Magindan Hapon (Good Afternoon)!!!
I am currently in Dolores in the province of East Samar. We spent the night in a church here before going to Can-Avid, the next village over, to set up a base camp there for a few days before going up river. We met with the mayor of Can-Avid yesterday and today to coordinate where we are going to be and when so that he can coordinate with the military to make sure that where we are going is safe. I say that to give comfort to some of you who may be worrying about where we are. It has been kind of chaotic since we left Tacloban yesterday trying to figure out what is going on and where we need to be.

As a team leader it has been even more difficult because that means I am not only the spiritual leader, it means I am handling the team budget, travel, and schedule also. Thankfully I have a great Filipina teammate who has worked with Nehemiah Teams in the past and has been helping with a lot of the logistics.

The weather here has been hot, but I’ll take hot over the flooding we had down in Davao any day. Wet clothes are not fun. I just wanted to let all of you know that everything is still going well.  We will be traveling to five, maybe six, baranguys (villages) that Nehemiah Teams has not been to in the past so I am very excited about that. I can’t wait to see how the Holy Spirit is working in these places.

I hope everything is going well there. The price of rice has gone up considerably to about 50 pesos per kilogram. That is a lot considering the average weekly wage is around 200 pesos which is just under $5 American. However, we have been able to make some good purchases on this, but it is definitely putting some things in perspective. Despite living in the west and pushing multiculturalism in schools, we still have a very narrow worldview.

Thank you all for the continued prayers. I am not sure when I will be able to email again, but feel free to send a reply. I’ll get it when I can. Talk to you later. Palaam.