You Are Welcome!

Welcome. What a lovely warm word. There is no better feeling than to be in someones house or someones company .. and feel truly and warmly welcome. Guess what? The Filipinos are the absolute best.

I feel sad for the Filipinos in some senses; take sports. They are non-football playing (can you believe that?), they are not very involved in the world's major sports - rugby, American football, baseball etc. - and, although they are unbelievably skillful at basketball, their height is never going to make them world beaters. In recent Olympics, their ambition is to win a medal. They have only won 3 bronze and 2 silver since 1936 ... the last medal being way back in 1996!

But, if there was an award for being the most welcoming nation, the Philippines would win by a long way. My goodness, they could not have made us more welcome if they tried.

We arrived in Manila last Tuesday night. We spent a couple of days getting our visas organised and buying 'pasalubong' (gifts to Filipino friends after a long journey). This is a normal part of Filipino life .. so we had to buy around 110 gifts for all our staff and kid at Sefton Village. And you thought Christmas shopping was hard!
On Saturday, we picked up our car from the garage and headed up north. Winston was with us and the first thing we encountered was a massive traffic jam on EDSA, the busiest road in the Philippines! One hour! Murder. Never mind, we were soon on our way again.

We travelled up and arrived in Santiago at 4pm. When we turned into Sefton Village, we could not believe it. There were around 100 staff and friends there to welcome us .. with a big 'Welcome Home' banner at the centre of them. they sang songs, gave 'words of encouragement', hugged and kissed us and the tears were flowing. What a welcome! They made a special 'merienda' for us ... Josiah's favourite - Congee! It was great to catch up with everyone and see how much the children had grown!.

Just when we thought it was all over, we discovered that the Women's Ministries in Cornerstone Church had cooked a meal for us and all Sefton staff. Again, it was our favourite stuff - sweet & sour pork, chicken curry. They are stars!

On Sunday we went to Cornerstone Church, and again was given a lovely welcome. Today, we were invited by three different groups of parents from the school to come and have a 'Welcome Merienda' with them. So we went there at 9am, 1pm and 3pm and met three different groups of parents. They sang to us, welcomed us and they had cooked lovely food .. again!

The kids are so happy about going 'home' again. Lydia was off to school this morning ... beaming from ear to ear. Josiah is constantly surrounded by his two big bros - Abe's sons Angel & Renz. The pictures tell their story.

Tomorrow, we have another 'Welcome Home' party at the Bible School. Can you believe it? These Filipinos might not be the sportiest folk on this world ... but they have to be the nicest, kindest, most hospitable, caring and lovely people God has ever placed on this earth.

Don't believe me? Come on over ...

You are, and will be, made very welcome!

A Week from Now...

... me and Mary will be sitting in a British Airways 747 en-route to Hong Kong. Our two little darlings will be fast asleep and will proceed to sleep the remainder of the flight. Daddy will assure the air hostess that both children, even though they are fast asleep, definitely absolutely want their meals!!

That's the theory anyway. As we all know ... the best laid plans o' mice and men go aft aglay! Can't believe it! Where on earth has 6 months gone? I know it is very corny to write this (have you noticed that every Newsletter written by anybody in the whole wide world always starts with this question), but it is true. A lot has happened in the last 6 months - good, bad and ugly. My observations and thoughts will be written at a further date. Just to keep you up to speed, here is what has been happening with me & us:

* Great Christmas with Mary's family in Aberdeen. Great food, lots of fun and lots of presents!

* Boxing Day - brilliant! Saw the Dons play unbelievable football against Killie at Pittodrie. Best I've seen them for years. Huge pleasure of going with Bruce and Mary's dad david ... first time he'd been there for 12 years. The Dons put on a show for him and won 3-1.

* Sunday 31st - we all drove down to (know where that is?) where Mary had a reunion with her 3 best friends that she studied with at Glasgow Uni way back in the good old days. They are all married, have kids and you could imagine the amount of talking 4 Speech & Language Therapists do to catch up on 6 years of news!! Aaaaagghh! Actually, it was a great day, but my ears have still not recovered.

* Spent Hogmanay at Fraserburgh AoG followed by going to the Elim church. Great to spend a special time with special people.

* New Year at my mum & dad's. Again, the food was out of this world. MMmmm. Great to spend time with my brothers et al.

* Busy 1st weekend of the year. Went through to Peterhead Baptist church for a 'Buttery Morning" For all the uneducated folk reading this blog, a buttery can be called "a roll, a scone and a multitude of other names, but basically it is a dod o'fat mixed with flour. Fattening but delicious. The lovely ladies at PBC have been knitting like mad and have also been collecting clothes and donations for Sefton Village. We gave 3 short presentations in the main hall while everyone else enjoyed their butteries. Good idea.

* At night, I had the honour of preaching at Teen Challenge Sunnybrae's Graduation Night at Aberdeen AoG. What a night! From the very 1st song we could feel the presence of God. Nikki Gardiner sang beautifully and the two guys who were graduating testified. Amazing. God alone can truly transform lives. I spoke about David's Mighty Men and really felt the presence of God with me as I spoke. Thank you Lord.

* On Sunday evening I had the pleasure of preaching at the Elim Church in Fraserburgh. I really felt the Lord prompting me to speak about how God Uses Broken People. A real breakthrough at the end of the meeting. Beautiful.

* I had to drive down to Central Belt on Tuesday to tie some things up. Met up with my bro David, Gavin, Kenny & Ben to watch Aberdeen v Hibs at Pittodrie. Not so good, but very enjoyable.

* This last weekend we have had the David family with us - Andrew, Rachel and wee Hannah. Had a great time. Took them around Moray Firth on Friday (they LOVED Gamrie - especially my Aunty Helen's homemade soup!!) and on Saturday all of us headed down to Edinburgh. Our main purpose was to say goodbye to the folk in Whitburn. Had a great Sunday - lovely lunch at Norman & Gillian (our agents). After 15 months of trying .. I bought a new guitar! It is a beautiful Takamine and I love it. Amazingly, I bought it for less than half price. You wouldn't believe what happened ...


* This week has been so busy. We have taken all our stuff out of the house we were staying in, packed everything away to either Fraserburgh, Philippines or Wick. Mary has washed, ironed, packed, cleaned the whole week. Finally, we finished everything yesterday. It is so complicated to live in UK - BT, Electricity, Gas, Sky, Child Benefit etc. etc.

* We left Fraserburgh at 7pm last night and, to be honest, I was struggling to keep my eyes open. Mary drove from Fochabers to Inverness, bless her. After my 20 minute snore I was fine again. Arrived in Wick just after 11pm - not bad. David & Wilma were waiting and were delighted to see the kids (who had slept all the way!) However, it wasn't until after 2am that we managed to get them asleep (the kids, not the grandparents!)

So here we are. Enjoying Wick again. Can you believe it ... Wick has a massive Tescos!!!!!! What is going on? Has Tescos got a mandate to rule the world? Wick? Anyway, it is a fantastic boost to the town. We will go back to Fraserburgh on Saturday, I am preaching at Fraserburgh AoG on Sunday morning and then hearing my close friend Ben preach at the Elim Church Sunday night.

Then, next day, we will be sitting in the plane.

One week from now ...