It's summer here in the Philippines. That means a couple things: 1) IT'S HOT!! and 2) we finished our first semester here. And just to punctuate our halfway point we were blessed to have the most amazing visit from Jeff's parents and sister Jami during the first week of this month. I'm pretty sure it would be impossible to exaggerate how much we enjoyed spending time with them. We got to show off this place that has been home to us. They slept in our apartment building, explored our campus, went to our church, met a lot of our amazing friends (and ate their amazing cooking), experienced public transportation in all its glorious variety and saw a bit of the city as we fumbled our way through it. But on top of that we got the chance to travel outside the city with them. We hadn't had a chance to do that since we got here. We'd just stuck to the metro, the extent of our travel usually having something to do with immigration. So we set out on a mini vacation to Mindoro. That's where I fell in love. I'd never seen a beach like that. I'd never seen a mountain covered with a palm tree forest. I'd never seen a coral reef. I would love to indulge in a lengthy poeticism about the natural beauty exploding from the place, but instead I will share some pictures. You can find more on my (Katie's) facebook.

ferry ride

Caribou cart ride

skipping rocks on a gorgeous wave

so clear you can see all the rocks

... and even Jami's feet

I've never thought about a dense wood of palm trees.

I have seen sunsets, but they never get old.

That's a really wonderful family (but missed you Belchers!)

Of course the saddest part was not leaving island, not by a long shot. It was so hard to say goodbye to the Anglins! The parting was all muffled up with Jeff having a revisit of his digestion troubles which kept him stuck at home (and me back and forth at the hospital) instead of taking full advantage of our last day together. I was really grief-stricken, but a lot of prayers went up on our behalf that day and Jeff was able to spend some good moments with them afterall. And I got some unexpected quality time with my mother-in-law who volunteered to brave the rain with me and wait around an hour getting test results. (Since then, Jeff has been getting better and better, by the way. We really thank God and believe He heard all the prayers!!)

And then they were gone. It happened right at our 6-month mark. People have told us this is the time it gets really difficult. Maybe less so for us because we know we only plan to stay a year, but we are feeling it. But let me tell you a secret: God didn't leave us without a fall-back for the homesickness. Even that first night our friends were at our apartment, lifting our spirits with the usual Filipino flair. We continue to rely on them a lot! Another unexpected spirit-lifter was a set of videos Robin gave us from a prayer conference. Seems we don't get to wallow too much because we are being challenged to pray (and prayer is not for the lazy). More on that soon!

Love, Katie.