Pictures from the Philippines

Here are some belated pictures from our time in the Philippines. We had a great time at the school, and it was nice to be able to see a bit of Manila and the surrounding countryside as well. Beautiful!

We've been back in Houghton for almost a week now. Mostly we've just been getting used to not planning our next trip and settling back into the Houghton community. On a more personal note I, Amy, finally got my driver's license!


from our outing to Tagaytay


view of Tagaytay


Finally together at Faith


Katrina leading a discussion during 10th grade Bible


our "home:" the Ballentyne Dorm

Langhap Sarap sa Jollibee!

Amy and I will finally be reunited! She gets in tonight at around midnight. I think I am quite ready to get back to work again after a week of unplanned down time, although I am thankful for the unexpected time with family. I've spent the majority of the week in the small town of Bauan, Batangas hanging out with my grandparents and getting to know my 2-year-old nephew, Nate. (Nate's my cousin's son and also my "godson." In the Filipino tradition, being his godmother simply means that I get to spoil him with lots of presents-which I did!) Less than a month ago, I found out that my grandparents will not be able to come to Paul and my wedding in May, so these several days with them have been a great blessing.

A few pictures from this week:


My grandparents' house


"Lolo" and "Lola" Brion (and me)


My adorable godson, Nate



A little late, but here's a picture of part Sydney from the plane!

Wow! This will be the third non-work-related post in a very short time! It's also quite a novelty to post more personal pictures of members of my family...

Despite all the unexpected changes, God has been faithful (as He always proves to be). Thank you, friends, for your prayers. I don't know if Amy and I have mentioned this yet, but reading your comments is always a great encouragement! (Keep 'em coming, please.) Blogging has been a wonderful way to feel connected with friends and family around the world regardless of where we are...

Hopefully, next time we post, it'll once again be about our experiences and adventures together. (We've both gone through quite the identity crisis having to act as individuals instead of as a pair!) I, for one, am quite excited at the prospect of visiting our next (and last) school, Faith Academy...

Mi Orait

view from the SIL plane


view from Ukarumpa

An update from the other half of the Houghton Reps:
With only an hour in Cairnes to digest the huge changes, I found myself boarding the plane to Port Moresby on my own in a sort of daze. It still, after four days, has not really hit that Katrina isn't here, and I find myself constantly speaking with the royal "we" and telling Katrina stories to students. People here have all been understanding of the changes and have taken good care of me. Once again, I am grateful that international communties are so friendly and welcoming to strangers! God has been good, and it has been a continuing lesson in trust regardless of circumstances.
So Ukarumpa:
I had an uneventful two hour flight (other than the spectacular views I had of the coast and then the mountains) on a tiny plane up to Ukarumpa and I suprised myself by sleeping most of the way (I have a hard enough time sleeping on commercial flights let alone tiny singe engine ones!).
My first day in Ukarumpa, I was met by the principal, given a tour of the school and compound and then got to have dinner at one of the six hostels that they have for boarding students and for those whose parents are out in the village translating. Tonight (my last day here), I'm having dinner at another hostel and with that, I will have eaten at or visited each hostel. It's been a great way to get to know kids, eat delicious meals, and get a picture of what life is like here.
Every morning, I walk to the school and every morning, I am again taken by how beautiful this place is. Rolling green hills surround the school and the mix of tropical plants with highland plants is gorgeous. At school, I've gotten to visit some English classes, a Japanese class (yeah!!) and a Spanish class. It's been a lot of fun to hang out and be at the school.


I loved the round table dinners!

Mi orait is the little bit of pidgen I learned when I got to go to a mumu in nearby village (figure it out!). I got to go after school on Wed with Mr. Sommer, the principal, and his family. A mumu is a traditional PNG feast and I'll post pictures soon so you can see what it is. Basically, they cook a bunch of vegetable and meat in the ground with hot rocks. It was fabulous, but more fun than the food (it's possible!) was just getting to meet a family and spend some time with them, getting a brief glimpse of what village life is like. It was also fun to hang out with the Sommer kids who are a wealth of knowledge about PNG life. They even treated me to a "car wash." You'll have to wait for pictures!

the mumu being prepared


the feast - so very colorful and tasty!


the "car wash!"

Separation Anxiety, or The Terminal: Part II

I don't even know how to begin to blog about today. A Qantas Airlines lady stopped Amy and me during our layover in Cains and asked why I didn't have a visa. We were told by our PNG contacts that visas were available upon arrival, but apparently this was faulty information for me, a non-US citizen.
Two hours, two long-distance phone calls to Janyce (our boss), a jaunt to the authorized-personnel-only baggage area, several calls to PNG and Australia immigration, and several jokes about the Tom Hanks movie The Terminal later, Amy boarded the plane to PNG. Alone.
That's right. Amy went ahead and proceeded as planned, leaving me with Mark (a very nice Qantas guy). Mark and I threw around several options and within half an hour of Amy's departure, I was on a Cairns-Sidney flight. Within a few hours of THAT, I was on my way to Manila. Yep, we figured out that the easiest thing for me to do was leave Australia (since I didn't have a visa for there, either) and fly ahead to Manila.
So here I am, at my parents' missions' guesthouse. Tomorrow, my grandparents are picking me up and I'm going to spend the week with them. Amy arrives Saturday night.
This is unbelievable.
(Here's the truth: Before this trip, Amy and I bragged incessently that we haven't lost luggage, missed any flights, etc... As you can see from this post and the post about Vancouver, pride comes before fall. Who would've ever thought one of us would come close to being deported?)
Let's hope Amy posts about PNG soon!

note: Neither Houghton College (I imagine) nor I mean for this post to be read as an endorsement of The Terminal. I referred to this film simply because I've been compared to Tom Hanks about 8 times today, and I don't even remotely resemble him.

