This past week has been busy with various concerts as we near the end of the school year. Thursday was the faculty recital where each of the eight music faculty members performed a number of classical and sacred pieces. Friday was the BJMBC final orchestra and choir concert. It was especially exciting as a number of the pieces were written or arranged by BJMBC students. One of the main goals of the music ministry here is to encourage Filipino musicians to write and arrange their own sacred music so that they are not depend on "imported" music, so it was neat to see progress toward that end.
Then Sunday was the annual BJMBC choir tour. We packed up the entire choir along with a 5 instruments and music stands into a total of 4 vehicles. They gave a sacred concert at two different churches -- one in an another area of Manila and one outside Manila in the province. A BJMBC grad student came along to preach following each concert. The churches used the concerts as a tool to invite visitors to those church services.
Before you ask, no, I wasn't participating in all of these concerts (although I did play a flute obligato with one of the choir numbers). My musical knowledge is nowhere near the caliber of the faculty here. I did however get to video record all of these events, which is much more up my alley:-)
I would appreciate your prayers as I make a short trip to Papua New Guinea this week. I have some business that needs to be dealt with there. I will be leaving the Philippines March 8th and returning to the Philippines March 15th. Please pray for a smooth and profitable trip, especially with the travel connections and visa details.
Please also continue to pray for my computer. It will be a fairly pricey repair, but the part has to come for Singapore. I was told last week that it would take 2 weeks to get the part and make the repair. But then today I found out that their supplier fell through, so it will be another 7 days before they even get the part. Not having my computer really handicaps my usefulness here, so please pray that it will be fixed soon, ideally by when I get back to the Philippines next week.
