Jetlag Anyone???

Hello friends! So first of all, I just realized that I completely meant to blog about going to the Philippines before I left, but don't ya know I didn't get to it....oopsie! And then I "planned" to blog right away when we got home, but that didn't happen either! I will blame it on jet lag :) That stuff is a KILLER!! I couldn't figure out what time it was for about 2 weeks! Sheesh! I don't know what my excuse is for the other few weeks?!? Ummmm- how bout......ummmm......nope, I got nothin. Anyone else have an excuse for me?

Anyway, for those of you who didn't know, I had the most fortunate opportunity to go the Philippines for two weeks with the entire Mariano Family (minus the boys who stayed with my momma & grandmomma- THANK YOU)! It was amazing! Micah's dad grew up in Manilla, so we were all able to meet his family-sister, brothers, neices, & nephews- and some of his high school friends. We LOVE his family! They all got up at 3:30am to make sure they were at the airport to welcome us...talk about sacrifice! They were all so hospitable and made every effort to make sure we were well fed :) One of my favorite moments was when we got to meet Lakan's uncle who saved his family from a terrible flood when they were very young; Lakan was 5. His uncle, who happened to not go into work that day and who happened to be a great swimmer and only swimmer in the family, found a garden hose and would tie it from one house to another. Then he would take each member of the family one by one until they all reached that house and then do it all over again until the family was safe from the flood. WOW! It was precious to watch my father-in-law interact with his uncle. I felt honored to have been there. It was a bit of an experience traveling there as we rented a jeepney (see pics) so we could all ride together. Unfortunately, we hit some MAJOR traffic the ENTIRE way to the province and it took us 4 hours for what should have been less than a 2 hour drive. This was one of the few times I was thankful that a certain 3 1/2 and 2 1/2 year old were not with us ;) Anyhoo- it was completely worth the trip and such a blessing to watch Lakan reunite with the man who saved his life. He said several times, "If he had not saved us, none of us would be here. God used him to save our family." Isn't it wonderful how God ordains every event in our lives! Very cool.

We spent about a week in Manilla, then flew to Cagayan de Oro (another island). Did you know that the Philippines is made up of over 7000 islands!?!?! I bet Ashley Honea does! Cagayan was much more rural than Manilla, which I happened to love. There were still a lot of people and CRAZY drivers, but it seemed much more "hometown" to me than the humongous city of Manilla. Micah did a concert in Cagayan to help raise funds for a new building. His brother, sister, and a friend of ours also played with him. I think we were all surprised at how much work and how big the event would be; there were probably about 500ish (maybe more) that attended the concert! They even advertised it on the radio...I always knew my hubby was a super star :) The people from the church were amazing and went to every length to make sure we were all taken care of ;) Ya'll are awesome!!

I must say that one of my favorite highlights of the trip was getting to meet with some people from the Philippines that our church partners with. Unfortunately, I cannot divulge much information via internet for security reasons :( But they were all incredibly amazing people and I am completely humbled by their faith and dedication to the Lord! I will tell you that I "thought" I knew what it meant to claim that Christ is sufficient and that I "count all things loss for the sake of knowing" Him, but good night nurse if God didn't open my eyes!!! These people literally risk their lives to share the good news of Christ and they consider it pure joy ;) And here I am scared to invite the sweet little old man that lives across from us (not you Ryan...you are to our right ;) ) to church!! HELLO!!?!? Anyway, it was a blessing in every way shape and form!

I don't have my pictures on my computer yet, surprise....but if you are on Facebook, you can check them out on my profile via my mother-in-law's photo album. I will work on posting some on here as well!

Hope all of you are doing great! I have missed keeping up with all of you ;)