Gamay lang..

Gamay lang bascially is translated "just small". Though the work I am doing here in Cebu isn't 'just small', its refers more to my language and cultural knowledge. Also just this week I started to learn to play guitar. We have one sitting in our house so I finally decided to learn. I taught myself a few chords, but sought the help of a young Filipina girl named Reizel who sleeps over at our house once a week when we have a Bible study on Tuesday nights. Since tuesday, I haven't been able to put it down!! I have found something I enjoy, its a way for me to de-stress. I even was able to learn a song "Through it all" well enough to play and sing in chapel just today!

These last few weeks have been great. Many blessings, many chances to learn new things. I'm really making some progress in my langauge study. I listen to the radio everyday and live with Cebuano speakers, so my understanding has gone way up. Like the other night, I was invited to missions fundraising party that we have to take motorbikes up a hill to. So the driver was asking me a bunch of questions in Cebuano, and I knew everything he was saying and I was even able to speak a little back to him in Cebuano. It feels like a little victory everytime I am able to do that. Which in that case resulted in him asking to marry me...so when that happens I usually don't answer or switch back to English!

Pastor Bong, who is the leader of my weekend ministry at Stepping Stones, and his wife have a 9 month old baby named Samuel who has become the love and joy of my life. He is the cutest baby alive and he loves my blonde hair. He always grabs for it with his little chubby baby hands and drools and chews it. It's quite precious really. The ministry is going really well. Pastor wants me to be training the youth in worship and also training others to teaching sunday school, so when I go they can continue. I'm looking forward to these seminars I will be able to lead. This weekend I will be sleeping over in the community of Didos, where a lot of the schloarship kids live.

At VAST this last week they were in the middle of celebrating their foundation day. On Monday, September 22, was the 16th anniversary of VAST and all the allumi were invited to come to the campus and play games, fellowship, with all the current students and staff. There were teams set up and I was invited to join in the celebration. I was able to sleep over in the dorms on Sunday night and stay all day monday where all the competitions took place. In the evening was a formal banquet. So I bought myself a dress and had a lot of fun with all the students and allumni.

Here's a picture of us at the banquet! I am with my ate Rose Marie who is one of my roomates, Jay an intern and Dennis, another intern. ---->>

Then tuesday was an intern day at our house which Rhonda hosted and led. All of the Bible school interns of VAST (and me, the intern from Canada) had a day together of fellowship, prayer, goal setting, sharing and games. It was great to meet them all and encouarge each other in our minstries. Just this morning I was back at VAST speaking at Chapel. It went really well. I spoke about stepping out of our comfort zones. And I demostrated that by stepping way out of my comfort and playing the guitar in front of people for the first time ever!
Then saturday and sunday I'm back at Stepping Stones, teaching the kids, teaching Sunday School and leading youth group.

This is a picture with me and some of the kids of Didos ---->>>

Praise:
I was able to find resources and time to get a big assignment done for my onSite requirements.
My lanugage study is going well.
That I am learning guitar quickly.

Pray:
For the ministries of Stepping Stones and Padala.
Amoungst all of the busyness, that I really find time to give myself a break from everything once a week.

God is so good!

Maayong Gabii one and all! You have all been in my thoughts and prayers. It is September already, can you believe it?! I have now been in the Philippines for almost two months and since looking back to my last blog, so much has happened in these last few weeks. Ginny is now safely back in Canada. She headed back early last week. Rhonda and I accompanied her to Manila to see her off. So now its just me and Rhonda back in Cebu City gearing up for new ministries. I am typing this from a Baptist missionary guest house here in the city with our Japanese missions team that we our hosting for the week. They have come to see the ministries Rhonda and Pastor Glemar (the partner in PADALA ministry with Rhonda) are leading in Cebu and work alongside us in livelihood projects with the poor. They arrived on Tuesday and leave on Saturday, so we will just have a short visit before they head back home to Tokyo. It has been great having them.
In my last post, I mentioned our mission team was preparing for a trip to the island of Bohol for a four day outreach and training experience. It went very well. We traveled there safely and met up with pastor Lito and his team to begin our extremely busy, but productive trip. We taught in schools, led various kids clubs', did feedings, helped in an evangelistic crusade, led Bible Studies and witnessed 10 people come to the Lord! God is good. And in the midst of all that, we even managed to take some time to see the Chocolate Hills of course! It was a great trip and one I was so blessed to be part of.
I am still going strong in my language study. I'm finding lots of avenues to practice what I'm learning. I find that I can understand a lot more than I can speak. When I listen to the radio for example, I can now understand quite a lot of what is being said. But ask me to repeat it, and that's another story.
Last Sunday, Rhonda and I met with the pastor I will be working with every weekend at the ministry of Stepping Stones. Him and his wife and baby live at Stepping Stones and help run the scholarship program for dozens and dozens of children every Saturday. He is also the pastor of the Alliance Church in the same neighborhood which I will be helping teach Sunday School and lead worship at on the Sundays I will be there. On Saturdays I will help teach the scholars during the day and in the evenings work alongside another Bible College student named Mark with the youth group. Since this ministry is about an hour away from where I am living in Cebu City, I will be sleeping over every Saturday night being hosted by some of the Filipino families of the children I will be teaching. I'm really looking forward to this and being able to live and work in this community who are so excited to have me.
Praise God that we saw (at least) 10 people come to the Lord during our missions trip to Bohol and praise God for our Japanese visitors who are bringing a lot of new ideas and blessings for the ministries here.
Please pray for continued safety and health. These last few weeks I have been sick on and off. I figure I am still really adjusting to the food and climate.
Also for my language study, that I continue to pick it up quickly and have the patience to learn even when its really tough.
Thank you for reading. You are in my thoughts as many of your are preparing to go back to school and back to work this September.
Blessings on you all.
Amanda
p.s. i have put some new pictures up on this blog for you. I apologize some are really small. I will continue to put more up as they come!