Philippines – Part 1 – HOW’D THAT HAPPEN

Katie and I had been traveling for a year on deputation.  It was December of 2002.  I was 24 and ready to get to the field.  Every service we attended, every question we answered and just about every thought about our future was focused on Bulgaria.  We were coming down to the last six or seven months before we were to move.

We never had a packed full deputation schedule.  Meetings sort of fell into place at the appropriate time.  I was intent on canceling no meetings.  I detest(ed) being late.  (I write that in the past tense because I now realize being on time is only socially important in the United States.)  I still don’t like to be late, but…whatever.

I had one week open in my schedule at the end of January and from there on out until May we had at least one meeting a week.  We were coming back from a long road trip for the holidays for a little respite before hitting the road again.

One day I walked into the office at the church and found a fax had just come through advertising a trip to the Philippines.  Two things caught my eye – they were looking for preachers because they did not have enough and the price was $850 which included ticket AND hotels for two weeks.  My adventurous, spontaneous side kicked into high gear.

One of the two weeks was the same week I had nothing scheduled.  The other week we were only scheduled to be in one church, but I had not spoken to the pastor.  It was a missions conference at a fairly large church where there would be several other missionaries.

I was excited about this.  Timewise, I thought I could swing it.  Financially…well, we were saving for our tickets to move over to Bulgaria and moving costs and stuff like that.  However, I have always saved all of my coinage.  When I got home, I told Katie about the trip and we talked about it a little bit.  Katie has never put the ring in my nose.  She is not a pushover, though.  In fact, my theory is – any marriage that is peaceful is run by a woman with a ring in his nose.  Hey, I’m just sayin…some guys are ok with that.  I’m not judging them – just stating.  Let’s just say that Katie and I have gone at it more than once idealogically.  But she has never held me back from serving the Lord.  I have never had to make up some “will of God” to cover for her will.  When we got married, she cut the strings and gave herself to me.  It’s me and her (I know that is grammatically incorrect, but it sounds better) and it’s her and me!

Back to the story…I had $650 or so in quarters and dimes and nickels.  We decided together that I should go for it.  If they still needed preachers, I would go. And so I did – right in the middle of deputation for Bulgaria.  I called the man organizing the trip and he said there were about 5 other preachers signed up, but they needed 20!  I committed and bought my ticket.  I was on my way to the Philippines.

Next week, I will give a tip about flying out of JFK in NYC.  I have flown in and out of there probably 25 times.  The tip will go something like this – Leave more time than mapquest gives you when driving into New York City during evening rush hour…a lesson I learned the hard way.

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