UPDATE FROM AUSTRALIA!

BELOW are the updates I've sent my friends via e-mail. In case I don't have your e-mail address or simply forgot to include you on my list, you can read about what I've been up to here:

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SEPTEMBER 5TH, 2008

Hey everyone,

I am in a cybercafe in a mall in Tarlac City in the Philippines. It is 15 hours ahead here and so right now it is just after 2pm Friday. We arrived around midnight Tuesday night and have spent the past few days working and sweating our butts off!

I talked to Vicki briefly on the phone and told her already, but I seriously have never sweat so much in my life. It is disgusting yet strangely refreshing. I soaked through my entire outfit while working the first day, including a jacket I was wearing! I didn't even feel that soaked but Brenda got photos to prove it. :-)

The nightly meetings started on Wednesday and continue through next week. Brenda, Rodney, and I are even singing a couple songs for special music tonight, including an entire song in Tagalog that two of the church members taught us this morning. Let's pray it goes well!

We're getting fed so well. Rodney's family cooks amazing food and we've been getting all of our food groups. For lunch today we even had rambutan, which is tropical fruit related to lychee. Rambutan means "the hairy thing" in Indonesian. Google it and you'll see why. :-)

Everyone here is so warm and friendly, even though I can't communicate verbally with most of them. Rodney's family lives in a rural town outside the city and are one of the more wealthy families. Everyone else lives in shacks, literally, with thatched roofs, bamboo walls, and dirt floors. There are goats and cows, chickens and wild dogs roaming around everywhere. There is green everywhere: hills and rice and fields as far as the eye can see.

Just wanted to give you all a brief update. I barely had to adjust to the time difference and have been sleeping amazingly well, getting up at 6am without an alarm clock and sleeping through the night without waking up at all. I'll be here until September 15th, then I'm off to Melbourne!

Hope you all are doing well. Please keep the group in your prayers.

Thanks and hopefully I'll write again soon.

Love,

Steph


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SEPTEMBER 16TH, 2008

Hello everyone!

I don't think I remembered to e-mail all of you my first overseas update from the Philippines, but hopefully I didn't miss anyone this time around. It is just past midnight here in Australia and my couchsurfing host is asleep. I'm typing on her laptop in the dark in the room next to hers because the light in my room would wake her if on. I fear my typing will wake her as well! She is very sweet, talkative, and went 30 mins out of her way to pick me up from the airport even though we had never met before. She owns a flower shop and must get up at 4:30am to buy flowers from the market. She has a cute albino bunny named Polly Jean. It's amazing how kind and giving people can be to complete strangers. That takes a lot of trust.

I left Manila Monday morning, flew 8 hours to Sydney, then another couple hours to Melbourne. I sat next to lady on first plane who was in the Philippines for her mother's funeral. I could tell something was on her mind and soon we got to talking and I think it really helped her to have someone willing to listen to her story. We exchanged contact information and I hope to keep in touch.

The Philippines mission trip was amazing! This last Sabbath we had 37 baptisms, a result of the 10-day evangelistic series held at the new church we built. The people there are all so hospitable and generous and seem content for the most part, even though they have so little. One of the pastors involved with the series has a 7-month old daughter that he can't even afford to buy milk for. His wife, a teacher, had to borrow money from the school she works at. And this was a pastor who is paid by the local conference. I can't even begin to imagine how much less others without steady work must have. It was such a humbling experience and all the villagers were so thrilled that we Americans could visit and help out where we could.

Please continue to pray for the new Adventist church at San Jose de Valdez, Tarlac, Philippines. With the evangelistic series over, there is a risk that the congregation might be negatively affected by the transition. There are many decisions that must still be made there.

Tomorrow I will start sight-seeing in Melbourne then meetup with a couple French boys staying at the same couchsurfing host I am. Then Friday I'm off to Walpeup in the middle of nowhere to help out on my friend's family's sheep farm. Next week I'm off to Sydney, followed by Canberra, where I will speak at an Adventist youth meeting.

I'll write more soon.

With love and prayers,

Steph

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SEPTEMBER 16TH, 2008

Yo!

This couch surfing thing is great! The lady who picked me up is about 30 and I am the first person she has hosted. She bought me coffee this morning and walked me to the train station that took me to the downtown/city center. I've been exploring on my own all day and came across an Indonesian restaurant in Chinatown that I ate at for lunch. I had rendang (spelling?). :-) I saw a young guy drinking bubble tea and asked where he got it and he was kind enough to walk me there so I could get some myself.

There are tons of tourists here! It reminds me of Seattle, too. This morning was sunny but a bit chilly. It is early spring here and everyone is wearing jackets, boots, and scarves. I feel right at home!

I'm at the Victoria State Library using their free Internet access at the moment. I've been taking lots of pictures of interesting words or things that remind me of home. I found the word Bellevue on a store sign and snapped a picture of it, also the word Redmond on a statue plaque. I took a pic of the library because it says Victoria all big and engraved.

Tonight my current host will drop me off a few miles from her house to another pair of couchsurfing hosts, two 22-year old college students who are also hosting two French boys. It will be fun because tomorrow I can sightsee with the French boys since we are all tourists. Then I'm having dinner tomorrow night with those two sisters who stayed with us in Seattle.

I was also asked to give a mini-sermon on Christian and World Peace when I go to Canberra next week with the Sydney Adventist church. It seems like I've come full-circle, since that essay on world peace is what won me the trip to England, which is where I met that Australian girl, which is partly why I'm here now to visit her. I will also speak about my mission trip. I am very excited.

Oh yeah, in the Philippines, we sang a lot of special music songs. Brenda, Rodney, and I were asked almost every evening to perform as a trip before the evangelistic meetings. One of the pastors started humming You Raise Me Up by Josh Groban one night, which I told him was my favorite song and so he asked me to sing it by myself before the sermon on the final night of the meeting. Brenda played piano and Rodney video recorded it. I wasn't nervous at all (praise God!) but I messed up a little on the lyrics of the second verse (since Josh doesn't sing that verse and so I had to learn it just that day), but no one noticed and everyone loved it. Apparently Josh Groban is very popular in the Philippines (and Asia in general) and many of them sang along with me. It was fantastic. Josh Groban was even playing in the Indonesian restaurant I had lunch in today! :-)

Vicki and Mel will enjoy the following information: Last night when I was waiting to transfer from Sydney to Melbourne at the airport, I saw a guy reading a thick novel. I have a habit of reading titles of people's books and initially thought it was Harry Potter, but it was the first Twilight book! Haha, he was this chubby Asian guy and he was so engrossed in the book that he dropped his carry on luggage. hehehe. I was amused. :D

Anyway, I should wrap this up and continue exploring the city.

I don't know what kind of telephone access I'll have here since my hosts may not have International calling on their cell phones. But at least I can check e-mail more often here.

Much, much love,

Steph