Reflections Newsletter

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been almost two months since I have returned from my missions trip to the Philippines. Due to family and personal illness I was out of commission for almost most of March. Consequently I have been spending the month of April trying to catch up on all of my responsibilities. Many of you have asked me about how my trip to the Philippines went, and I promised to write a letter to that end. Here is that promised letter to you. I do want to thank you for your prayers and financial support. We were able to help very many missionaries during our short week in the Philippines of which you played a key role.

Overall I have to say that the trip was a great success. Not only did we accomplish all that we intended to do, but we also were able to enjoy the culture and missionaries while we were there. There were definitely some cultural differences to which we needed to adapt. For example, in the Philippines traffic lines and stop lights are mere recommendations. If you want to change a lane, you use your horn instead of your turn signal. This made for some crazy traffic conditions. While it may seem chaotic to you, we did not see any accidents at all. We ended up getting used to it. Another cultural difference was the ubiquitous nature of cell phones. Not only did everyone have a cell phone, but text messaging was used primarily rather than voice conversations. People would be walking down the streets punching in short messages to their friends or even co-workers. Sometimes you'd be having a conversation with someone and you could see them punching in a text message on their phone at the same time. In the Philippines the only part of the chicken I didn't see served was the head; and that doesn't mean that they didn't eat it. We saw chicken gizzard, chicken feet, chicken intestines, and even chicken tail shish kabob. One day we were served a snack called balut: a fourteen-day old fertilized chicken egg. (To see some pictures and videos from our trip visit the blog.)

We were able to help many missionaries with their laptop and desktop computers. I remember helping at least twenty people with their computers. We setup two secured wireless networks, updated computers, installed software, installed hardware, configured firewalls, held training sessions on safe computing practices, taught computer courses, and more. We were really able to bless these missionaries by allowing them to concentrate on the work that they need to be doing rather than worrying about their computers. I really enjoyed being able to serve them by helping in such a practical way.

One of the things I learned on this trip was that I can really experience true joy and pleasure in serving God. Often times serving God can be seen as a duty or a task to complete, but in the Philippines I woke up each day excited and energized to work on computers and get to know the local missionaries. The other thing I learned while I was there is that God needs non-traditional missionaries. Often times when people think of missionaries they think of pastors, teachers, evangelists, and the like, but there in the Philippines I met business managers, directors, public school ethics teachers, short-term missionary coordinators, videographers, and more. Whatever it is that God has gifted and impassioned us with can be used for him, not only across the world, but right here in our own neighborhoods and churches. What a privilege!

I wanted to thank you again for supporting our team in this the opportunity to bless so many people. Together we have made investments that will have eternal dividends.

In Christ,

Jason Wasser

Pictures from the Trip

Everyone had a seat on the plane, except for Brian. William is trying to remedy that.

Here Brian is getting a thorough scan from the Japenese security ladies. They finally found his scissors.

This is Quentin, the young boy I sat next to in the plane for about 12 hours. We played hangman, the dot game, and tic tac toe, until we couldn't play anymore. I gave him my Gideon's Bible as a gift. He seemed to be very appreciative.

This is Alex and John, two of the men we worked with while we were there.

Here is a picture of Balut: a fourteen-day old fertilized chicken egg.

Balut again.

Here I am helping one of the missionaries with his Palm Pilot.

A Jollibee value meal. Jollibee is McDonald's competitor in the Philippines.

A group shot of some of the people we worked with.

Videos from the Trip

Follow the links to view some videos from our trip:

Eating Balut Part 1

Eating Balut Part 2

Monday Night at the Guest House

We are looking into blogs and other technologies for the missionaries here. Often missionaries have a quarterly newsletter of some sort that they send out to their supporters. The missionary who ran the guest house, Nancy, would keep track of everyone's email addresses in separate distribution lists in her Yahoo account. I showed her how to use Yahoo Groups to setup a mailing list where people can subscribe and unsubscribe themselves and also read back-issues. This allows the missionaries to focus more on the content of their newsletter than on the managing of newsletter. I also showed her how some missionaries are now using blogs for their newsletters which allows a simple way to publish their newsletters to a graphical and sequential website without the need for editing web pages.

