June 6, 2010

Internet access proved difficult last night upon arrival in Hong Kong. Part of the problem was that my frugality values disallowed paying the daily rate for internet access at the hotel. Back at HK Int’l this morning, I got on wi-fi while we waited for the flight to Manila. But I used the all too brief online time to call home (TruPhone—like Skype), email a letter of reference and another bit of promised work completed on the plane, and to finish calculating grades on CBTS Moodle for ET502 Ministry Ethics. The latter (semester grades) are quite overdue…, with apologies both to Registrar and students. Lacking 3 minutes yet needed to complete that task despite being the last to board the plane, those grades remain overdue until the next wi-fi becomes available. Sorry!
This note is longhand again while enroute to Manila. It seems strange even in a strange land to not be in church at 11:00 on a Sunday morning. I believe that our Central Seminary colleague John Gravley and two seminarians (Kate and David) are attending Swatow Baptist Church where we visited last year. But we haven’t time to do so this morning. The rest of our Philippine Connection 2010 (hereafter PC2010) team awaits us at the Manila Int’l Airport. Then we all fly on together to Iloilo City in the central part of the Philippines, on the island of Panay.
It was a pleasant surprise to meet up in the Kansas City airport with CBTS’s Thailand group (minus President Marshall, whose flight to HK took her a different route from the other 3 travelers). All of us coincidentally ended up on the same Delta flights, though we never caught sight of our colleagues again after boarding in KC. Hopefully they made it on the Detroit connection and arrived in Hong Kong just fine, as did we.
It is beyond pleasant—sheer delight—to have our 18 year old son Josiah traveling with Mom and Dad this year! This is his first international experience other than Canada, and once jetlag wears off, his excitement will be more evident. Even fatigued, Josiah travels well and patiently. We are so blessed.
While handwritten notes for future blog posting were drafted on planes, those now are being typed in Word while waiting in Manila for our Iloilo flight. Still no internet access. Our team members are here safely, looking quite tired from their overnight flights with no opportunity for hotel rest. But it is good to be together, traveling on to our next destination.