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!