Arrival in Manila

Dear friends and family,

We have safely arrived in Manila, Philippines last night around midnight local time. Manila is 13 hours behind Eastern Time US. We have had a good night's rest and are preparing for breakfast this morning at 7am and church at 10am. We were all very tired last night. The long plane ride from Chicago to Tokyo was very draining (13+ hours). Then we had a few hour wait at Tokyo before we took our last four hour leg to Manila where Alex Marcos met us at the airport.

I had two great opportunities during the first two flights we took. From Atlanta to Chicago I sat next to a man named Wes. We struck up a conversation and talked almost the entire two hour flight. It turns out he is from York, PA so we had a few things in common. I was able to get to know him a bit and plant some seeds of the gospel and ask some good questions. His mother has been ill for many months now, but they are not quite sure what is wrong. He told me that he is thinking about putting her in a nursing home, but she doesn't want to go. I told him about my trip and why we are going. He mentioned that he doesn't go to church because he's really busy. I told him that I would pray for him, his family, and his mother. He was much appreciative.

Then on the plane ride to Tokyo I was sitting next to a 10 year old boy named Quentin. We talked a lot and played some games together. I was recently given a Gideon's bible that I brought with me planning to give it to someone in the Philippines. Since I had connected so well with Quentin I decided to give it to him. I wrote his name in it and wrote that it was from me and gave it to him just before we left the plane. He seemed very appreciative. I couldn't tell if his family were believers or not by our conversations, but at least now he has his own little pocket new testament.

Now it is 4pm. We attended a really great church service this morning with 1500 people in attendance. The church has 5 services on Sunday with over 8000 people in attendance. Their church is located in the mega mall and the overflow rooms are movie theaters. I've never been to a church that big as far as I can remember. The worship was lively and refreshing as well as the sermon on generosity. After the service Alex took us to a restaurant to try some authentic Filipino food: lots of rice, meat, and sauces. Everyone enjoyed the meal.

Unique things we've encountered:

• crazy traffic: road lines are suggestions as well as stop lights
• ubiquitous cell phones: everyone has one and txting is more common than voice conversations, in fact people are known to carry on conversations with you while secretly txting someone else simultaneously
• we were served cheezit's for communion crackers
• the rest rooms are called comfort rooms

We are very excited to be here, and we are looking forward to starting tomorrow morning. Please pray for our team to have great success in helping the missionaries in any way that we can. Pray that the technology that we work on will be cooperative to what we are trying to do.

Sincerely,
Jason Wasser

Philippines Missions Trip

Break for Change
Philippines Missions Trip Newsletter
February 23, 2006

Dear family and friends,

One week from today we will be travelling to Atlanta to prepare to leave early the next morning to go the Philippines. Our team is ready and excited. I found out this morning that our trip will be still slightly different from what was originally planned, but we will still be doing technical work. Our team of four will be split in half; one half will go to the Maharlika Village to help out with the Internet cafe, while the other half will head to the SEND (missions organization with which we are partnering) headquarters to help set up their office network. They are interested in us purchasing equipment to setup their office for wireless networking as well as helping them educate their office users on how to keep their computers running smoothly and securely. What an exciting opportunity this will be for our team to use the technical skills that we have to serve these missionaries as well as to serve God.

Please pray for us as we make our final preparations this last week. Please pray that we make it through the airport customs as well. Also many of you know that I have a bad back; please pray that I will be able to be patient and have opportunities to stretch my back on the long 21+ hour flight to the Philippines.

Thank you again for all of you who have committed to support our team. All the necessary financial support came in just in time last week. We praise the Lord for providing for us.

Sincerely,
Jason Wasser
for the Philippines Team