The Hutchison Family in the Philippines

Happy New Year- 2012

2012-01-03T15:35:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone! I'm so amazed at how time flies. We haven't been faithful in updating our blog and so that's one of our "new year's resolution" to be more active in posting to let you know what is going on with us here in the Philippines.
We are grateful for God's continued provisions and blessings in our life. What a great 2011 it has been! We've seen and tasted of God's goodness and mercies. Thanks for all of your prayers for us.

Phoenix, AZ

2011-03-31T15:24:00.000-07:00

March 9, 2011- March 23
Our next church on the list to visit for our furlough is Sovereign Grace Bible Church in Phoenix, AZ. We were blessed to be greeted in the airport by Pastor John Tock and his wife Allyn. It's a blessing to be back there with the brethren. The weather while we were there was nice and sunny. I had packed only a few clothes for sunny weather, I didn't expect it to be in the 80's- just beautiful.

We spent the first few days with the Brants. We're so thankful for having us over and giving us their room- actually, the entire "wing" of their house. Chloe fell in love with their dog Leba. Here she is eating popcorn while Leba waits for her treat.

General Sherman Tree

2011-03-31T15:17:00.000-07:00

There it is!!! The largest tree in the world- the General Sherman tree.

Saturday, March 5, 2011, we were able to go to the Kings Canyon National Forest where they have the largest trees on earth- the Sequoia trees.

We went with one of the pastors of Abounding Grace Church, Jathan Newton, and his family. It was amazing to see God's wonderful creation. Of course the kids enjoyed playing in the snow. We are so blessed to be able to see snow twice in one week.

Trip down to Visalia

2011-03-31T15:13:00.000-07:00

March 4, 2011 we headed down to Visalia, CA to visit Abounding Grace Church. On our way there we were able to stop at the headquarters of the Sun Maid Raisin Company. It was a fun treat just to see where they grow the grapes and to visit their store.

Fun day in the snow

2011-03-31T15:03:00.000-07:00

We were so thankful to be able to spend a day in the snow. We went to a place near Lake Tahoe, CA. The kids have seen snow before but this is the first time they really got to play in it. We were thankful to be able to borrow some snow gears so we didn't freeze. We truly enjoyed our time, it was a beautiful day, not many people. We even had a little picnic in the snow. What a blessing!

Noah's 9th Birthday, Chloe's 7th Birthday

2011-03-15T10:20:00.000-07:00

We're thankful that Noah can celebrate his 9th birthday here in the US. It's his first time to experience celebrating his birthday here in the US, with family and friends. My sister took us out for lunch after worship.

Chloe had her birthday the next day, February 28. She turned 7! We went to the Jungle Gym in Concord, CA.

Furlough Video- 2011

2011-03-15T09:51:00.000-07:00

The Lord has opened up a door to go on furlough again. We left Manila on Feb 23, 2011 and hope to be in the US for about 3 months. We look forward to visiting our supporting churches, friends, and family. We are indeed grateful for God's continued provisions for us.

Hope you enjoy this video of our work and ministry in the Philippines!

20k Run

2010-12-12T14:06:00.001-08:00

The day after Luke's birthday I was able to join a 20k run at the Fort, in Global City. Got up early at 3am to get ready and at 4am was picked up by a friend to go to the race. Keren, Kurt and I went there and were surprised to that the event was so different from the one we just recently joined a few weeks earlier. This was definitely smaller and less of a hoopla. The 20k race started at 5:15 and off I went with all the other runners. I started on a good pace and tried to do a 9 minute mile. After hitting 10k that's when I started to get tired. Mentally I had to quote verses and remind myself of the race I am in as a Christian. It really helped me to meditate on the Word and sing songs in my head. This was a harder run than the ones previous half-marathon I've done. This is the first time I ran without a partner. I used to run races with Nathaniel but since he's had knee injury he had to stop running. But anyhow, the Lord helped and sustained my strength until the finish line. I finished it at 2hrs, 5 min. Praise the Lord for his mercies!

Luke's 12th Birthday

2010-12-12T13:58:00.001-08:00

December 10, 2010

Luke turned 12 a few days ago. We're so thankful for our son. He was all excited, everyone was excited for him. He got up early to play basketball with his dad, then we had breakfast in the terrace. Nathaniel had a little devotion before breakfast and shared from Psalm 127 " Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward...blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!" He opened up his presents and of course he knew most of the things he got from his wish list. We took him later on to watch the Narnia movie "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" at Greenhills. Later that afternoon he had another basketball game with his friends. What a great blessing it was to celebrate our firstborn's 12th birthday.

