The Philippines

On January 11 we will be getting on a plane to fly across the ocean to the Philippine islands for a 3 month short term mission trip as a family.

...Almost seven years ago we were in Hanoi, Vietnam for three weeks adopting our sweet baby girl. We loved our time in Vietnam and while we were there a dream started of doing short term missions during Steve's off season. Now seven years, many trips around the world to Vietnam, Korea, and Sierra Leone, and four adoptions later we are finally realizing this dream.

Back then we thought "someday when the kids are grown and gone" we will go on a short term mission trip...but God had other plans. This past year we began to feel differently about taking our family on a mission trip and decided to take a step of faith in that direction.

Our goals for our trip:
--Educate our family about what God is doing in another part of the world
--Learn that life is not just about us and the latest toys and fashions
--Learn about and see examples of Christians serving others
--Practice serving others together as a family
--Bring back what we learned

Are we ready for this task? We are willing to have God use us any way He chooses.

We will start our adventure (as we like to call it) with a long airplane ride across the Pacific Ocean with only one stopover before we land in Manila, but then we will get aboard another plane that will take us to Davao. Manila is the largest city in the Philippines located on the island of Luzon; Davao is the next largest city located on the southern end of the island of Mindanao.

Davao is where our friends Joe and Jennifer Germain now call home as Jennifer attends New Life International School of Midwifery. We will be spending about 7 weeks with them. During our time there we plan to get involved in various mission opportunities both in Davao and outside the city in Malaybalay. Our goal though is to see what God is doing in the lives of our friends and other missionaries as they serve in Davao, and to hopefully be an encouragement to them.

From Davao we will go back to Manila around the first of March to catch up with Randy and Marla Weisser (Stacey's aunt and uncle) and Paula Haunschild, to see what they are involved in and get a small taste of what it is like living in the Philippines.

We have made a contact for our time in both Davao and Manila to be involved in a Children's Home which is one of our big areas of interest. At the Children's Home in Manila we will be organizing and leading a 5 day VBS for about 70 kids! We are planning and preparing now for what we will need to pull that off!! If you would like to see where we will be helping out you can go to www.kidsinternationalministries.org

We are all very excited about our upcoming adventure together as a family! We would love for you to come along side us with your prayers as we embark on this journey.