Sick At Graduation

Graduation went well but I was sick the whole day. It was one of my best and worst days at the same time. I spoke but not sure if I communicated. Ed had trouble translating an illustration about an hourglass. It seems that mountain tribesmen no nothing of an hourglass. We all got a laugh out of it later. Isn't this a great looking graduating class. Some wore their tribal regalia.

On the way I told them how I woke up sick and went to the computer to do some work and that I heard the cat making lots of noise. It was either fighting or doing other things with another cat. When I said that Ed laughed and said that the cat could not be doing other things because they had the cat neutered a few months ago. Everyone laughed at me again.

I also got in trouble when I mentioned how Laurie and I met to a group of high school students. I told them that when I saw her I thought "look at that hot girl over there." They roared in laughter. Well it seems when you use the word "hot" it does not mean the same thing as in US. It means hot like as in a rabbit that is in heat.

Back to graduation. We met a couple who had to travel about 8 hours with a new baby, some by foot, to get to the graduation. They both graduated from the CRI school. They could be the poster child of our ministry here. They gave us two baskets made by the young people in their church as a gift. They were so appreciative of the help given to their ministry. They speak Cebwano and speak almost no english. One of the best things CRI has done is translate the Vision to Victory materials into their language. We are going to need to ask Ed to do more translation work in this area.

Because I was sick we decided to come back late in the evening. It was a long trip back and we got to bed late. The bumpy ride was not good for my stomach.

Well all work and no play makes Johnny a booring boy. We went today to a small resort area across the chanell from Davao called paradise island. We swam a little but I slept most of the time in a beach chair nursing my stomach. People from all walks of life. Some from Korea, Japan and Australia. Not many Americans. It was fun to do something different after 6 days of focus.

We get ready tomorrow for the Southern Baptist College a trip to Cotabato and speaking at Davao International Baptist Church. I am trying to catch up on blogging and facebook while I have internet. The internet is sporatic.

I am learning that people are the same everywhere. The graduation was full of testy females, proud men and politics just like in America. There were power struggles in the Convention at that time so the graduation was colored by other stuff going on outside our controll. We persevered.