At home in the library...

lunch with students at BAIS: Tim, Won Seop, Jeni, Megan, and Val


dinner with the Taguchi's


our walk to school

Day two and Bandung Alliance Interantional School (BAIS) finds us once again in the library; a great place to talk to kids, catch up on emails, and stay cool as it is one of the few air conditioned rooms. Bandung is absolutely beautiful and while it is hot and humid, it is not unbearable as we are up in the mountains. We've gotten to hang out with a bunch of the kids and while they mock us for all but setting up house in the library, they have been incredibly friendly and welcoming.

Last night, we got to have dinner with the Taguchis, a family that I know from Japan where they would come back to on furloughs. Once again, a reminder of how small the international world is! I had always dreamed of visiting them in Indonesia but I never really thought it would ever happen. It was fun to again speak a mixture of English and Japanese and eat Japanese food. Dinner was topped off with a delicious dessert of "shoecream," and hilarious converstion on cross-cultural language misshaps.

Two of the teachers, Andrea and Kelly, have opened up their lovely home to us for our stay here. Tomorrow, they are taking us shopping (this is a huge textile town) and much to Kat's delight (she's going to hate that I used that phrase to describe her...hee hee!), one of the teachers, Andrea, is also engaged and so she knows all the best places to get material and other great "stuff" for weddings. Good thing we have extra space in our suitcases!

Note: shoe creams are cream puffs

You know you've been in an airport too long when...

Airport personnel recognize you and walk over to say hello.

Amy and I were stranded in Vancuover for what seemed like days and days. What we did to pass the time:

• Slept in the departures area with the United Airlines blankets we "borrowed." You know something isn't right when you wake up to a stranger's snoring. (There were quite a few of us crashing at the airport at 4:00 AM.)
• Pretended we had NOT just rolled out of an airport bench as we were seated at a restaurant for breakfast.
  
  See, we look awake!
• Took care of business (booked a new flight, checked in with the immigration people a few times...)
• LEFT THE AIRPORT (legally) !! The immigration officers told us we were free to go wherever we wanted. We asked where we could find a small shopping area so we could perhaps sit at a bookstore or coffee shop as a simple change of scenery from the airport. Plus, I wanted to be able to officially say I'd been to Canada. They recommended the Richmond Centre. It turned out to be a huge shopping mall. So yes. We spent our day in Vancouver at a MALL.
• Had swollen feet. Amy and I had cankles!! No kidding. This is a sad premonition of possible future pregnancies/obesity. Since we couldn't find a bookstore, we settled for mall armchairs (quite comfortable):
  
  Me and the Sleeping Old Man. (See the bags on the floor? I think carrying pounds and pounds of Houghton literature and a laptop computer didn't help the cankles.) I am reading a book by Haruki Murakami, a Japanese author originally recommended by the TIS guidance counselor Mr. Farwell, who sent me home with The Wild Sheep Chase. See--this job has so many benefits! Great reading material! Note that cankles are not visible to the public due to my very intentional sitting position.
• Ate Japanese food.
• Returned to the airport and found a seating area with a TV. We watched old sitcom reruns for three hours and laughed with strangers. (The United Airways blankets came in handy yet again). Besides the fact that we were with strangers, we could've been sitting on a couch at home. This is when we officially realized that the Vancouver airport had become "home."
• Were recognized. In the span of five minutes, one of the immigration officers who helped me walked by on his way to break and waved hello, and another guy who had stamped our immigration cards the night before spotted us from Starbucks and came to talk to us, exclaiming, "you guys are still here?!"
• Had Japanese food for dinner, again.
• Finally checked in. The guard on duty asked us repeatedly if we were sure that we wanted to go past security to our gates at 8:00 for a 1:30 AM flight. "There's so much more to do in the other parts of the airport," he said. We didn't bother explaining that we MEMORIZED the other parts of the airport and were dying for unexplored territory.
• Logged online for 12 minutes (as much a dollar would buy us). I updated my blog and clicked on "Publish Post" within a second after my time ran out. Oops.
• Slept some more.
• Got escorted by security to the plane. Because I didn't have a visa, immigration wanted to make sure that I actually left the country. I could've kissed the lady who escorted me to the plane--because of this, I got to cut ahead of even the first class passengers!
• WHEW!

Belated pictures and an update

Some more pictures of beautiful Dakar and the beautiful Miss Austin. It was great to meet yet another of our friends from Houghton on this trip. Eryn is teaching Bible at Dakar Academy and also played host to us during our stay - feeding us amazing chwarmas and crepes, getting us into her sister's English classes (thanks Ginnny), into dorms, and even rooftop tea parties. The pictures are from our outing on the weekend to the beach where we sat around, ate good food, and I proceeded to get a lovely sunburn (on only half my face...I'm hoping to start a fad).

For the last two weeks, we have been back in Houghton New York, enjoying catching up with friends and family. It's been a nice break and it is hard to belive that this is our last trip.
We are off in a few minutes for Buffalo Airport where we will catch a flight to Jakarta, Indonesia via Chicago, Vancouver and Hong Kong! We will be visiting Bandung Alliance International School.