More Jojo Milestones

It seems we've hit another milestone of sorts with Jojo, who is now 9 and a half months old. He can wave to us, say "da da" (too bad I'm "Papa" and not "da da"), and is becoming more aware of body parts. We joke about him becoming a dentist when he grows because he likes to inspect our teeth and mouths!

For Christmas, we got him Fisher-Price's Noah's Ark with a couple of lions, birds, zebras and other animals. He seems to like it OK. It comes with Noah and his wife.

I was joking about calling her "Joan" after that line in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure with Bill & Ted were in class and the teacher asked, "Who was Joan of Arc?" and one of them said, "Um...Noah's wife?" But I figured it best not to mislead the boy from an early age, especialy regarding Biblical stuff! Could you imaging people going, "Don't listen to that missionary when he teaches about the Bible, his own son thinks Noah's wife was Joan of Arc!" OK, but I digress...

I will try not to neglect the blog anymore. Maybe it can be my New Year's Resolution...

Long Time No Blog

Wow, ever since the Concert of Prayer, I'm sorry to say I've been neglecting my blog! Sorry to all of you who check it faithfully. I've not dropped off the face of the earth---I've just been swallowed up by the busy Christmas season! Here are some pics from the prayer event:

Combined worship team representing a ethnic heritage from Europe, Korea, The Philippines, Vietnam & Myanmar

Just one of the many multiethnic & multigenerational prayer groups

My brother, Mark, flew over from New York to visit for a few days. That was really nice. He changed his major from Business to Education, so it will probably take him an extra year to graduate from King's College in Manhattan. We'll try to fly back to the States to see him do that in 2006. He left California on the 23rd to arrive in Manila at 6AM on Christmas morning! It's pretty cool that he got to spend another Christmas with the family.

Jojo & Tito Mark

Christine's parents and sister came down to visit us here. And sicne we ran the show at our place, we made sure the celebration of our Lord's birth was really overt and devoid of most of the more commerialized aspects of the holiday. They attended a Christmas Eve service at our pastor's house, where they got to hear my evangelistic presentation. Christine also got to share personaly with her sister that afternoon. Pray for the seeds that have been planted among the Buddhist and Islamic people who also attended that night.

We're getting close to 70% of our support now. Pray we could be at 80% by the end of January and 90% by March. It is possible! Let's continue to seek the Lord's will for our departure date next year---The year we believe God will complete our support team and send us to the Philippines! I like to call it, "2005: The Year of the Mission!"