Off to the Philippines...

I am writing this from the lobby of our Philippines hotel. I honestly cannot believe I am here. But I am grateful to be here. I know God has some big things in store for us while we are here.

Here is just a recap of what has happened on our trip so far.

Got to Seattle airport around 10:30am on Monday. We boarded our flight to Tokyo Japan around 1 pm. It was a great flight. We had a lot of fun on the plane since our whole group of students and staff sat in the same area of the plane. I really thought I would sleep on the 11 hour flight. But I didn't. We were following the sun west so it never got dark. It was like a never ending day. It was really strange. We crossed the international date line and that threw everyone for a loop. We couldn't figure out what time it was or even what day it was. We actually skipped the remainder of Monday afternoon and picked up sometime around Tuesday afternoon. I guess that is a day that never existed. But for never existing, we sure had some crazy things happen (I'll talk about this later...)

We landed in Tokyo about 5pm Tuesday evening (about 2am Tuesday morning Canada time). We had an hour and a half lay over that gave us time to tour around the Tokyo airport. All of us really wished we could go out of the airport to say we had actually been in Japan, but the airport would have to suffice. Once we boarded the plane for the last 5 hour flight to Manila, we sat on the ground for about 45 minutes. I was so tired, I fell asleep before we took off. About half an hour after take off, I woke up to a frantic announcement from the pilot ordering all flight attendants to immediately go to their jumpseats and buckle up. I knew this never happens unless there is turbulence, but there was no turbulence, so I immediately suspected something was very wrong. Within minutes, the flight attendants started running up and down the aisles and where ordering everyone to stay in their upright seats and buckle up. I started to get really nervous. My heart started racing and I began praying...hard. I knew that with so many of us on board going to the Philippines to do a work for God that the devil was surely mad and would try to stop us. While praying, the emergency lights went on at all the emergency exits. I was just praying that we weren't going to have to do a water landing. Within about 15-20 minutes, I saw we were very low to the ground and realized we were making an emergency landing. When we touched down, I saw quite a number of fire trucks all along the run way anticipating our arrival. It was only after we landed that the captain explained they had smelled smoke (I had smelled something really strange earlier that smelled like something was burning) and immediately took precautions for an onboard fire. He radioed back to Tokyo requesting clearance for an emergency landing. The fire trucks met us at the end of the runway and followed us all the way to the terminal to make sure a fire didn't break out.

When we got off the plane, there were dozens of security agents in full Japanese uniform and men in firesuits and other safety people lining both sides of the walkway waiting for us to get off so they could investigate. It was an eery feeling...If it wasn't for the emergency, it would have felt like we were being royally welcomed into Japan. When we got off, we could see about 7 or 8 firetrucks right by the plane. Newscasters where there when we got off but it wasn't until later that I realized we had made national headline news. I understand CNN had a television report about the incident as well as Fox News. Here is just a link if you want to read about it. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,332615,00.html

Since they couldn't get us another flight that night they put us into a hotel for the night. Japan has new regulations for letting people into their country so we had to go through the whole process of getting a visitors visa. By the time we got in it was about 1am.(We wanted to just sleep in the airport, but they wouldn't let us.) We ate supper when we got to the hotel and then slept for 2 1/2 hours before we headed back to the airport. Our flight to Manila was uneventful and we landed around noon. It was good to finally be here.

I don't even know how to describe what I am seeing here. There is such a contrast in how people live. There is a huge mall just down the road that has prices that are more expensive than the states. And then just down the street is the worst squaller, filth, and poverty you can imagine... It is really sad. In fact, we have been told that the average person makes about $7-$9 US dollars every day. I don't know how they afford to shop for things at the big mall...

Tonight the meetings start. I am so excited to see how diligent these young people are in getting their sermons ready to preach. I am eager to travel to each of the different sites to watch them all preach.

Please continue to pray for us that God will bless our work here. I know God will work in marvelous ways! (I will have to post some pictures later...)

God is good...

Just wanted to update everyone on my last post. The more the story of Trevor's accident unfolded this week, the more we saw God's hand in protecting him. I really want to thank everyone for their prayers over the last week. I believe God heard each one and used them to do something great for Trevor this week.

