Padens in the Philippines

"I lift my eyes to the hills-where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth." Ps. 121: 1-2 “When are you guys leaving?” That’s the big question right now and the one we hear the most from anyone who knows about our journey. Unfortunately, the answer is that we don’t know for sure at this time. This is not only difficult for others to hear but it also makes planning nearly impossible. The reason we don’t have a definite time frame is because we need to be 100% supported before we can purchase plane tickets. The good news is that we are already at 84% of our monthly support and 40% of our outgoing need. For those of you who are visual people see the graph below. Our goal right now is be back in the Philippines, Lord willing, by the end of August so that we can have the kids start school on time. We would hate to transfer them in the middle of the year since we have already moved 5 times in 4 years. All we can do is trust that God will ...

Just another beautiful sunset in the desert. We haven't seen snow in over 3 years! The kids were so excited, that's Josiah's smile by-the-way. "Cheese!" The WHOLE family together! Priceless!!! Hi Everyone!!! Hope this last Christmas and New Years season was great! I know, that greeting is a little late but we are still trying to catch up from all the excitement and busyness during that time. Two of our kids birthdays are thrown in there as well as our Anniversary too!! Needless to say we are hoping things will slow done a little. Life continues to fly right on by as we prepare to head back to the Philippines, Lord willing, this summer. We have been doing a lot of speaking to small groups and churches. We were excited to share with a youth group this week about missions and the Philippines and we look forward to many more opportunities like that coming up soon. I guess this would be a good time remind you that if you would like us to come and share with a group you...

(With some classmates at Nhaya's Field trip for school.) (Having fun learning about being a Fire Fighter!!) (Gilmer was able to travel to Florida to speak at some of our supporting churches. This youth group here has been supporters the whole time (thanks guys!). ) HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!! Thanksgiving celebration is definitely one of our favorites. We celebrated our last three Thanksgivings in the Philippines. No, we didn’t use chicken, we actually had turkey but it was warmer compare to here (we even used an electric fan to keep cool). We are excited this year to have it in the cooler US. It is amazing to notice that you can actually celebrate this event wherever you are in the world, turkey or not, as long as we focus our attention on the object of our celebration and that is God’s faithfulness to us. (Dressing up for the Harvest Festival at our church.) What are we thankful for? Nhaya and Caleb are enjoying their studies, growing so fast. They are also having a great time g...

(Looking down at Tucson, where we live now.) We’re Here!!! Yeah, we’ve been “home” for about a month now. It’s been filled with joyful reunions, unpacking (again!), busyness, heat, and many others. We are so thankful to the Lord for providing all we needed. I know we shouldn’t worry but it was hard not to as we looked at what moving back to the States would be like. We had no house, car, furniture, school for the kids, etc. We are so happy to say that all of that has been taken care of and we are feeling more and more settled everyday!! Praise God. What’s the plan? Many of you have been asking about our plans while we are here and how long that will be. I’ll try to outline a little for you without going into great detail. Yes, we are planning on going back to the Philippines with SEND. Yes, they are closing their base there but we will go back with the Filipino part of SEND called Philippine Sending Council (PSC). The difference is they are not run by missionaries bu...

Top (left to right) Sarah, Elish, Deo, Francis Bottom , Doray, PJ, Gilmer, Froi, and Tintin. "Let’s dream dreams tonight," I said one day. The youth group did just that. Off they went to Mindanao for three weeks a few months later after their first missions trip, they are living their dreams!! I think dreams are about changes, and changes come in all forms! I think the greatest change of all is a changed life. Here are some of those changed lives because of living out dreams. Francis, Has steeped out in faith to minister to the youth of his community through sports. He is also deeply involved in the church ministry leading bible study and teaching kids. Deo, He is now serving the Lord by working in the youth group and teaching kids. He is also trying to finish high school now (he dropped out years ago) and wants to someday be a missionary! Froi, He has been involved in the church before the trip, now dong it in the different level. He wants to be in a full-ti...

Dear Friends, On the refrigerator we have a cute picture hanging up that Nhaya drew a couple weeks ago. It has a drawing of the beach, fish, palm trees, and our whole family. At the top in big letters it says, “I love the Pilippines.” She almost got the spelling right even! When she gave it to me she said, “Mommy, I’m really going to miss the Philippines!” It’s been a hard last few months. With trying to make plans to come back to the States, packing and selling our things, finishing up the ministries we are working in, and trying to say goodbye to friends we made here! We have been having trouble with our email and found out that many of you didn’t know that we had to come back earlier than planned. I guess that some of you didn’t receive our last prayer update. We are sorry about that and if you just scroll down you can see our last prayer update explaining why we have to leave early. We know you’re busy, so we thank you for continuing to read these updates and praying for us. In the...

Dear Friends, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plan to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord.” Jeremiah 29:11-12 We have been thinking a lot about these verses as we went through this last week… Last Monday our area director came up to Baguio City for a meeting with us. We knew that this must be important news, as it’s a 7 hour bus trip to come here from Manila. The short of it is; we were told that we must leave a year early for our home service. This means that we would be coming home this summer sometime. Of course this was not in our plans! We still have another year and more before we were suppose to be finished, but due to our low support level the council here has asked that we go back early and try to raise the support needed. (Many ...