Don Tuite wrote:
On 22 May 2006 21:30:40 -0700, "cjcampbell"
wrote:


Ol Shy & Bashful wrote:
Curious to see how many of the people here have passports and who has
visited outside of their home country as a civilian.

Well, I am a missionary in the Philippines now and will not return
until the end of November. Does that count? (I wonder how rusty I am
getting?)

How are you making out? I have some friends who went to the South
Seas on a missionary catamaran outfitted as a dental clinic. At one
port, they treated a man who'd had an abcessed tooth for decades. They
had it out and packed with antibiotics and in two days, the man, who'd
been one mean ******* up until then, turned out to be a perfectly
reasonable human being after all.

It isn't easy to practice virtue when you're in continuous pain. Thre
were lessons there for everyone: guy with the toothache, his
neighbors, missionaries, and assorted skeptics.

We are doing fine. Officially, we are the office couple and we are in
charge of the, um, office. Seriously. I handle finances, vehicles, and
housing for the missionaries and Jane takes care of record keeping and
other clerical duties. But they do let us out once in awhile. :-)

We rack up a lot of kilometers, training local church leaders all over
the northern end of Luzon, inspecting missionary apartments, taking
care of various other missionary needs, occasionally being the invited
dignitaries at some groundbreaking ceremony for a new chapel, etc.

Now, if only all of us could cure our ill temper merely by pulling a
tooth....

("Philippines" -- Southeast Asian island country whose name roughly
translates to "land covered with very small ants.")