Singles' Conference- One Single Passion

2010-12-03T13:14:00.001-08:00

So thankful that we were able to take some of our young people (about 20 of them) to the singles' conference entitled "One Single Passion" at Higher Rock Church last November 29. Nathaniel was one of the speakers at the session. It was a wonderful time of learning and fellowship time with singles from other churches. There were about 300 young people who attended the conference. Praise God for all that we learned and what He will accomplished in the lives of these singles as a result of this conference.

Christmas Decorating 2010

2010-11-29T14:44:00.002-08:00

Well, it's that time of the year where the Christmas trees and Christmas decorations are dusted off and they get put up as a reminder of this wonderful season of Advent. This is the time of the year where we as a family always make an effort to make Christmas decoration a tradition.

We love seeing the reactions of the kids as they open up the boxes to get the decorations and remember all the fun memories of what those things represented. It's truly precious!

Here in the Philippines, they start putting up their Christmas decorations as early as September, which they call the "ber" months. We usually wait until right before Thanksgiving to put up ours.

We love this time of the year where we remember the birth of our Lord, the Incarnation of Christ. "Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name 'Immanuel'
which means, God is with us."

10K Run

2010-11-29T14:30:00.000-08:00

truly thankful that I was able to participate in a 10k run last Nov. 20. I've been wanting to do more running races here in the Philippines but it's been hard to find a race scheduled on Saturdays. Most of the races are on Sundays and our conviction has been that we don't do any sport activity on the Lord's day. Nathaniel has not been able to do any running activity because of his knee problems. I enjoyed being able to run with some friends from church. We are scheduled to run another race on Dec. 11, this time 20k.

CCBC Ladies Quarterly Fellowship

2010-11-29T14:20:00.000-08:00

Last November 21, our ladies group
held our last quarterly fellowship for the year 2010, entitled "Give Thanks."

We all got together, young and old, to share with one another all the blessings and the trials that we encountered for the year 2010. We gave thanks to the Lord knowing that He gave us those trials and blessings for our eternal good.

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-29T14:08:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Kids and I baked cakes, cookies and pumpkin pie in the morning. They don't celebrate Thanksgiving here in the Philippines so Nathaniel had to go to class in the morning.

We had friends who came over for dinner, Feliciano (who is here visiting from our church in CA), the Cortes family (Joey, Xandra, Allie and Joaquin) and Kurt.

After supper the kids provided entertainment for us by playing the piano.

We are truly grateful to the Lord for all of his provisions for us. We are thankful for our family, our church family, and the work that He has allowed for us to participate in for His Kingdom.

GBC Escondido 20th Anniversary Greeting

2010-11-23T14:18:00.000-08:00

This past October, our home church in Escondido, CA, Grace Bible Church, celebrated their 20th anniversary. We are so privilege to have a wonderful home church who loves us, supports us and prays for us. Praise God for his faithfulness!

This is the video greetings we sent them for their anniversary.

Flooding in Manila

2009-09-27T05:15:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, September 26, 2009, Manila experienced it's worst flooding in history- 16 inches of rain in 24 hours. The report says the rain was twice as much as Katrina! We are so grateful for God's protection over us. Actually that day Nathaniel left early at 6am to teach at Febias for his Saturday graduate school class. We were all aware of the storm/typhoon but it was not anything of major category so we went ahead with our plans. Luke and Mabel left before 7am to go to Luke's swimming competition. We were afraid that it might be canceled due to the storm but the competition went on as planned despite the heavy rain and strong winds. Luke actually did well, he got 2 silver medals and 1 gold for his category- 9-10 year old male competitor. By the time we finished around lunch time the roads leading out to the main highway was already impassable. I tried to look for other side roads which I may take but all of them were chest to neck deep in water!

I took this video from my camera while it was pouring rain because I wanted you all to see the semi-truck that got stuck in the middle and as you can see the people taking a plunge in the deep water.

Luke and I waited on the side road while we prayed for God's miracle for the rain to stop and for us to be able to get back home. I tried to communicate with Nathaniel but the phone lines were busy. I was actually more worried for him because he drives an old, small Toyota car which has a habit of stopping/stalling. When I finally contacted him I told him where I was and asked if he was okay. He said that he was nearby and asked to meet at one of the side roads. I was really amazed because I can't quite figure out where he passed and how did he get there with all the flooded streets- my van couldn't even make it. But in God's providence he had a student who got a ride with him who knew the way through all these side roads and he guided him to where I was. It was an amazing providence. He parked his car on the side street and they got into the van and we ventured to plow through one of the flooded streets- about waist deep, praying that the van will not stall on us. By God's grace we made it and we were all rejoicing knowing that one of the hurdles is past. We didn't know the condition of the other streets but at least we were hopeful that we can make it. And we did! What an incredible ordeal to go through and to see God's hands protecting his children. Praise the Lord! We got back home thanking God for his goodness and mercy to us.

