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What's so funny?

November 11 Cebu Pacific Flight #5J 545 Iloilo to Manila, departs 9:55AM arrives 10:55AM November 12 Cathay Pacific Flight #904 Manila to Hong Kong, departs 6:50AM arrives 8:50AM Continental Flight #98 Hong Kong to Newark, NJ, departs 11:25AM arrives 1:50PM Continental Flight #792 Newark to Orland, FL, departs 3:45PM arrives 6:43PM (on Sunday the 12th) November 28 Southwest Flight #1431 Orlando to Baltimore-Washington, departs 8:05PM arrives 10:15PM According to this , the flight from Hong Kong to Newark is 8th on the list of longest non-stop flights in current operation. The flight lasts 15 hours and 50 minutes (give or take a few minutes depending on winds), and it flys over the North Pole. Fortuantely this flight uses the newest Boeing 777s and is one of the flagship routes of Continental Airlines. This means the flights attendants are usually top notch (read extra nice and not too snobby) and the inflight entertainment is usually pretty good as well, and even the food is not too...

It is so good to be home in Iloilo. Manila is a fun place to visit, plus seeing friends and our missionary family there is a blessing. However, I am so glad I live in this small town of just barely half a million people, rather than in Manila with around 20 million poeple. Traffic is a major pain. Iloilo is just fine for me. Also since Manila is more Westernized, there is more air conditioning in the buildings and homes. Right now I am fighting a cold I caught from sleeping in AC. What is going to happen to me when I return to the States in November? I guess I need to start eating more oranges. As of this writing, we return to the States in just 51 days.

Daniel is now officially an American citizen. We had our interview at at the U.S. Embassy in Manila. It was merely a formality since both Chris and I are natural born American citizens. They had us raise our right hands and swear to tell the truth, asked us a few questions, confirmed that the baby passport picture we sent them matches the baby in our arms, then all was approved. We will get his passport via FedEx delivered to our home in Iloilo in about two weeks. Manila is a huge town with almost 20 million people. While it does have some really nice malls and American restaurants, and plenty of Starbucks coffee shops, I am so glad we do not live here. I love our small provincial town of Iloilo with just under half a million people. We are enjoying our stay here visiting fellow missionaries and enjoying Chili's and California Pizza Kitchen for dinner, I am looking forward to being back home tomorrow evening. We will do a bit more shopping, Chris will get a haircut, and we m...

We will be in Manila tomorrow, just an hour's flight away from our humble provincial town of Iloilo. We will be in the big city for three nights, coming back home on Thursday afternoon. We will enjoy some Western comforts that can be found in Manila, like certain American restaurants. I am really looking forward to eating at Chili's tomorrow night for dinner. Faithy is looking forward to spending some birthday money at the new Toys R Us store in the Robinson's Galleria Mall. Most importantly we are going to have our interview at the American Embassy in Manila to appeal for Daniel's US citizenship and get his passport. This should be no problem since both Chris and I are natural born American citizens.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -Edmund Burke

As I mentioned before , going to movies here in the Philippines can be pretty inexpensive. We saw the new Adam Sandler move Click. Over all a pretty good movie with an excellent message. It was like Bruce Almighty in that it was a comedy about a person having super powers to manipulate his environment, and that he learns something in the end. The message of Click is the importance of taking care of your family. Unfortunately what is left out of this movie is the necessity of Christ. I consider my family to be the most important people in my life. My ministry to my family comes before any ministry to Bible school students or street children. However, I know that without Christ in my life, I would utterly fail as a husband and a father. On my own I am too selfish. I do not have enough wisdom or patience to be the kind of man my family needs me to be. I need Christ to give me grace and strength. Left to my own resources I would fail. Thankfully I am not without Christ. He gives...

Our family loves to swim. As I mentioned before, we are blessed to have a pool on the campus where we live. Today our newest member of the family had his first swim. He did not LOVE it, but he did not hate it either. We basically held him up so that only his feet were in the water. He did start to enjoy splashing around. At least he did not cry and wail like he does when he get a bath. More pictures of this and other stuff can be found on our Flickr page .

Enjoying the swing out on our carport.