Just an update on the accident itself. Trevor and his friend John went to the pond Sabbath night to go swimming. One part of the pond is quite deep while other parts are shallow. Trevor thought he remembered where the deep part was but misjudged and dove into the shallow part instead. His friend jumped in (he didn't dive in) right after Trevor and immediately popped up to the surface but it took Trevor a little while to surface. When he finally came to the surface, he yelled out to John and then went back under. John went down to get him and brought him up to the surface for air. He brought him over the bank and Trevor could hardly move. It is a good thing that John was there otherwise, who knows what might have happened.

The update on his injuries include a break at C4 and swelling in his spinal cord. He has no sensation of cold on his left side and still has tingling and numbness in both arms. He can't lift his arms very high either. Thankfully a lot of his pain has subsided and when I saw him yesterday, he hadn't taken any pain medication since the previous day.

Anyway, several of us went to the hospital yesterday morning to see him before he was discharged at noon. All the doctors have been amazed with his progress. They commented that they haven't seen anyone with his type of injuries leave the hospital so soon. They have warned him though that any further damage to the neck could be extremely serious. He will be going home for several weeks to give his neck time to heal and will have to wear a neck brace for nearly 6 weeks.

Here are just a few photos of us at the hospital... I have to explain about the "safety first" creatures. Trevor and John are always begging me to let them blow up something in the laboratory and I always have to caution them to be safe. We always use a slogan in the laboratory called "safety first." I had no idea where that came from until in church on Sabbath the speaker was talking about a chemist whose last name was First. He was always so concerned about being safe that he would wear lab glasses, coat, boots, safety belt, helmet, etc. His fellow associates nicknamed him "Safety First" and that name is now used all the time in the laboratory. So then it became a joke between Trevor and I about "safety first." After this whole pond incident, I thought Trevor needed to be reminded about that more often, so I made him something to always remember it. Also, as a little memento, each of us signed his neck brace... can't say I've ever done that before!

Then one of my other students decided he would try out Trevor's bed. And after all, since we were on the pediatrics floor, he thought a teddy bear and thumb would be a nice addition. (We all laughed when the nurse came in to get Trevor's breakfast tray. She looked right at Jerome in the bed and asked him if he was finished with it. Jerome played right along with it... I wonder if she finally realized he wasn't the one with the neck brace.)

Anyway, that is just the latest update. All in all, we see how God blessed through it all since it could have been much more serious than it was. Thank you again to all those who uplifted him in prayer.

The devil attacks once again...

It seems that just in the past few months, there has been one accident after the other and one emergency after the other. In the past few months, the tally seems to be getting longer and longer: a death over Christmas, three friends admitted to the hospital (some with very serious, life-threatening conditions), at least three bad car accidents (all of which could have resulted in a death), in addition to several other incidents with people that I have heard about but don't know personally. And I know this isn't even the whole list. I think there have been more that I can't remember.

And then Sabbath night another one happened... One of my junior students went diving into the pond here on campus. It is quite deep and has been dove into before, but this time something went wrong and he hit his head on the bottom of the pond. (I am not sure if the pond is lower than normal or if he just dove into a more shallow part). Anyway, he fractured his neck in three places, traumatized his back, and inquired his wrist as well. The doctors are struggling to find where the numbness and pain is occurring in his arms. They can't trace it yet to the fractures in his neck and are trying to decide if it is nerve damage elsewhere in his body. Tomorrow he goes in for a MRI to see what trauma has occurred to his spinal cord.

Even in spite of it all, God has been good. They thought they were going to have to take him into surgery Sunday to repair the fractures in his neck, but decided that was not necessary. They thought he had severe back inquiry due to the pain he was experiencing, but realized it was a result of being strapped to the backboard for so long. Thankfully today he was able to get a little relief from the pain due to the high pain killers he is on.

Right now, it looks like he will be in the hospital for most of week. Then after that, none of us are sure what will happen. He will have to wear a neck brace for at least six weeks to allow the neck to heal properly. We are just praying that the recovery will not take too long.

Anyway, please keep Trevor in your prayers that he will have a complete recovery. As a teacher, it is difficult to see one of your students go through something like this and Trevor is one of the students here that is closest to me so it makes it really tough. I just thank God that he was not killed or completely paralyzed.

I am seeing more and more how real the great controversy between Christ and Satan really is. I believe the devil knows his time is short and he is doing his best to attack God's children and cause them suffering, pain, and heartache. But whatever he tries to do, let's not let him win! In the end, Christ will be victorious!