Sunday

Had a good time today.  We left the hotel and took the MRT Train to Ayala, Alabang.  It was a nice change to get around independently again.  We spent some time at the mall and my cousin Jesse picked us up and brought us to his home.

It was so good talking to my dear cousin.  I'm so proud of him and his family.  He is a lawyer and his son is now a lawyer and family man as well.  His other son is a concert pianist and also psychology graduate at the age of 23 years old. The daughter is in New York studying, and the other daughter is going to be an architect graduate soon.  Jesse has his own foundation he put together called Outlook Point, where he encourages artwork and music appreciation.  He also is an entrepreneur and land investor.  I'm just so overwhelmed by their accomplishments, and it's a great feeling because he and my dad were very close, and he always credits my dad for really inspiring him and making a difference in his life.  (my dad was his uncle, the brother of his mother).  Dad always told me I needed to go see Jess in the PI, and would always brag about him and his mom, and Jess was always one of my dad's all time favorite people in the world. 
We had a great dinner and had a lot of laughs, and told many stories.  He really would like to one day use my "expertise" in water engineering to do both some humanitarian work thru his foundation, and also through his entrepreneurial spirit.  So he really encouraged me to continue building upon that experience, and through those valuable contacts I made in thailand in the water industry, and to continue helping missions through that niche of water purification\.  He thinks there will be a great future in that. 
Jess has a lot of vision, and lots of success to back up his talk, so it was nice to get a brotherly pep talk from him.  Especially since he sees a lot of financial rewards to it, outside of the missionary aspect of it, there's businesses that really need it in Asia. 

Anyways, we'll see what happens as the years go by.  Later in the evening we watched Joey's concert on DVD, and we were so blown away by the beauty of the music.  It was just a very special time for both Tammy and I, and Jess.  We're just so proud of Joey, and so grateful to the Lord for how good He has been to this family.