Thank You for Reading

The weeks are starting to go by really fast. It seems like I was just writing my last blog and now I'm here doing another one. Time is definitely going by fast and I guess that's what happens when you're having fun. This week has been a little tough. I picked up another cold and it has really drained me the last couple days. It's frustrating because I've been sick so much while I've been here and it's just so much harder to do things when you don't feel well. I've had a lot of things to do and I just haven't been able to do it all. I really hope that this is just a weird thing and that I won't be getting sick every other week the whole time that I am here. I try to keep a smile on my face and stay energetic and positive but it is just so much harder to do, especially in 2nd grade where I really need to be so energetic to keep that class going and I just don't have the energy or the voice to be able to do it. I would love for my students to be able to see me for an extended period of time where I am healthy. So please pray for my health and that my body can either adjust or figure out how to stay healthy here so that I am able to be at my best for all of the things I am doing.
Other than that things are going pretty well. I found a cockroach hanging out on my bed when I got home from dinner, so that wasn't the funnest part of the day, but things have been good. I'm definitely starting to miss a lot of things though. There's a lot of minor conveniences or nice things we have at home that just aren't here and it can be hard some times. The biggest thing I think (besides family and friends) is the food. There is a lot of really good food here and so that's not the problem, but there's not a huge variety of things and there are just a lot of things that just aren't here. One of the things that I have been starting to miss is the American habit of overeating. We eat so much more food than we need in America and that's just part of our culture. We always have more food than what we need. When we have a dinner we have a lot of different things and just kind of eat until we can't eat anymore. When you go out to eat your dinner sizes are usually bigger than what you need, you eat until you are full. Here the sizes of things are how much you need, not how much makes you full. One of the reasons I have heard for people eating rice for every meal is that rice gives you a full feeling, the Filipino teachers don't know how we don't eat rice with all of our meals because they don't know how we can eat without having that full feeling. Well it's easy to do for about two months, but then it gets hard not to have that indulgence of eating more than I need. And I could if I wanted, but it just feels awkward spending a lot of money on food so I can feel stuffed and have more food than I could eat when I am surrounded by people who try to bring in enough everyday to provide  enough food for the whole family.  A couple weeks ago some of the teachers were treated to a dinner by the owner of a restaurant who is the mother of a couple of the girls in the school. They gave of us tons of food; chicken, fish, crabs, pasta, vegetables, rice, and soda and I was talking to one of the other missionaries after and we were saying it was such a weird feeling to be full. It was weird but it was the first time in the 2 months since I left America that I was really full. One of the hard things I keep thinking about is Thanksgiving. It is by far my favorite meal of the year and it's hard realizing that I'm not going to have any of the foods that I would be having if I was at home. I already know that's going to be a tough day.
On that note, one of the reasons it's hard to complain, and easier not to give in is the feeding sites. Because I'm doing the youth group now for the high school and jr high missionary kids I'm doing two feeding sites during the week. I have been going to the helicopter pad feeding on Wednesdays and the Cagban feeding on Thursdays. They are two of the poorest sites on the island. We have a few sites on the island though that aren't getting all of the funding they need to be able to feed every week so I am in the process of trying to switch to another site on Wednesday that needs both the volunteering to work the site as well as the financial support to be able to feed everyone. I'm looking to be able to support that site financially so that it will be able to feed the children every week. I think it is impotant to be there to do the work and to show them the love they need, but I also think it's important to help financially support the site to provide them with food. I have the ability to do it and instead of spending the money buying extra food for me I'm spending it so that they have enough. These are some pictures of the Cagban site, I haven't posted pictures of this site because we only have three of us working this site so I'm always doing something and just don't have much time to take pictures, but here are a few.

My flash didn't go off, which is too bad because the kid on left was wearing a Sacramento Kings Mike Bibby shirt, I thought that was awesome.

