Typhoon and Flooding

So it's been a while since we have said anything on here. Well, not much is happening (at least that feels worthy of a blog entry). We are back into the daily grind. Christina is busy with the clinic. She had a few busy days with a catch in two or three consecutive days. But it is going really well.



I have readjusted back into my routine. I shared once at each of the Bible studies that I've been helping lead. I've been practicing the guitar quite a bit and I'm really enjoying it. I'm expanding my use of the fret board, learning alternate fingerings for chords. The joy of barred chords is starting to set in. And the pain too. My fingers are getting the callouses they need, but my hand keeps cramping. Oh well. Must keep practicing. I also started helping at a guitar lesson on Saturday afternoons at Oasis. It started while I was back home in August. They were using my guitar (1 of only 2-3 available), so I decided it would be good for me to be there. Even if I cannot communicate very well with the kids, at least they have the guitar to use. And there are two words that I keep hearing them say: "sakit" and "lisud" which mean pain and difficult. I just smile and laugh as I still think those words!

So anyway, on to the reason I wanted to make this post in the first place. We've had three people email us this week asking about the typhoon and flooding they have heard about in Manila. Well, it's in Manila. We are a two-hour flight south of Manila. We occasionally receive some rain from the typhoons, but they rarely hit the Davao area. I've heard it said that Davao is a "typhoon-free" zone due to the surrounding geography. From what I could tell in the past year with past storms, it seems they usually cross the Philippines in Luzon (the large island to the north with the capital, Manila) or in the central Visayas region. I've heard that this past Tuesday's storm caused really bad flooding in some areas (the worst in 20 years). And right now there is another typhoon hitting Luzon with just as much rain.

So there are typhoons and flooding right now in the Manila area, but we are far from there. We have our usual heavy rains and thunderstorms, but no typhoons. We have our usual localized flooding, but nothing extraordinary. Just the normal bad flooding.

So thank you all for your concern. We are okay.

Safely in His hands,
Josh