Happy New Year to all. Here is a quick update from Manila. We arrived yesterday afternoon and were met by Rambie (Syrine’s boyfriend whom we are supporting in seminary here. As expected I am up early this morning (3 AM). It takes a while to recover from a trip to the other side of the globe. But I like mornings and it is quiet and cool here right now. Our trip was long (about 40 hours start to finish) but otherwise uneventful. Ginny came down with a sinus infection (high fever and all) 2 days before our departure so we had to get her on antibiotic for the trip. She did really well and is recovering well from the infection. It is good to be back in the Philippines. We plan to spend today in Manila just relaxing and meeting some friends and then head up north to the Kalinga province where we started our translation work almost 40 years ago. This is the coolest month of the year. Yesterday it was about 30 degrees on arrival, but it cools down to about 25 at night – very pleasant. Not much to report so far. I will be in touch through e-mail for most of the time we are here. The following are our 3 main goals for this month:
1. Provide consultant support to several translation projects in languages related to the Kalinga language where we started the project 35 years ago. We have meeting scheduled with the Kalinga cluster (a group of translation teams working on translation in 4 Kalinga dialects) while we are here and hope to work more intensively with one of these teams.
2. Participate in a dedication of the memorial library we helped build in Asibanglan to honour our co-workers like Pedro, who gave their lives for the translation of the Bible. That is scheduled for the weekend of January 22 and will involve a 6 hour trip into the mountains, the last 2 hours hiking in the mud.
3. Fostering relationships for peace making in Kalinga province where peace is often disturbed by revenge killings and inter-tribal conflict. Specifically we will be helping to make connections between the Catholic Bishop in Kalinga province who is very active in peace making and a Filipino couple sent by the Mennonite Church in Canada to develop a ministry called Peacebuilders Inc. The Catholic Bishop in the Kalinga province has been very supportive of the translation work there (past and present), even providing office space for the teams.
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