joanna in the philippines

hey all! well, i guess its time i wrote, huh? i actually sat down and wrote the other night... nice and long and probably heart warming and touching as well, and then something went wrong in processing it and i lost it. Ha, so, i just went to bed. Sorry! But things here have been completely normal... as normal as life in the tribe goes that is! The weekend was great... Saturday we cleaned and then had waffles and i lost in yahtzee... Sunday was church and swimming in the ocean and relaxing and all that nice Sunday stuff... but there were some bugs in the ocean that were biting for awhile... and then about 20 Agta showed up from a different area for medical, so we didnt have lunch till late... but it was a great weekend altogether! Yes, i lost in yahtzee again, but last night I did SO good in a game of Phase 10... actually, we finished our game last night and before i was losing so bad, but somehow i turned things around... im feeling a proud. Ill probably never win again! ha. Well, the past few days have been normal. I cannot believe it is Friday tomorrow! WOW! The time here is flying by! We hit midpoint of being in the tribe just a few days ago... so, about 4 weeks left. Then we go to Aritao for about a week, then take a bus to Manila and wait it out until Char has the baby... then back to Aritao until Conference in the beginning of January... SO... things are looking good!

I have been going to the beach a lot with the kids. It is so nice to be able to walk 5 minutes and be at a beautiful beach location. We have been going to this one spot where the coral is, and when the tide comes in and leaves it leaves little pools of water... so we go and look for fish and the kids swim. We went there this morning and the tide was so low, so it was fun playing around the huge coral! I LOVE looking for shells, i think its a new hobby of mine... there are some of the prettiest shells here... Thea and I thank God when we find really really pretty shells... because everything good comes from God. I love being with a 4 year old and seeing her young faith grow... its encouraging, and reminds me just how simple it really is! Well... I can hardly believe it is already another weekend coming up... goes way too fast! But I am so thankful for my time here! It is such a neat experience, and God is just so good for giving me this opportunity... well, I must go, but have a wonderful day my friends!