So, the parts apparently left Alaska at 6:05 am Monday, Philippine time. So that's good news. They should arrive in Manila this evening and hopefully will get through customs quickly! As time goes on more people need their supplies and SIL continues to fly for us-- a wonderful blessing!

This morning Garry took the load out to the hangar and helped Ken load and get going. A family who has been in town for several months is moving back to their tribal location. This is the location I mentioned earlier where the people have not been interested in the Gospel. Please keep praying for these people to see their need and begin to seek God. Pray also for our missionaries, that they would continue to experience God's grace, wisdom, and strength. These days they are making small books out of the lessons they've taught as well as Bible translation. God's Word is powerful and we pray for breakthrough in this community.

Tomorrow Garry plans to take the load out again and likely head into the tribe with Ken as the missionaries would like Garry to look at their lawn mower and a cart that need some repairs.

The boys and I continue with school. This weekend we went to a badminton tournament in a town several hours from here-- yet another cultural experience! On the way someone ran into our car from behind us, so we need to look into getting that fixed also. Thankfully no one was hurt!

Unfortunately, the parts still have not arrived. In fact, I don't believe they've left Arizona yet. Please keep praying!

Garry and the boys are at the hangar today, getting Garry's toolbox set up. Because we are using someone else's hangar Garry wanted to be able to lock his toolbox securely before he took it out there. He got that worked out this week and now is delivering it and an engine hoist to the hangar. The engine hoist is in preparation for installing the new parts when they arrive.

At home we've had a somewhat uneventful week. My Tuesday started out rather interestingly as I was reading e-mail and felt something furry under my foot. When I realized that was fur I quickly moved my foot and watched in horror as a little shrew ran away. Yuk! Actually, I did react very out of proportion to simple critter being under my foot.

Yesterday I had a rather nasty headache most of the day and was sitting here wondering what to do about supper when Bailey texted and offered to bring something. Wow! Now that's a wonderful co-worker. She and Brian delivered a great meal and the guys cleaned up after we'd eaten. Very nice, let me tell you!

It's Tuesday here! This week has been a bit different than we expected already, primarily because we are waiting on parts to get our airplane back in the air. We have a fuel system issue and need parts. Our guys in Arizona are doing everything they can to speed up the process, but some things cannot be rushed. Hopefully by the beginning of next week we'll have the parts and will soon be flying!

We are thankful that SIL is still here this month and are doing some flights for us. Most of our missionaries are back in their locations, hard at work with translation, lesson preparation, and teaching. We pray that the Church would continue to grow in each of our locations here as well as around the world!

Since Garry can't fly he's been catching up on office stuff... seems I've said that before. It really is amazing how much office work a flight program creates! Brian has been helping him get his computer set up.

The boys are on week#4 of school for this quarter and are enjoying it, most days. Kevin has also planted his garden-- pinto beans, green beans, and cucumbers for now. He actually planted some bell peppers, but they didn't come up.

I thought I'd send a quick update on some of the things Garry saw and experienced in the tribal location.

It was amazing to him to see all the materials this missionary team has produced over the years-- information in scroll form for teaching, books, kids books, comic books. The materials in their church library area all laminated and many are bound with an aluminum binding so they can withstand the humidity and travel required to be useful. So many of their books were carefully laid out for those of the tribal people who aren't quite literate-- colors with meaning and other various things.

These girls are coloring the scrolls-- a labor of love for another tribal group's teachers. This church has also bound Bibles for another indigenous church.

One evening some of the believers made dinner for the visitors. They served in on banana leaves and in bowls and expressed how thankful they were to the missionaries for telling them the Gospel, which has dramatically changed their lives. They also recounted how in years past they would have been so embarrassed to feed foreigners their "poor food", but now they understand that in Christ we are all equal and they just counted it a privilege to share.

After dinner the ladies sang a few songs with beautiful harmony. Yes, Garry and the others were incredibly blessed and encouraged by these brothers who are passionate about knowing and loving God-- brothers and sisters with the same heart we have!

Happy Thursday! How has your day been? Here we've been playing catch up... first with some office work for Garry, then school, and this afternoon the kitchen and the office. After several days of being by the radio the house really needed some attention and the fridge was looking pretty empty. I've been in the office, but alas, not taking care of the normal stuff!

Garry is at the hangar trying to fix something on the airplane. I think it wants to quit when he doesn't want it to until it warms up in the mornings.... embarrassing to start up an airplane and have it quit, particularly when you have passengers. And a rather uncomfortable thought for the pilot's wife to! I think he got it fixed now.

I was just downloading his photos from Tuesday and Wednesday and thought you might enjoy this view of the village. I'll post more photos later this week-- yeah, Garry, for actually taking pictures!

The boys have about finished for the week, which is a great feeling. Friday is a bit of a lighter day for them usually. Garry may be able to take one of them with him on his flight tomorrow... that would be fun!

