Things have grown busier for us here in Maria Aurora. It's an exciting time. 

This week we've gotten a large taste of Filipino culture. One of our neighbors, 80 year old Nana Alice, passed away. Funerals and the grieving process are handled quite differently here than in the U.S. The embalmed body is brought back to the home where a wake is held for the mourning family. Nana Alice's wake lasted 5 days. Typically they last 9 or 10 days and it is not uncommon to be 14 days long! The funeral home sets up a nice display around the casket in the family's living room (yes, the casket is kept in the home through the entire wake). Each night there is a service where a local pastor ( or leader for non-believers) will give a message along with some singing. Afterwards a merienda (tagalog for snack) is provided and games such as chess, scrabble, and cards are played until wee hours of the morning. Everyday life is literally put on hold until the completion of the wake. So, since Saturday we have been participating in the wake of Nana Alice's sweet family. Today we attended the funeral and then walked 3 miles to the cemetery for the burial service. Obviously this was a sad time for our community, however we've seen the Lord really use it to allow us to grow stronger relationships with our neighbors and friends. Playing speed scrabble for hours on end inevitably strengthens friendships!

Just for a little more insight into Filipino culture: Nana Alice's family is a Christian family. However, the Catholics, Spiritists, cultists, etc. in the area also include much alcohol and gambling at their wakes. As you can imagine, by the 9th or 10th day many fights break out. Also, there is actually a Filipino law stating that public gambling can only take place in the presence of a corpse! This causes much corruption such as renting corpses for the sake of gambling. There are many strongholds here in the Philippines and we are very thankful our first wake was the wake of a Christ following family.

Although the wake has taken up much of our time lately, I'll share a few highlights of other things that have been going on:

• We met with some of the college students and young adults who are believers to find out who is interested in discipleship. We learned that many of them also want help with their conversational english. We came up with this graph of times and phone numbers so we can begin meeting with them.

•  We made flower arrangements for Nana Alice's family. How beautiful are these! They found some banana tree stalks, trimmed them down, and stuck the flowers in them. All these flowers came from the back yard!

•  A guy came over to harvest buko (young coonut). He climbed these super tall trees without being tied to anything! He would simply gather them and lower them down by a rope. The second photo is the harvested buko. It makes a delicious drink!

•  We got bicycles!! I can't even begin to tell you how funny it was buying these. We bought used bikes to save some pesos and once we picked out the ones we liked, they began fixing all the repairs that they needed haha. None of the bikes were in selling condition so we waited as they replaced chains, aired tires, etc. But we're excited to use these to get around town. And check out the awesome baskets to carry things home from the market! They have bells too :)

•  We celebrated Josh's birthday! He's 25! Lilia made him a yummy banana nut cake and I gave him his own bolo (machete). It was fun to celebrate here.  

• We went to a Chinese buffet where they actually charge you if you leave any food on your plate. Happy plates only! 

• Meet Gerlie below. Her english is improving all the time and we are excited to know her more.  Her desire to be discipled in the Lord is really exciting! We can't wait to see what the Lord does in her and where He calls her to make disciples as well. 

 

• We planted a small garden of okra, tomatoes, and bok choy. I've never gardened before and am quite certain that I don't have a green thumb. Hopefully the fertile ground here will help me! 

•  These cuties just discovered that we are neighbors. They are now visiting all the time, practicing their english phrases, giggling, picking fruit, and asking for "just 1 more picture".

• We experienced our first scheduled power outage where they turn the power off from 6am-6pm in order to shut down those who are stealing electricity. Makes for a hot day when the electric fans do not work! But it also creates a greater appreciation for the days when the fans do work.
• Our own Trek-X discipleship has begun. We are reading The Cost of Discipleship and skyping with Chris White (who discipled us in Nashville). We're also trying to allow time for the three of us to spend time in the Word together, pray together and memorize Scripture together on a regular basis. 

The Lord is teaching us how to rely on Him for direction and to wait on His good timing for things to fall into place. A pastor friend once taught us that the things of God are a slow process. Pray for us to wait on Him and seek His glorious face.

"So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us." 1 Thessalonians 2:8