last week. After delivering the food and praying with the family, we visited with a few more families in Isla Bonita.

    Then we took the medicine to a local missionary family who knew the patient. Please pray for this family as they are trying to get their visas to go to another country in Asia. Their faith and generosity blows me away! They give so generously the little they have to care for the poor around them and are putting all their trust in God to provide benefactors/sponsors to help them go forth and proclaim the Good News to the Nations. It is very challenging for our Filipino missionaries to raise the needed funds as their family and friends spend most of what they earn just to put food on the table. (If God puts it on your heart to help them out, even a one time gift or becoming a $20 per month benefactor would make a huge difference for them, please let me know and I'll get you their newsletter. Thanks!).
      As we were driving and walking through the market Eddie and I were able to talk about the joy that he saw in me as I proclaimed God's love in the morning and the sadness felt by the people who shared their struggles with us in the evening. Eddie still wants to be a famous soccer player when he grows up but I hope and pray that today's experiences, and the life we are blessed to live, will help him to become a holy man who makes a difference in the lives of the people he meets, whatever his career may be.
     After this we met the single ladies to let them borrow our van so they could travel out of town for a mission/service trip, then they dropped us off at home for dinner. After dinner the other kids colored and played games while Angel helped Eddie get a little home-school in as I washed the dishes. Thankfully the water stayed on long enough that I could get a quick cold shower in before we got the kids ready for bed. After praying with the kids, Angel read a chapter from C.S. Lewis' "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" aloud as they (& I) fell asleep. After that we finally have time for our personal prayer time. It's 11:10pm and Angel has finished her prayer time and is now asleep (pregnancy will do that to you) and I'm now done writing this for you (and me). Now I get to spend some time with our Lord in His Word before heading to bed. Thankfully we made a commitment to pray at least 15 minutes in private prayer, with Scripture, each day. This has been such a blessing for us!
     Thank You Jesus for a blessed day of living in Your love! Salamat sa Dios! And thank you for making this day possible by being our partners in mission through your prayers and financial support! May God bless you!
         

Look at What You Did!

      As I am sitting in the Malaybalay jail, I am contemplating our life here. I often think about all of you back home, especially our donors and prayer partners. There have been many acts of kindness and generosity that have been done because of you and by you...and you don't even know that you are doing them. Today is Easter Tuesday and you are visiting the jail and sharing with them very Good News - that Jesus died for them and conquered death for them, that He loves each one of them personally and passionately! I am not sure how many of these men and women have ever thought very much about God's love for them and many have not been shown His love very well in the past. Today you shared this message of love and you delivered Easter eggs to them, a festive, healthy, and filling snack. In a jail where they are served only the basics like rice and a little fish, this weekly snack is greatly appreciated. You also passed out 260 individual packets of hygiene supplies, coffee, and snacks. In the prison here, you are not automatically given these things, especially if you have no money or no family who will buy them for you.

     Separate from jail ministry, today you are also listening and praying about helping with a situation that would reunite a mother and sister with their baby far away in a place that has more job opportunities. You have allowed a different single mother to earn a fair and living wage in order to help take care of her two little boys, while allowing a pregnant woman a break from doing laundry by hand (that is me!). You are not even counting the small moments where you were are able to witness to people in stores and on the street by simply saying, "Maayong hapon!" (Good afternoon!) "No, I don't speak very much Visayan yet, and yes we are Catholic Missionaries from the US. We have come to help people fall more in love with Jesus, and to serve the poor." And throughout the day you allowed many prayers to be offered for the poor, for missionaries, for you! and for those whose lives you are trying to change.

     I attempt on a regular basis to figure out what God has for us here and whether we are doing enough. The answer I realized today is that I am not doing anything. God is the one who does everything, through you, through me, and through His many people that cross our path. The only questions I need to ask are; Am I seeking God today? Am I listening and obeying the creator of Heaven and Earth? Am I reading His Word each day and allowing Him to speak to me through it?
    If the answer to these questions is "yes" then it does not matter whether I am at the jail, riding in a motorela, at our local sari-sari store or parenting our children - then I am doing the will of God!

Letter Home

Dear friends and family,
      It has been a long and yet quick month since our family has arrived in the Philippines. We are continually trying to adjust to our new normal. Often as soon as we manage to figure one thing out, we find there are ten more things we don't know how to do. Our use of technology has actually been one of the most challenging adjustments, so we apologize for our slack in this area. It's been challenging making the internet work and making the time to write updates. I thought I would try and catch you all up on some of our activities.

    Family life, parenting, cooking, washing the dishes and laundry by hand, grocery shopping, and figuring out the kids' schooling has absorbed a lot of our time. We have decided recently to try home schooling with the kids which will be a blessing and a challenge. It is amazing how much time gets spent doing everyday things! I could write an entire blog on adapting to a new way of cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping all while trying to parent four kids! However, I also want to include some of the ministry things we have been doing as well.
In coming to Malaybalay, we were joining an already active ministry group. Part of our time acclimating this month has been getting to know our community and praying together as a community. We are one of five families and we also are blessed to have four single women in our community. In addition, there is at least one other family from here who are interested in becoming missionaries and are currently serving in the role of missionary interns. One of the ongoing ministries that this community started is a weekly Bible study with the wonderful people from one of the poorer neighborhoods. Through this neighborhood, we were also blessed to experience a "Jericho March". There have recently been a few suicides in this community so we went to their neighborhood seven days in a row gathering with many members of the community marched around and prayed with them and for them. Each night we walked once around the community while praying and on the seventh day, we walked seven times around and were even able to have a missionary priest from S.O.L.T. celebrate Sunday mass in their community center. It was a very special blessing for our family to become part of their community through prayer, friendships and time. Eddie, Luke, Dominic and Cabrini all pray often for the people of Isla Bonita and all ask to go visit often.
    
Through the community of Isla we have all been able to help buy some medicine and pay some hospital bills. It has been a shock and a challenge to adjust cost of living differences, exchange rate as well as daily wage. Bryce and Eddie have also been able to visit a few people in the hospital and pray with them and for them. Some of the visitors to our house and to our gate have formed relationships with the missionaries who lived in our house before us. It is a blessing to be invited into many people's lives so quickly but also difficult to continue the good things that were previously instituted. Bryce and I have been blessed to participate in a Filipino group wedding and a baptism.
The prison ministry was a bit intimidating to me and I actually presumed it was a men's only ministry. I have since learned that the prison we visit in Malaybalay is very different from the prisons in the United States. The men and women are kept in the same prison but in different areas. They are very open to learning about God and when we visit the prison even the children are allowed. One of our mission partners was inspired by the Pope and had us wash the prisoner's feet. It was a very humbling experience and helped me to feel more comfortable there. It was also amazing to hear the testimonies of the prisoners who shared their great gratitude for the missionaries who have helped them come to know a God who loves them and has changed their lives!
One of the more recent things we got to experience with our community was a retreat with our fellow missionaries from Camiguin Island also in the Philippines, about 7 hours from Malaybalay. It was a blessing to be together in a large group and to be reminded again of God's call for our family and the life He desires for us.  

Thank you so much for your spiritual, emotional and financial support! Without you all, there is no way we could do this! We thank you for joining us in helping share the love of Jesus with the people the Lord has sent us to. We are praying for you all and beg you to continue praying for us! Thank you!
        And as a reward for making it this far into this blog; we found out we're having a girl!!
In the Peace of Jesus,
Bryce, Angel and kids