February Prayer Update

Dear Prayer Partners,

These last couple months have been overwhelming for us. Well… as I think about it, this last year and a half while we have been here in language school has been overwhelming. We want to thank you for your part in helping us get through with your prayers. We are only here because we know that this is where God wants us, not because it’s easy. Sometime we have to keep reminding ourselves of this on a particularly hard day.

So much has happened this last month or so that it is hard to recap for you. We had Josiah, got a different car, had our second Christmas away from home, my Mom came to help for a month, we traveled to Baguio looking for a house, Gilmer’s brother left, we started packing to move, went to a team planning retreat, and so many little things I can’t even say.

Needless to say, you get the picture – we have been busy! That is also why we have not been able to update more like we wanted to. We do want to make sure that we say thank you to all who responded when we had the baby. We are sorry that we have not had a chance to reply to each of you individually, but want to make sure that you know how much it means to us that you sent a short note. You might not realize it but it is so refreshing to hear from home and those praying for us. Again thank you.

So having said all that, this month we will keep our prayer letter short and sweet with just prayer and praises. We do look forward to sharing so many more things about the Philippines and our time here with you, but that will have to wait until a later time.

Praise:

• Josiah’s birth went well and he is a healthy growing little guy. Julie also healed well and is able to resume normal activity (which is good for the moving part).


• We found a house in Baguio (six hours north) that we think will be good for our family for the next couple years and were able to work out the details with the owner (it took a while and we thought that we weren’t going to be able to get that house).


• We really like the new team that we are going to be working with. We just got back from a planning retreat and enjoyed getting to know them.


• Caleb is ok after he slipped and hit his head on a step at the water slide at the retreat mentioned above. He had to get three stitches. There was a hospital close and we were able to get in and out even though the actually procedure was quite traumatic (maybe for Mommy as much as Caleb!). We are thankful it was not worse.


• We were able to get a bigger van to seat all the kids in their car seats. It is also an automatic which is so nice as Baguio is much like the streets in San Francisco, very steep! We still need to sell the other one so please pray for a buyer soon.
  
  Prayer:
  


• For packing and moving this week. We move Friday and still feel like we have so much to get done. Not easy with three kids!


• Adjustments in our new city, church, and school. As of now we can’t get to our new house when we move because we aren’t familiar with the city! – Funny yes, but a picture of how clueless we are. We did look at a small school next to our new house that will be good for Nhaya and Caleb during the next two months they have left of school. (Summer break here is April and May). Gilmer will be busy trying to find out where he fits into the team and what ministries are best for him. Right now we think it will mostly be youth work. Julie will be trying to unpack and be a Mommy of three kids.


• We are returning to the States in April and May for a short deputation time and also for Gilmer to renew some paperwork for his permanent residence visa (green card). We are excited to be back for a couple months but there is so much work involved in scheduling etc. We would love to share what God has been doing in our lives and that of the Filipinos with you when we are there. Unfortunately since this is a short trip we are only going to be in Arizona, so if you would like us to come and share, please let us know as soon as you can so we can get our schedule down. Here are the dates we will be available:
  April 4th - 24th and then May 11th – 18th.

li>With returning to Arizona there are logistics that need to be worked out. Please pray that we can find a car to use while we are there and also housing in Tucson for a couple weeks since Julie’s parents live a little too far from all the appointments we will have. If you know of anyone that might be willing to let us use or rent their vehicle please let us know, remember we will have three car seats so it needs to be able to fit those.


• We have a lot of paperwork that needs to be taken care of before we can come back to the States. Josiah needs his passport and citizenship papers worked out. Nhaya needs her passport renewed. All of that requires a lot of work and trips to the American Embassy in Manila. Things like that are not easy in this country. It seems like everything takes at least twice as long to accomplish. For example two weeks ago we went to Manila (which is one hour away) at 9am for a doctor’s appointment and a stop at our SEND office and ended up not coming home until after 8pm. This is due to the traffic, waiting (no appointments allowed), and crowds.

We hope that you and your families are doing well, and until next time, may God bless you.

Your Partners in Reaching the Filipinos,

Gilmer and Julie Paden

New address:
Gilmer and Julie Paden
P.O. Box 1255,
2600 Baguio City
Philippines

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Josiah at 6 weeks

My Mom and Gilmer's brother during Caleb's birthday at the mall

Our cute boys!

The kids at Nhaya's school were so excited to see Josiah. See the crowd?

We thought it was so funny how interested they were. This is our new house, it's a duplex so the left side is ours.


Nana (my Mom) and Nhaya. They loved having her here and showing her their life in the Philippines




Nhaya and Caleb at an outreach that we went to in Gilmer's old church planting area. A short term team from Canada was here doing a presentation.