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Sixty years ago my great-grandfather, John B. Lacson, started the Iloilo Maritime Academy. That school has now evolved into the John B. Lacson Foundation Maritime University . We celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of his school this evening. In honor of this event we put on our formal Filipino attire. The event was held in the evening, so Danny was not able to attend, hence his more casual attire.

It is hard to believe that my son Eric is now ten years old. Today we celebrated his birthday with a pool party. Friends and fellow missionaries here in Iloilo joined us in celebrating Eric's birthday, and we also had the added treat of having my Mom here for the party. She and my Auntie Gina, and Brylee (Auntie Gina's grand daughter) are visiting us from the States. I still can't believe that it has been a decade since that cold January morning when we drove to Howard County General hospital in Columbia, MD. Eric is a wonderful, thoughtful, and most of all Christlike son. He is a true young man of God, and I know Eric will follow in the Lord's ways all the days of his life. Pictures from today, here .

My Mom (along with my Auntie Gina and her grand daughter Brylee) arrive in Iloilo tomorrow. We can hardly wait.

Recently Chris and I have been asked by our organization, Calvary International , to take on a different level of service here in Iloilo among the missionaries and projects in our region. Feeling the burden of these new responsibilities I feel that I need to do better job with self-education. So I have started reading Jim Collins' book From Good to Great . I am on chapter three, and I feel that I have already learned so much. So far what sticks out the most is the emphasis on humility. I don't know if the author is a Christian, but his book reinforces the biblical principle of how the truly great need to be truly humble. I am also reminded of the recent movie, Beowulf . Even though the recent film trashed the original story, I appreciate the tagline from the movie poster , "Pride is the curse." "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Matthew 23:12 Keep yourself humble, or the Lord will do it for you.

Yet another cool thing about Chaz Yandall (his family is mentioned in the previous post ) is that he is a total Mac man. During our visit to his family in Bacolod we spent some time tweaking our machines. On the table you see my Powerbook and his and hers iBooks (belonging to Chaz and Terrie), along with my Booq Bag Viper Powerbook sleeve, and some socks

We were on a small vacation in the "City of Smiles," Bacolod, on the nearby island of Negros. We spent a couple days visiting our friends Chaz and Terrie Yandall. The Yandalls have twenty-six children--not a typo, TWO baker's dozens. They have six naturally born children, and they have (or are in the process of) adopted twenty other children from the Philippines. They are missionaries in Bacolod, and reaching out to these kids is their amazing ministry. Their house runs like a well-oiled machine. Each one has a job and each one plays a part in keeping the house running-from the loads of laundry to the mountains of food needed to feed this small army. Their kids are amazing, so considerate and responsible, they could teach my kids a thing or two. And my kids love to play with their kids. They played non-stop for two days. Our whole family had a blessed time. I have mentioned Chaz before , he is my mentor, my great friend, and a true brother in Christ. Chaz is also a pasto

It is hard to describe New Year's Eve in the Philippines. It is loud and obnoxious with music blaring late into the night--our windows sometime shake with the bass notes. It is also loud because of the fireworks. There are no real restrictions on fireworks here, so anyone can buy and set off whatever fireworks they want, from the pyrotechnics you find at stadium events and theme parks, to sticks of dynomite, it is all for sale to anyone and set off the evening of December 31st. This year our New Year's Eve was also annoying. At the stroke of midnight we welcomed 2008 with a power outage. The whole city was plunged into darkness. About two hours later the power came back on for about thirty seconds, and then shut off for another hour or so, came back on for about five minutes, and eventually stayed on for good around 2:30 AM. The funny thing about midnight celebrations here is that everyone's watch is set to different times. Showing up on time for meetings and such is not