We arrived home and found out that our house was flooded- it just started flooding- we were thankful again that we were there to get all the books and furniture out of our study room/den and nothing was damaged. At first it was disheartening but then I got calls and sms text messages from friends and church members saying that their houses were flooded and most of their stuff were soaking wet and ruined. We heard many stories from friends and loved ones who were stranded on the streets for many hours. My niece had to sleep in her car on the side of the road overnight because there were no streets that were passable. We thank the Lord for keeping her safe. My sister and her daughter were stranded in another area and they were able to spend the night in a hotel. Many houses were flooded and vehicles were submerged in water. We have a member who lives in a low-lying area and her house was submerged.

On Sunday we canceled our Sunday School class to make way for a church-wide prayer meeting. We were amazed to see many people still attended despite the hardships and trials that they went through. Truly, we are humbled to see their love and devotion to the Lord. We see God's power over nature but we are reminded that God is in control of all things. Psalm 46 says that "He is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."

Luke's baptism- August 30, 2009

2009-08-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

Today, a son became a brother. We praise and thank the Lord for saving our son Luke and for the privilege it was to see him get baptized today. What was another blessing was the fact that Nathaniel baptized him.

There were 8 guys who got baptized and added to the church. Hallelujah!

Kids

2009-08-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

What a blessing it was to see Noah stand in front of about 70 people at school and recite his Filipino poem. He has done well picking up the language and we're really thankful for his progress. Hopefully next year he can stay home and do homeschool.

Luke is now just doing homeschool. We finally decided that his Tagalog is going well and the reason for him going to school is to get proficient in the language. He is adjusting well to being at home most of the day and he loves the fact that now he can play basketball with dad more often.

Chloe continued to thrive being at home doing her kindergarten homeschooling. She started taking piano lessons along with the two boys every Friday.

It's been a joy to see them grow and mature. We look forward to the day when all of them will profess faith in Christ, be baptize and be part of the church.

Back to teaching at FEBIAS

2009-07-12T05:19:00.000-07:00

It's been about two weeks now that I've been back to school teaching. In the picture with me is the president of FEBIAS College of Bible, Lito Carag. I have an easier load this semester which I'm really thankful for. I usually go in on Monday afternoons and Saturday mornings. The Lord has been good in blessing the school with more students. There was an increase in the graduate school enrollment of 20 students! Praise the Lord!

Back in the Philippines

2009-06-22T14:11:00.001-07:00

We've been back home in the Philippines for a few days now and we're slowly trying to adjust back into the new time zone. The trip went well except for a delay in our layover in Japan. We didn't get in the airport in the Philippines until 2am on Wed., June 17. We felt bad for those who waited almost 5 hours for us to pick us up. May the Lord give them a measure of grace for waiting patiently for us.

The kids traveled well and as you can see Chloe's got her own roller bag (she insisted to carry one, which was much bigger and heavier than her). Thank you for your continued prayers for us.

50th Golden Wedding Anniversary!!

2009-06-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

On June 12th, we were delighted to be able to witness and celebrate Nathaniel's parents 50th anniversary (to the day!). What a blessing it was to join them with many others to celebrate this joyous and momentous occasion.

Nathaniel's older brother, Garth, led the program and gave a wonderful presentation through slide show, mom and dad's story- from birth through growing years, through their salvation experience, through meeting each other and then their wedding day. He told us the story of their ministries and the people they have impacted in their lives.

Truly, God has been faithful to them.

FIRE Conference

2009-05-27T07:54:00.001-07:00

Nathaniel attended the annual FIRE

(Fellowship of Independent

Reformed Evangelicals) conference in

Carmel, IN (near Indianapolis)

from May 18-21,2009. In the picture are some of the old GBC (Grace Bible Church) interns as well as the new seminary interns. Also represented are two of the elders at GBC along with their wife, Jim & Caroline Newheiser and Curt & Jen Arend.

During one of the sessions he was able to present our work in the Philippines. We're so grateful for the opportunity to share what the Lord is doing in that part of His vineyard.

Slidell, Louisiana

2009-05-18T07:59:00.000-07:00

Hi ya'll! We're here in Slidell, Louisiana visiting Heritage Bible Church until the 21st of May. We've so much enjoyed our time here getting to know the brethren. We're staying with the Roys and have experienced such wonderful southern hospitality. Last Saturday the church had a crawfish boil picnic and it was an experience! (See photo)

Nathaniel left this morning (May 18th) to attend the annual FIRE conference. The kids and I are staying with the Roys until we leave on Thursday, 21st, to go back to Michigan.

We hope to be in Bremen, Indiana on Saturday, May 23rd until the first week of June. We are visiting one of our supporting church, Grace Fellowship Church. We look forward to another wonderful time of fellowship with the brethren there.