This afternoon Kevin went to help someone by painting little boxes for paper. I don't know how many boxes there were, but it is a bit of a slow job. Hopefully he'll be home soon. Kaleb is trying his hand at making oil paints-- he figures he can save a fortune if he makes them himself. I suspect there may be more to it than grinding up rocks that look the right color, but you never know til you try!

And now, I'm off to make supper. Pork tenderloin with cooked carrots, potatoes, and cucumber salad. You have to love the fresh stuff here!

Quick update-- they are landing at "home base" at 10:50! Thank you, Jesus!

Garry did make it to this destination on Monday. He spent the night to help the missionaries with their electrcial system. Part of it is working now, but it sounds like the rest still isn't functioning properly.

Yesterday they did some more work on the electricity, but Garry was there primarily to wait for the weather. I spent the day between the radio, running outside to look at the sky, and communicating regarding the weather with different people on Skype. There were also a few things to arrange at this end, errands that had to be done yesterday that a friend of ours did because I couldn't leave the house.

This morning (Wednesday) I was so encouraged to see blue skies when I woke up! Garry sent a message that their weather also looked beautiful, so he would plan to take off at 7:30. They got into the airplane before the rain started. It started as a drizzle, but now it's raining hard. His passengers have a flight to Manila tomorrow to catch an international flight this weekend. If they can't take off by noon they'll likely have to hike and take a bus-- a long, hard ordeal.

The boys and I are working on school between dealing with the flight stuff. There are also meals to think of and minor things like that, so I've been doing a lot of running up and down stairs!

The flight Garry was preparing for last week when I wrote is happening as I sit here listening to the crackle of the radio and catching up with you! He actually left early this morning and got to his destination only to find that it was covered in clouds and they couldn't land. Half an hour later he and his passengers were back here at our home base and the passengers drove back to town.

Throughout the morning I was watching the weather satellite updates (Garry doesn't have internet at the hangar) and Lance was trying to contact one of the indigenous people to get a weather report. Lance was finally able to get in touch with someone around 1 pm and the weather satellite was also looking much better, so they decided to try again. This time they made it!

Garry will be on the ground there for a while because there has been a problem with the missionary's electrical system. They aren't sure what was wrong or if it will be easy to fix. But without electricity (theirs is actually a solar system, I believe) they have no form of communication so can't stay "home" very long.

Badminton update...

Many of you have mentioned how often we talk about badminton. It is rather interesting, not primarily for the game, but because of the opportunity it allows us to get to know people and get involved in their lives.

Over the Christmas holidays the boys joined two tournaments. Both were put on by our "Badders Club" and we enjoyed the time we spent with these new friends. The second evening ended on a fun note with a big dinner... roasted pig, chicken, noodles, spring rolls, and a few other traditional dishes. My friends wondered why I hadn't taken some of the crispy pork skin since it is their favorite part of the "lechon". I smiled and evaded the question.

On Friday evening we were invited to another party-- this time a birthday party for the mayor, I believe. They have a house outside of town complete with its own tennis court and badminton court. We were invited through a friend (a normal thing here!) and met the host only when we arrived. His birthday party was a 2-day affair complete with meals, a tennis tournament, badminton play, and I'm not sure what all else. Besides lechon (roasted pig), chicken, sandwiches, and vegetables they also served quail, which is a new meat to me.

Good morning... or evening there! It's a beautiful morning here. Garry and Kevin are off to the hangar this morning, getting things together for next week. Things are looking much better at the hangar and we're looking forward to flying our missionaries back into their tribal locations next week. Here is the fuel we purchased a few weeks ago-- enough for a long while of flying!

Over the holidays we've enjoyed getting some things settled in our house as well as normal Christmas things. Kaleb was particularly excited about decorating sugar cookies, so we made a big batch. We each seem to have our favorite Christmas cookie or square, so I did a fair amount of baking. The truth is, I just love the baking part!

The guys also got the shop set up outside and their tools organized. Now they can use them to make some shelves and do other projects. We have also gotten our antennae up so I can do radio from our house, which is a huge blessing! It is about 50 feet in the air, so that was a bit of a process.

I've also been wanting to share some of what we heard a few weeks ago about our tribal works. Jason shared how the Tala-Andig believers have planned their work week: work 4 days in order to allow 3 days to focus on spiritual things. Those days they have different meetings and praise times. In recent months the people have begun writing their own praise songs and they have a session where they teach songs to the congregation. Because they want the songs to be meaningful they are writing them to convey the truths presented in the teaching-- one song per lesson. As even unbelievers love to sing, this is a great way to present truth as well as remember it! The local church there is also reaching out, doing different teaching outreaches as well as discipleship. What a joy to hear of their growth! Jason and Shirley have finished translating the New Testament and now are working on the Old Testament. Jason told how having the New Testament complete is changing people's lives as they are spending time in the Word.

What a privilege to be a part of God's work here!