Philippine Trip Cancelled!!

[Sherri]

Well, we had to cancel our trip to Mindanao, Philippines. We were supposed to leave a week from tomorrow, on our 29th anniversary. The State Dept. has issued another warning to Americans and Europeans to NOT go to the island of Mindanao. Evidently there is a holiday on July 4th called "Filipino-American Friendship Day" and it used to be a celebration, but now the anti-American sentiment on that particular island is so strong that they are expecting a surge of riots, bombings, kidnappings, etc. That would have been the first day of our conference there.

Our head pastor over there even wrote to me to tell us not to come at this time, and he usually ALWAYS tells me how safe it is in his city. He said even with armed guards, he could not guarantee our safety. SO......as sad as it is, I think we are going to fly to Manilla maybe later in the year, and fly him and his wife up to meet us there for a couple of days. They have never flown and have never hardly been off their island, so they will be excited about that. I hate it that we will not get to meet the other L & T pastors, but we felt like we just couldn't go at this time.

Then I get to thinking about Janice Alvear trekking through that jungle with the big snakes and the angry Indians, and I feel like a big CHICKEN!!! LOL!

[rgcraig]

Well, honestly I haven't been able to be excited for you guys about this trip because I didn't have a good feeling about it......so, I'm a bit relieved actually!

Hopefully, the trip to Manila will work out for you later! God is control of all things!

[Tina]

It sounds to me like postponing the trip is the wise thing to do. Hopefully it will work out for you to go later.

I don't think you're a chicken Just using wisdom in not putting yourselves in harms way.

[CC1]

Wisdom is a good thing. If the trip was to do something vital to the missionary work there that would be one thing but a routine visit to the work for encouragement and to see what is going on first hand would be foolish in the present situation there.

This situation is EXACTLY why you have native pastors doing the boots on the ground missions work!

The trip later to Manilla sounds like a good idea.

[Sherri]

Originally Posted by rgcraig

Well, honestly I haven't been able to be excited for you guys about this trip because I didn't have a good feeling about it......so, I'm a bit relieved actually!

Hopefully, the trip to Manila will work out for you later! God is control of all things!

You know, I couldn't get a good feeling about it either. We had several friends and family members who had called us in the past couple weeks saying that they didn't feel good about this trip, which always makes you feel great!! LOL! My main thing was I just could not get excited about it, and I always LOVE missions trips. I knew we were leaving soon, but it was like it wasn't really happening. Very weird.

I told Eddie that if God had spoken to him and said to go, that we would go anyway and He would protect us, no matter what. But if God had not told him, and we were just going because he felt like it was a need, then we should reconsider. He said that God had not told him to go; we had just had these pastors for 8 years now and had never met them and he felt like we needed some personal contact.

Anway, I put DVD's in the mail this week for them to show at their conference, of Eddie teaching. We did the same thing for Kenya this year. I hope they can actually find a DVD player in that remote part of Kenya!!

[Sherri]

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I have very mixed emotions about this!!: uhoh
Was that mixed enough????

[Esther]

I think you made the right decision.

[Sister Alvear]

Sherri, I was very worried about you all. Like you say maybe Manila later on this year but right now there is so much uprisings against Americans.
Mission work NEEDS you and Brother Eddie ALIVE.
Yeah, I know I am one to be giving advice...but you know the saying, do as I say NOT as I do...ha...love you.

[tamor]

This is twice. I'm glad y'all are staying home.

[Barb]

God truly knows what is best...