Jenn's Journalings

Clouds & God’s Faithfulness

I went to Bukidnon for 4 days during this school break. I really enjoyed all of the scenery (mountains & clouds) while being out of the city.

As I looked at the clouds I was reminded of a song that I really like (“I Will Look Up” by Elevation Worship), and for the rest of the trip the clouds were reminding me of HIM.

The two lines that kept repeating in my mind were “I will look back and see that you are faithful / I look ahead believing you are able.” I hope you enjoy these pictures of God’s handiwork & can also be blessed by this small reminder of his faithfulness.

All the worries of this world
I will lay them at your feet
Surrender every anxious thought
For perfect peace
Your perfect peace

All the loved ones I hold dear
All my hopes and dreams and all my fears
I will choose to trust your name
In everything
With everything

I will look up for there is none above you
I will bow down to tell you that I need you
Jesus, Lord of all
Jesus, Lord of all

I will take you at your word
Jesus you have taken hold of me
All my life is in your hands
You’re my strength
You’re my strength

I will look up for there is none above you
I will bow down to tell you that I need you
Jesus, Lord of all
Jesus, Lord of all

I will look back and see that you are faithful
I look ahead believing you are able
Jesus, Lord of all
Jesus, Lord of All

Prince of Peace
Perfect Healer
All my life, all my cares on you
King of Kings
Mighty Savior
All my life, all my cares on you

Korea 2014

In November I went to ICEC Asia 2014 in Korea.

I know this is a little late, but here is a Smilebox with some pictures from my trip.

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Below I included a few more pictures/videos.

OE- Wednesday

Wednesday was reef day. We took bancas from the base camp to the reef. (Here’s a picture of a banca, although it’s from Google and not a picture of one we actually were on.)

My squad had a banca just for us (and our stuff and the water to took to the reef site). Our banca had some motor problems, so although we were one of the first to leave we were one of the last to arrive. We had fun singing on the way there. We sang quite a few songs; the following list tells some of them: God’s Not Dead, How He Loves Us, I Will Follow, Our God, Who’s the King of the Jungle?, Let It Go, Do You Want to Build a Snowman?, and some of the Tagalog songs we sang the day before too.  (I included links, so if you want to hear some of these songs on Youtube just click on the title.)

Here’s my girls on the banca on the way over.

When we arrived we had a bit of scuba diving orientation, site orientation, and an entertaining demo for putting on sun screen.

The squads were split into 4 groups to rotate through the activities. We started with squad time, so we had a merienda (snack) of watermelon and had squad devotions. A few of my girls went on a short hike with another squad. Here’s a few of the pictures they took.

The next activity was either scuba diving or a craft. 3 of my girls went diving and the rest of us painted a rock. It was fun.

Next we went snorkeling. The water was a bit cold, but then it was fun. We didn’t get many pictures since we were swimming.

Our last activity was the squid dissection. It was pretty cool!

We had free time, dinner, a speaker, and then squad time. We had great squad devotions this evening.

We sang on our banca ride back to base camp the next morning too. We didn’t sing as much, but we sang lots of praise songs. The banca driver talked to me afterward. He was encouraged by our songs and said he was Brother ____. It was neat that we were able to minister to our banca driver on our way between sites.

Fun @ Croc Park

Back in May I went to Crocodile Park with some friends. The park has mostly crocodiles but also other animals that they have rescued (or taken in as rescues). Enjoy!

I think this bird was struggling to determine whether he was a bird or a bat. 🙂

This baby tiger was so cute!

The poor little guy had fallen and wasn’t able to get out.

This one wasn’t so cute…

This guy has a broken jaw (I think). Looks pretty strange.

Deer in the Philippines look different. This is the first one I remember seeing with antlers too!

This peacock was beautiful!

This is the large & old crocodile at the park.

They do a show with “dancing crocodiles” when they feed them and they come up out of the water to get the meat.

Summer Fun!! – Part 6

We went to Paradise Island on Saturday. The morning was rainy but it stopped before we got to the island. It made for a cooler day, which was nice.

We swam around, went snorkeling, and had lunch.

For lunch we had carbonara (with garlic bread) and zucchini with tomato sauce. Then we ordered halo halo also. Halo halo means mix mix. The contents vary and could include the following: shaved ice, evaporated milk, corn flakes, ube ice cream, red beans, banana, coconut strips, pinipig (ground dried rice – sort of like rice krispies), tapioca, gelatin, sweet corn, etc. (You can look it up online.)

It was a relaxing and fun time! I’m so glad Becky was able to visit for a few days.

(btw- it was not my last day of summer)

Summer Fun!! – Part 5

After we checked out we got lunch at the fishing village. The entrance was included in our package.

This was standing just outside of the village entrance. We had taken pictures here the day before.

We each caught a tilapia (0.7 kilos total) and then had them grilled. We bought two servings of rice as well. I’m not a huge fish person, but it was good. I even ate it with my hands – Filipino style. 🙂

Summer Fun!! – Part 4

We had dinner and breakfast included in our package. We ate in the main restaurant.

We had the buffet and both at dinner and breakfast they gave us extra food too. I guess it came with our package but we didn’t know that ahead of time. Here was some of our extra breakfast food: garlic rice, toast, pancakes, & ham.

On Friday morning we went hiking on the mountain trail. It started out really well (despite the unhelpful map), but then we ended up getting lost somehow. I think it was due to the poor map and the fallen down trees on parts of the trail. We really wanted to find this hanging bridge.

These were some cool plants we passed on the trail.

They sort of look like pine cones. However, they aren’t made of the same material and there was some type of liquid between the larger pieces.

A lot of the trail followed along a creek.

There were some huge leaves!

We were a bit lost and found some of the workers. They directed us to the correct direction on the path toward a garden we knew was somewhere close. This is the view from that garden.

We were muddy. It had rained the night before so parts of the trail were slippery.

Thankfully we were able to get a ride back with the shuttle tour group that was at the garden. We were supposed to check out about 45 minutes after we got to the garden.

 I called the front office when we got back to our cottage. They were so understanding (I explained that we’d been lost for a little while) and said it was fine for us to check out an hour later than our previously set time.

Summer Fun!! – Part 3

We went to the Butterfly Garden and on the day tour during the afternoon of our first day.

The butterflies and moths were being fed fruit.

I stood still for a few seconds in the butterfly garden and this one landed on my glasses.

I like the different flowers!

We walked around for a bit before going on the shuttle tour.

Here we are waiting to leave on the shuttle tour.

As we went on the day tour we saw a momma cat with two kittens.

Summer Fun!! – Part 2

We went to Eden Nature Park & Resort overnight Thursday-Friday. It is up on the mountain so it’s cooler. It was really nice to get away and be somewhere a bit cooler for a while. I’ll break this trip up into 2 posts since I have lots of pictures between the two of us. Some of the pictures I took and some of them Becky took. Enjoy!

Here are some pictures of our cottage. It was a really cute place!

The back porch was screened in and we could see some trees. It was nice to be away from bugs but “outside.”

Before we went to dinner we played Skip-bo while we waited.

Summer Fun!! – Part 1

I’m enjoying the break during summer vacation so far. My friend Becky came to visit for a few days and we had a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy these pictures. Rest and friends are such a blessing!!

On Wednesday night we went to Outback Grille, which is a restaurant that opened shortly after I arrived here in Davao. I haven’t gone yet…it was great!

We played games on the placemats while we waited for our food.

This was Becky’s burger; mine is in the background.

Here we are ~ Carol (the librarian), me, & Becky.

We each had fried ice cream for dessert. It was ok but not my favorite.