Maryknoll Affiliates

This update can be found, along with additional updates, pictures and information at facebook profile "Jeremy Simons" or blog: http://immersionjournal.blogspot.com/

October 30, 2009

Dear Friends and Family,

Kids with grandma at a local bird sanctuary

Happy Fall and Halloween, hope you are enjoying the cooler weather!  We have had a particularly hot September/October, but today, we are enjoying cloudy skies, which makes it just a bit cooler.  Some of you were concerned about the recent typhoons that his the Philippines.  Here in Davao, we don’t experience them directly, but get a bit of rain out of the storms because trade winds carry them to the northern Philippines. We are really saddened by the destruction in Manila but we encouraged by the response of the communities here to send money, supplies, food, etc. for the relief efforts.

The past 3 weeks we have had visitors from out of the country.  Amy’s parents spent 1 ½ weeks with us which was a really lovely, encouraging time to show them our life here.  Then our regional supervisor from California spent another week for his periodic check in with us.  A lot of other things have happened in the past two months that we would like to share with you.

Amy with a mom and new baby she helped deliver

Amy started working one day a week in the Birth Room at the clinic, and has delivered four babies to date! It has been a long-time dream to have the chance to be with families during this special moment of their lives, and now she has the chance to do it. The Filipino midwives are great to learn from and the clinic is quite busy (143 births in the month of August alone). She also finished teaching a class this month to the American midwife students on how to do physical examinations.

Jeremy's work

Jeremy and the Peacebuilders Team consults with Moro (Muslim) and B’laan tribal leaders in Sarangani province.

Jeremy had the privilege of being involved in peace making among the pastors of the Matigsalog tribe. He helped them in a discussion about their work together on an educational initiative for indigenous students. He then went on peace mission to the B'laan tribe and their neighboring Muslim community, who had lived in peace with each other until a feud escalated into retaliatory killing between their communities. The team began investigating what happened, and helped bring the issue to the community leaders so that a reconciliation process begun. Please keep these communities in prayer as they are still struggling to find a peaceful way through this very difficult situation.

The Kids!

Isaac's 2nd Birthday

The kids loved having their grandparents here, showing them all of their new skills, tricks, games and especially jokes. Even Isaac can now say, Knock, knock, who's there, banana, banana who? He doesn't quite get to the punch line yet. The girls played soccer in September and loved it, Linea is loving second grade and has been teaching us a great deal about everything from plants, to dinosaurs to art. Madeline keeps us guessing with her imagination, who is she today, a tiger, an umbrella cockatoo, or just Madeline? Isaac turned two last month which we celebrated by going on a hike by a river with our German friends.

We love and miss you all. Thank you for your prayers and faithfulness in writing emails and encouraging us.

Peace,

Jeremy, Amy, Linea, Madeline and Isaac