Uh oh, Tim's rambling again...

I thought I would give you a brief report on what I have been up to lately and show you a few pictures I've taken along the way. Last week I joined Glen Knight on his boat(s) for the day. Glen is my new friend who runs Remote Island Ministries. I had joined him on his boat in order to help out with the installation of a new engine, but our day didn't go as planned.

The new engine was supposed to arrive from Cebu (the second largest city in the Phils) that morning, but after I arrived at the boat we learned that the engine was not due until the evening. We decided to spend our morning inquiring about a crane that we could use to switch engines at a local dock. We were taking the Tropicana (pictured below, it is the smaller of Glen's boats, though at 62 feet it can hardly be considered small) across the bay when the engine suddenly cut out and we started to drift south.
Without the engine, we were drifting parallel to the waves which made for a rather turbulent ride. The crew did their best to get it going again, but after we had drifted a mile or two, they decided it was best to call for help and get towed back to the Nativa (Glen's large boat, pictured below). The turbulence left me feeling a little seasick just in time for lunch!
After lunch we decided to take a drive up the mountain on Samal Island, where they were just beginning a church building project. Faith Baptist, the church Bethany and I have been attending, has a seminary that works with RIM. The students go with Glen on the boat, preach the gospel in the villages and then plant a church there. We drove up the mountain to a village called Bandera to see them unloading the bricks that would become part of the foundation. The church will be located right at the top of the mountain, across the street from a school and the barangay hall (something akin to a community center...sort of).

I took a few pictures of the church property. Because it is at the top of a mountain, they will first have to level it off by filling in the lot with stones. You can see a red water tower behind the empty lot. Glen is excited about getting some water filters to this location because he is convinced that the water sits in that tower too long and becomes unfit to drink. Apparently a visiting pastor drank from that source and became intensely ill.
I also took some photos of the kids that were watching us from the school house. Sorry this was such a long post, but now you know a bit more about Glen and his boats and what he does. He and I are hoping to have a water filtration operation started by February. I'm really looking forward to joining him on some of his journeys to the remote Islands. I will learn a lot from him, and I believe that the Lord has great things in store for RIM.

You can be praying that Glen successfully installs the new engine into the Nativa. They were able to get a crane and get the engine into the boat (the crane operator nearly dropped the engine into the ocean), but they still have to hook it all up. Also, please be praying for Glen's wife, Paula, who went back to Texas last week and has become very ill with some mysterious virus.

Talk to you again soon.

Cheers,
Tim.