My Update Letter

Sorry everyone, I realized that I’ve been in the Philippines for more than ten months now, and haven’t been sending out updates. This letter is about how I ended up studying at AGS in Manila, and other news that may or may not come as a surprise to you.

In January 2005, I started my first semester as a graduate student at the Canadian Institute of Applied Linguistics/ACTS Seminaries (“Seminaries” is plural because it’s a consortium of six different seminaries) in Langley, B.C, where it was cold and rained most of the time from fall to spring. I also worked part time in the children’s ministry office in a large Assemblies of God church in Langley, which included helping with a first grade Sunday school class. I greatly enjoyed studying at CanIL (except for the homework and cold weather), and found most of my classmates to be like-minded people.

Then one day, I was sitting in my room surfing the net on the super fast LDSL internet connection that came with my basement suite (I miss it because I only have DSL now) and stumbled across Alliance Graduate School (AGS). http://www.ags.edu.ph/about_ags.htm in Manila. Because it is also associated with SIL (the overseas branch of Wycliffe), it offers nearly the same MA in Applied Linguistics that I was enrolled in. At first, I was afraid that it might be crazy for me to go there, and was mortally afraid to ask anyone about it. Eventually, though, I got up the courage to ask, and was able to talk to my Filipino boss, some former missionaries to the Philippines who sometimes teach at AGS, and a classmate who had spent several months in Philippines. When my classmate heard that I was thinking about moving to Manila, he gave me the email of his good friend B, also a student at AGS.

Somehow, in the midst of papers and finals and work, I was able to get my application sent to AGS, figure out how to get a visa to the Philippines (which required a lot of traveling back and forth to America), and buy a plane ticket to Manila.

After finishing my last final at CanIL in the middle of April, I said goodbye to Canada, drove back to the Spokane Valley, and spent about ten days with my Dad, ending with my April 30 graduation party for my BS in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute. Several of my relatives from central and eastern Washington drove 3 ½ to 8 hours to get there. I was very blessed that they came to my party!

The next evening, May 1, Dad drove me to the Spokane airport. After traveling about 24 hours, I landed in Manila on May 3 during the hottest time of year in the Philippines. B and the Applied Linguistics program director met me at the airport, took me to my apartment, introduced me to a couple of my American classmates (there’s a large number of international students at AGS, but the majority are friendly Filipinos), and showed me around the mall and grocery store.

I had found out a few days before I left that the linguistics classes would be cancelled this year, and the regular classes wouldn’t start until June. Because of that, B invited me to a conference in a village and a translation seminar for Mother Tongue Translators in Nueva Vizcaya (about 7 hours north of Manila), and I ended up spending about a month traveling around the province with him and a group of people from the mission compound (CFM) that he stays at. If you’ve read my blog, you’ve probably noticed that B appears in many of my pictures, and, yes, he’s officially my boyfriend. We might be getting engaged after a few more months as the Lord leads.

I’m very grateful that God led me to the Philippines!