Doggy Days

Good evening everyone!!! As I (Hannah) write this, our adorable little Dachshund is sitting in my lap calmly surveying our room. Actually, Daisy is eyeing Martha’s sock. For some reason, Daisy has been fascinated with Martha’s dirty sock recently. Every time she finds it she picks it up and carries it to one of us. Just now she managed to separate it from the rest of our laundry and pulled it out of the laundry basket and brought it to me. She certainly is a strange dog but we love her immensely anyway.

Well, we are completely moved into our new/old house. New for Jonathan, Martha, and myself, but not new for Dad as he lived here with Mom, David, and Sara, during their first two years in Iloilo during language study. The house is the perfect size and we are all enjoying the bigger bedrooms. Dad has worked very hard to get us moved in and we are ecstatic because we are unpacking dishes and books that have been in boxes for three years since we left the Philippines in 2005. Dad also built a really big bookshelf for the living room and we have put up all of our theology/Christian living books and biographies. Though we are dreading another monotonous task, we still have to make one more big bookshelf to fit the rest of our science, fiction, and historical fiction books. We have a sofa and a chair, still need to get cushions, curtains, and a rocker. But our rooms are mostly set up and we love this house greatly, its just perfect.

And its great to be in the same neighborhood we used to live in. On our third day here Jonathan went to a changi down the street (its like a little teeny store in a house, very common here). The lady there remembered him and he kept hearing as he walked along, “Oh look, there’s Jonny. Jonny’s back.” At the post office, the lady in charge of packages remembered that we used to bring cakes for the staff Christmas party. When Dad went to the telephone company to get internet for the house, the lady who waited on him recognized his name and realized that she was a playmate of us Moses girls about ten years ago. In a strange way, it’s like we live in a small town, as people do remember us even though we haven’t been here for a while. And yes, we do have internet now! We are very excited about that too! After being without it for five months, we have a new appreciation for it!

Dad has been super busy in the past couple of weeks. We got back from Thailand and then immersed ourselves in moving. Dad has been dividing his time between moving, building bookshelves, and aiding the local church association with disaster relief funds. This past Saturday, Martha, myself, a local pastor, and a friend went to a small town outside Iloilo and distributed relief bags. The bags contained several kilos of rice, two cans of sardines, some salt, some seasonings, some noodles, soap, and candies for the kids. The bags are meant to feed the families until harvest time in a few weeks. It will be a small harvest, for many crops were damaged by the flash flood and winds brought by the typhoon. The children in New Lucena were still smiling even though life has been hard for them since the typhoon. Though not directly affected by the waters, all of the very low income families have been affected by the price hike as food has become less available. It is amazing how rich we are! We are so blessed to have plenty to eat and a dry house, not to mention a refrigerator and airconditioning! There are so many who have so much less than we do.

Please pray for Dad as he tries to balance getting the house in order, managing home schooling, doing leadership training, and distributing relief funds wisely. This weekend he is going travel to Antiquee Province. There was very little news from Antiquee after the typhoon; many said Antiquee was not affected. But after travel resumed we learned that Antiquee was hit very hard in many places, but no one knew because a couple of important bridges were washed away, at least one cell tower was down, and they were without electricity for a few weeks. This Saturday Dad will travel with another pastor to bring food and building supplies for local pastors who will distribute to their members and others.

Jonathan is hoping to build bird cages in the next few weeks and raise parakeets and maybe a few pigeons in the future. Martha hopes someday to try growing herbs or flowers. I am enjoying my last two weeks home and trying to be useful. From what I’ve heard, David and Sara are doing well. Thank you so much for your prayers!

P.S. I am rather sad to end this blogspot as that means I will have to dump Daisy off my lap. She looks so comfortable and asleep but its near bed time for me so she’ll have to go anyway. But first I think Martha will find a way to hide her dirty sock in the laundry basket where Daisy cannot find it.