Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Debby's Back

Debby and the team returned from the Philippines on Monday evening the 19th. They had to fly through JFK airport in New York. With all the bad weather we were wondering if they would have any flight problems. They arrived in Buffalo only about an hour late – not bad.

They had powerful meetings and many of the pastors/leaders were really encouraged. They are all getting over their jetlag – they were 13 hours ahead there – so day and night are opposite there from here.

Now I have to start doing visas. So I have to download and fill out the visa applications for Burkina Faso for Debby and I and then pay and send them off. After I get our passports back then I have to do visas for Ghana and Benin for Debby, Marie-Louise, Bill and Cathy and Hannah. Hope I can get it all done with the holidays and before we leave.

Debby and I are working on our Christmas newsletter to get that sent out tomorrow and I am also working on the Newsletter report from my trip to Africa and her second trip to the Philippines.

I am also working on the Video Bible School. I have been learning a lot about editing with Adobe Premier Pro. It’s not easy – but I am learning. To me, that is fun and interesting work. It is surprising how many hours you spend editing one hour long class – more then 20 maybe more? Adding the notes to the lower 1/3 of the screen in multiple languages is something I am working on as is different languages in the audio tracks. It’ll be so awesome once it’s done – but getting it to work in the first place is a challenge. Then I have to get it all into Adobe Encore DVD.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Waiting 4 Deb 2 Return

Well here is my first Blog. It’s Friday the 14th of December. Debby and her team should be flying from the island of Palawan back to the city of Manila on Luzon. Sunday they will be at Pastor Lemuel’s church. On Monday they will fly back to the U.S.

Marie-Louise has had to put up with me being mom and dad for almost 3 weeks. She is ready for mama to come home soon. I think she wants some “real” food.

I have been working on the computer doing video editing of our Bible classes. I like the work, but it is one of those things that always take longer then it should. It’s also hard for a guy to keep his concentration when he has to fix meals and do all the domestic stuff. I am ready for Debby to come home soon as well.

The most recent phone conversation with Debby was on Wednesday morning – their Wednesday evening. They had just finished teaching at the Bible School and were going back to Puerto Princesa, the capital of Palawan, on Thursday morning. She reported that the meetings were excellent with one meeting going all day long.

I was back from Africa in time for Thanksgiving. Debby will be back in time for us to all be together for Christmas. The first full week of January we have our annual Convocation in Bradenton, FL. The first few days will be missions emphasis and Debby and I have both been asked to speak for that. Around January 24th, Debby and I will fly back to Africa – I have been working on all those dates and details.

I just had the 3rd set of pages added to my passport. Wasn’t sure if they would add pages again. Traveling in Africa so much, I go through pages fast. A page for a visa for a country and a stamp when you come in and a stamp when you go out and you fit about 6 stamps on a page. I got this passport in August, 2003 and I didn’t think there was enough space free in it for another trip. I was worried that I would have to get a new passport and have to spend that time to get it and then get visas. So, I was very happy on Wednesday when I got my passport back with another set of pages in it.