Hutchisons Slide show presentation

2009-04-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

Blessings as you watch this video.

Half-Marathon!!!

2009-04-17T08:25:00.001-07:00

Last week, I was able to run a half-marathon with some friends from our church- Grace Bible Church, Escondido, CA. I'm so thankful that I was able to finish it at 2:02. I enjoyed most of it until the last 2 miles when my feet started to hurt. Praise the Lord for giving me the endurance.

On Furlough at last!!

2009-03-25T18:21:00.000-07:00

Just want to update and let you know that we're here in the US now. We arrived on March 12 in San Francisco, CA and spent a few days with Mabel's family and then left for San Diego, CA on Saturday, March 14 to spend the next month with our church GBC. What a blessing it has been since we've arrived! God has so abundantly provided for all of our needs- beyond what we can even dream of. Thank your for all of your prayers for us. So far our family is doing well- none of us have been sick and that's a praise. We've been so encourage to be here with our church family. It's been good to re-connect with some members who were here before and to meet many new friends. We haven't been back to the US for four years and so much have changed in terms of our church family especially seeing all of their kids.

Here you see a photo of our family visiting the Wild Animal Park near San Diego, CA.

One month to go before our furlough!

2009-02-11T22:58:00.000-08:00

One more month to go and we are off to the US. We are looking forward to seeing most of you. We will have a very busy schedule and most of them will be visiting churches. As most of you know we have not been back "home" for almost 4 years! We are also going back to attend our parents 50th "Golden" Wedding Anniversary. What a blessing to see God's faithfulness to them.

Here is our tentative schedule:

March 12- arrival- stay in the Bay area with family
March 14 -Fly to San Diego to be with our church family, Grace Bible Church in Escondido, CA
April 3-6 - Juanita Community Church, Kirkland, WA
April 19- CERC, Castro Valley, CA
April 23-28 SGBC, Phoenix, AZ
April 30- fly to Chicago, be with family in MI
May 13-17 - SGF, Slidell, LA
May 18-21 - FIRE conference
May 23-June 1 - GFC, Bremen, IN
June 2-12- Family in MI
June 13- fly back to Bay Area, CA
June 15- Departure back to the Philippines

Please pray for us as we are trying to finish up last minute details for our trip. Nathaniel has finals to give to his students as well as he needs to take his finals in his Greek and Hebrew classes. Our kids have their finals as well to take on March 9-11.

Oh by the way, our class cycle here starts in June and ends in March that is why we will be in the US during the Spring time- it's summer break here for us.

The pictures posted are the graduate and undergraduate students at Febias College of Bible.

Young Professional Bible Study

2009-02-06T02:46:00.000-08:00

We are so blessed to be part of helping with the Young Professional Bible study which meets at our house ever Friday night. Last Friday, Jan. 30, we took a break from our normal bible study and had a fellowship night. We normally have about 12-15 "young pros" (as they are now called) join our study. Last Friday, we were blessed to have at least 30 of them join us for fellowship night. We didn't expect so many "kids" that we ran out of food. It was comical to see how we were looking around for left-over food in the fridge to serve to them. They were so easy to please that they ate all our left-over, no qualms about it. We played a lot of board games and "guesstures". A We've had our bible study for about a year now and we studied John Piper's Desiring God and now we're going through another series of studies. What a blessing to see most of them hear a clear presentation of the gospel! There are few ladies now who are interested in being baptized and have professed faith in the Lord. Glory to God!

Ladies Tea Party

2009-02-06T02:38:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday, Feb. 1, the ladies at our church had a Tea Party (and coffee too!). We were blessed to have about 40 ladies come and join us for fun and fellowship. One of the lady member of our church shared a moving testimony of God's grace in her life. We were so moved, some of us were crying during her testimony time. What a blessing to hear and see how God changed her life, from a little girl who grew up in an orphanage, no parents, got into all sorts of "mischief" and sinful lifestyle to a woman who serves the Lord with all of her heart.

A Silver Medal

2009-02-06T01:55:00.000-08:00

On January 19, our kids participated in English Elocution (art of clear and expressive speech) at their school. My oldest son, Luke in 4th grade, recited Psalm 91 and he was awarded a silver medal for his performance. We thank the Lord for this great opportunity for our kids to be a part of this competition and for the award.

Meet the Hutchisons

2009-01-19T22:00:00.000-08:00

Well, we're finally doing the blog.

I hope that this will help most of you to keep updated about what the Lord is doing in our family and our ministry here in the Philippines.

We are thankful for the many blessings we've received from the Lord and for His continued faithfulness to us. Thank you for your prayers.

We will continue to add more to this blog as we get used to using it more.

2009-01-19T21:57:00.000-08:00