The Tour!!

Here I am typing the entry on Monday afternoon at about 3:40. The Philippians is 13 1/2 hours ahead of Des Moines, Iowa in time. Let me tell you that it really does matter when it comes to figuring the sleeping schedule out. It gets better each day and last night I woke up at about 5:30 in the morning. Not bad compared to the morning before when I woke up at 2 and couldn't get back to sleep. We left Sunday morning at 6 am for a tour of the churches east of Butuan City, we got back to the FM Mission house about 12-14 hours later. I took many pictures and will attach some at the end so you can see what I'm talking about. One of the interesting things is that nearly every church has a school or feeding program for the children. Without the additional aid many of the children wouldn't have a warm meal or an education. Pastor Jim and I both preached twice yesteday in different churches. I was blessed to be able to preach the same message I preached to you several weeks ago regarding Jehosaphat and that the battle belonged to God. It was well received and it got better by the time I had preached it for the third time. We traveled to church out in the jungle and it was surrounded by a road and "houses" of people who lived their. As Americans we would see their living conditions as deplorable but they have learned to accept them as normal. Conditions such as no running water, which means no indoor plumbing which means no toilet or sink to wash up in. They had a community toilet and banana leaves for toilet paper. Their houses are made of whatever lumber they could find and the roof was made of grass or palm leaves. But there was no mistaking their love for the Lord and their ability to bring others to the Kingdom of God. They love Jesus flat out and are gracious loving people who really don't need much more than that. They eike out an existence by earning about 300 or 400 pesos a month. That amounts to about 9-10 dollars a day. That's working for about 10-12 hours a day 7 days a week, maybe 6. But always have more than enough money to support the church. Why? Because they love Jesus. One of the churches we visited produced a children's program and 115 children participated. I videotaped one of their songs, it was really sweet, maybe we'll be able to show it when I get home. At all of the nine churches we visited we were fed, by the time we got home we were stuffed to the gills and couldn't drink another bottle of water. The people have treated us like royalty and have been so very gracious, it's humbling beyond description. God is so good to take such good care of us while we're away. Well I think that's it, I'm going to add pictures to this blog and a video to the church facebook page so be sure and look. Take care and we'll see you in about a week and a half.