Matt and Kristin in the Philippines

In 12 hours we leave for the airport, which begins 35 hours of traveling until we’ll see a real bed again. Actually, I have no idea how real the beds are at the house we’ll be staying in. The common form of a bed in the Philippines is a slab of bamboo.

I’ve been thinking these past few days that the most amazing thing about this trip is that it’s possible. A year ago I had been so sure that I would plow through my three years of seminary with no interruption. Kristin was comfortable in her job and doing good work. We had decorated our apartment and figured out the best arrangment of the living room furniture. We were fairly stable…the most settled we’d been since we got married.

I’ve just done a little arithmetic.

Chicago to LA: 4 hours
Layover from 9pm to 2Am: 5 hours
Flight to Hong Kong: 14 hours
Then 4 more hours until we land in Manila, which doesn’t sound so bad, except we will already have been travelling for 24 hours when we land in Hong Kong.

Total time from first takeoff to final landing: 28 hours.

Yep. 28 hours.

When we asked our supervisor in April to recommend books that we might read to prepare ourselves for encountering the Philippines, she recommended the following. Kristin and I have both read it now and would recommend it on to you as both a novel that is engaging and worth your time as well as a book that opens a small window into Filipino culture.

When the Elephants Dance by Tess Uriza Holthe

We are now in Chicago and we begin our week of training tomorrow, and we leave the country in seven days.

Several pieces of news:

1. We now have a weblog! http://yav.eyesofwood.com. Here you can find archives of all our newsletters while we’re gone, as well as more trivial ramblings perhaps, and our mailing address.

2. We have a mailing address! While we will be emailing you throughout the year, it will be difficult for us to read and respond to individual emails very regularly. The best way to get in touch with us is by snail mail. We’d really appreciate letters from you. For our first six weeks we’ll be based near Manila, where our supervisor, Becca, lives. So you can write to us there, and once we get an address at our more permanent placement, we’ll pass that information along. So, for our first six weeks, our address is:

…and there was a blog. And God put the blog online to serve as a place where Matt and Kristin might share their thoughts with the world. And God separated the really important information and put it on separate pages on the menu to the right. And God said “That’s enough for now, Matt. Maybe you can make it look fancier if you have time and tools for web development in the Philippines.” And Matt said, “Thanks, God.” And Kristin said “Zzzzz” because she is smarter than Matt and has gone to bed already instead of staying up too late setting up the blog that God let be. And then Matt decided he should just let it be, too.