11 weeks down...5 to go

Okay, so here we are again. Week 11 is just about over with, which is kinda scary. I can't believe how fast this has gone. It doesn't feel like i've been here for almost 3 months.

So remember in last weeks update, I said that last week was boring, and this week should be interesting? Well I was right haha. But before I can tell you what happened, I have to explain something first. Here in the Philippines, anyone hardly “throws away garbage” so to speak. They just burn everything. There is a guy on a tricycle that comes by the headquarters to pick up whatever doesn't get burned, but for the most part, everyone just burns everything. Okay, now that that's explained, I can explain what happened yesterday. Yesterday, Art came up to the children's home to burn the burn pile, but because we haven't burned in almost a week and a half because of various reasons and it looked like it might rain, he poured gasoline on the pile so it would light. Him and one of the older boys, Ian (pronounced I-On), stood about 5-10, or 1.5-3 meters for my European friends, figuring that that should be a safe distance to light the fire. Ian was the one to light the match, because Art was the one that had poured the gasoline on the pile, and had gotten it on himself, and he didn't want to light himself on fire. Anyway, Ian had found something to light and throw into the pile, only problem was that, even though they were 10 feet away, the gasoline fumes were still in the air, and when Ian had lit the match, the fumes caught on fire, I was inside when it happened, the sound was so loud, and deep, that I thought it was thunder, when I went out to see if it was raining, I saw Ian in tears, and that's when Art explained what happened. Ian has some melted skin, and it looks like a nerve or two were effected. He was in a lot of pain yesterday. I still had some pain killers I was given in Mexico, and I told Angela, who had EMT training, and she said to give him one to help with the pain, and to help sleep. He was in so much pain, that even after an hour after giving him one, he was still crying. He eventually did fall asleep, and he slept for a while. Today, Saturday the 18^th, he said that he was still in a little pain, but that's understandable I think. If you could keep him in your prayers that would be deeply appreciated.

In other news, one of the other sons, Clint, who is a Reverend, travels a lot within the Philippines speaking at conferences and such. Well a couple days ago, he invited me to go with him on one such trip the second week in July. He then asked me if I could preach. I said, “I have in the past.” He then said, “Great, we'll give you an opportunity to preach.” Now my initial reaction is to freak out, naturally, given the fact that i've only done so once in my life, and that was to a hill tribe in Thailand. But now, surprisingly, i'm not quite as nervous as I thought I would be, I mean it is still a couple weeks out, but still. When I know that I have to give a oral report, or speak in front of a lot of people, I'm nervous the entire time before hand. But now that I've been through YWAM and had oral reports every other week, I'm getting more and more comfortable with it, which is good I think.

That's about it for this week. Oh! The kids didn't have school yesterday, Friday, and don't have school on Monday because it's a “holiday.” I say “holiday” because from what Angela has told me, town just kind of makes up holidays randomly so that they can get a day off from work. Naturally all the kids are excited, but some of them had/have projects to do, so they've been keeping busy. And the ones that don't have homework or projects, have book reports to do. As punishment, instead of groundings, because they've tried those, and figured out that that doesn't really work, they do book reports. The kids aren't allowed to do anything until those are done this weekend. NOW that's it for this week. Hope everyone is doing well!!!

With the wind,

Mark