Merry Christmas

"You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus." Luke 1:31

Merry Christmas!

I’m writing this entry from the Narita Airport in Japan. I’m on my way home for a little over two weeks. It’s hard to believe that it’s already Christmas. These last two months have gone by so incredibly fast. Part of me is pretty excited to see my family and spend the holidays at home. But part of me is sad with how little time I have left. I think I spend too much time thinking about that, actually—thinking about how much more I want to do and how little time remains for me to do it all. Forming relationships takes time, but that’s one commodity I haven’t felt an abundance of lately. I’m a third of my way through my time as a student missionary. Wow. I don’t want to think about that…

But let me shift away from the future. The last few weeks have been pretty fantastic. First we had our CBS program (Christmas Bible School). Technically, it couldn’t be called VBS because the students are not on break yet. But that didn’t stop them from coming. We had 50-60 kids or so every night, and we would sing songs, make crafts, put on a play, and give them memory verses to learn. As it so happened, the night we started our program, a necro started down the road. So every night, the SMs and AY would put on the children’s program, wait around for a little while, go to the necro, and then come back to the church to play games or just hang out for a while. The evenings were long, but fun and very good.

The Monday after that, we had ourselves an adventure day. The SMs and AY went out to Burgos to check out three awesome spots. First we went to this local, historic lighthouse. We climbed to the top of it and got to look out over the ocean. The view was pretty remarkable. After that we drove down the road to a beautiful rock formation. It’s right along the ocean and looks like the rock has been hand-carved. The place was very pretty and had some nice climbing spots, for the more adventurous. Then we ended up at Kaangrian Falls. It’s a waterfall tucked back in the hills. We walked for about 20 minutes to get there, and when we arrived it was an incredible sight. It was a pretty little oasis in the woods. Unlike Kabigan Falls, which are closer and easier to get to, at Kaangrian you can do more swimming. There’s even a cave under the falls that you can swim through. It was pretty fantastic. We decided that we needed to return there and perhaps explore down the falls further.

Last Saturday night we had an AY Christmas party. There were about 20 people who showed up, and we all crammed ourselves into the upper room. We did a white elephant gift exchange, ate lots of cookies and popcorn, and watched The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Fun stuff!

Oh, this month we also got ourselves a kitten. Before I came, the group had one, but it died in the typhoon. So it was about time we got another pet.  Sundae, as we call her, is white with light brown and dark brown patches and streaks, making her look pretty near to a scoop of vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate and caramel sauce. She’s very social and has grown a lot in the last couple weeks. Honestly, we’re pretty thankful she’s alive. The second day we had her, she was nearly killed by a dog. It picked her up and shook her hard. She took a few days to recover, but now she’s a happy and healthy kitten. I imagine by the time I get back she’ll be getting pretty big.

Well, in about ten hours I’ll be home. And I’ll most likely be freezing. See you on January 12, Pagudpud!