Alay Lakad

Tonight here in Manila, there are millions of people making a long pilgrimage up the hillside to the catholic church that houses the shrine of "Our lady of peace and good voyage."  It is an amazing event and the throngs of people walking the streets to the cathedral is an unbelievable sight.  Most of the people are doing so just because so many others are doing it.  Some are taking the pilgrimage because they want to experience some measure of a sacrifice or a penitence.  Some walk bare foot.  Some carry their statue of baby Jesus.  Some carry a cross.  Some are laughing and not serious about the walk.  Others are very serious and sincere.  They believe that their "lady of peace and good voyage" will take care of them.

Here is a short video that our communications department made.  I hope you can watch it and learn a little about Filipino customs for Holy Week.  Just click on this link  Panata "Alay Lakad"

Please pray for all of these people.  Some of them know that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father.  Some of them believe that they have to earn their way through their religious actions.  My heart aches for that misunderstanding, but yet, I myself fall into the trap of thinking I can earn the love of the Father.  My prayer for all of us this Easter is that we would learn in a new way, how the Father loves us as we are, not because of what we do.  Ephesians 2:8-9 says "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast."

I am so thankful for the Grace that has saved me, and continues to save me.  I am thankful that I don't have to take that trek up the hill with all those millions of people to be saved.  Christ is RISEN!!!



We pray you have a wonderful Easter!

Stay tuned for a shadow teacher update.....

Shadow Teacher Update

We have been working hard at trying to find a shadow teacher for Mari, specifically one to shadow her next year so we can enroll her in the Kindergarten class.  We were pleasantly surprised at the response we got from our advertisement at the University of the Philippines.  We looked through lots of resumes and then narrowed it down to about 8 women.  We ended up interviewing four, with one yet to happen.  God is helping us fine tune our selection.  This week is a big part of the selection process.  All potential kindergarten students come for 3 days of "pre-kindergarten."  This enables the kindergarten teacher to evaluate the children and for basic readiness testing to be completed.  This week is "pre-kindergarten" and Mari went today for her first day.  She did great!  What a huge blessing and answer to prayer.  She wasn't intimidated by the other kids, even though she didn't know them.  Thursday and Friday of this week, we will have two separate ladies come and "shadow" her for the day.  This will give us opportunity to see how Mari reacts to them, and to see how they work with the Kindergarten teacher.

Our prayer is that the Lord will very clearly help us see who is the best shadow teacher for Mari at this time.  We feel like the Lord is giving us some good direction, but want to complete the process before we make our decision.  We know that as long as the Lord wants us here, he will provide what Mari needs. 

Will you please be praying with us, especially Thursday and Friday (your Wednesday and Thursday) for us to be wise in this decision process.  Will you also join us in praying for the Special Education departmental needs at our school, that God would raise up special education teachers and therapists to fill this void.

We love you all!  Thanks for sharing this journey with us!!