Being the doctor for the feedings definitely has it's up and downs. It is nice to be able to help these kids be able to treat their injuries and it is nice to be able to give them the ability for these injuries to get clean and heal instead of getting infected and getting worse. It can also be hard though seeing how bad some of these little things can get because they don't ave the ability to treat them on their own or keep them clean. So many things get infected and end up so much worse than they should because they don't have the ability to get things we take for granted like band-aids or clean water to keep it clean. A couple weeks ago I hit a low point when I was about to treat a little girl with a cut on her knee. I was putting some hydrogen peroxide on some cotton to be able to clean it and she started crying. I was trying to tell her that it was going to be ok but I knew she wasn't going to like the stinging of the peroxide. We managed to get through that and she kept crying the whole time. I got the band-aid out and put some neosporin on it and she started crying even more. She did not want to have anything to do with me or the band-aid. I managed to get the band aid on and she took off. She probably won't talk to me for a while. It really made me ad though, I know I didn't hurt her or anything else but it just was hard seeing her cry so much and despise me so much. I was like I don't want to do this, I didn't come here to make little girls cry. I really wish I would have had a lollipop to give her but I don't know if that would have really helped anyways.
I had my high point this last week though at the Cagban site. There is a boy there with really really bad burns on his legs. They were really bad burns and then instead of getting treated they were left alone and got really infected. I was amazed when I saw him for the first time 3 weeks ago because I had never seen something so bad, I honestly don't even know how to describe it. And I really didn't know what I was going to do with the little amount of stuff I had, it seemed like it really needed to get treatment form a real doctor. I realized I was all he had though and spent about 20 minutes trying to clean it all the best I could and get it patched up with band aids as much as possible. The next week I went back and tried to do the same thing. I had told him after the first time to keep it clean and keep treating it and keeping it covered. What I realized the second week was that he didn't have that option. I don't know much about his story but I hope to find out more about him as I spend more time at the site. What I do know is that he is one of the only older boys that goes to any of the sites. Most of the boys stop going as they start to get into jr high age for whatever reason, they think they are too cool or something. But he goes, and I think that shows how much he knows he needs the treatment, and also I think the food. I know that he is missing several teeth and that they are his adult teeth that he's not going to be able to get back. I know that he is usually dirtier and his close are dirtier than most of the other kids around. I also know that I have never seen his parents, and he gets taken care of a lot by the other mothers at the site which isn't necessarily normal, and makes me think he might be being raised by the community. I cleaned everything up again the second week and patched him up and tried to tell him again to make sure it stays as clean as possible, but I knew that it wasn't going to really be possible for him. I knew that he was going to need more than just a cleaning once a week so for this last week I got some extra gauze and an ace bandage and some extra bandaids and hydrogen peroxide and cotton. I cleaned it up and I was happy to see that some of the smaller wounds were starting to heal and overall I could tell it was starting to get a little better. I covered all of the bigger wounds with gauze and wrapped it in bandage. I handed him the extra packages of gauze and the large bandaids for the smaller wounds and the hydrogen peroxide and cotton and I really wish I would have had a camera because seeing his face was honestly one of the most gratifying moments of my entire life. I don't know if I had ever seen someone as so truly happy as he was that he had some bandaids and gauze. It was like a kid on Christmas morning opening the biggest and best toy he could ever imagine and the overwhelming joy and pride that he has that it is his. And it was for bandaids and gauze. It's one of those things that just instantly changes your perspective on life, and there is nothing I can do to even come close to explaining to you what it was like. I always treat him last because it takes so much time and because it is so messy. After I finished with him I started cleaning everything up and getting everything packed up and ready to go. We got everything ready to go and started to leave and he came up to me and with a huge smile still on his face shook my hand and said thank you. It was just so amazing to see. He waited there that whole time to be able to thank me for everything. He didn't have a parent that told him to go thank me or anything like that but he did it all on his own because was honestly that grateful. I can honestly say that 2 years of being here is worth it just for that. I was truly humbled and definitely had my perspective shaken by this boy.

The following pictures are from our staff team time that we had with all of the Agape staff on Friday. We had lunch together at the school and then went to the beach in front of the jungle barn to have some games and hang out together. It was an awesome time to have everyone together and be able to get to know everyone better.

Our principal during one of the games carrying a calimansi seed on a spoon. My team won this game, not to brag but I was pretty fast at this haha.

Another relay game of jumping into the ocean running back trying to squeeze out as much water as possible into a water bottle. My team lost at this one, if my hat didn't have holes in it we definitely would have won.

Our last competition was building sandcastles, the judge claimed that we lost this one but I think it was pretty obvious that she was bribed somehow by the other team because ours was clearly better. Afterwards we played some pretty fierce volleyball which was a ton of fun and just got to hang out with each other, which was just really awesome to be able to get to know everyone on the staff better.

A little bit of a sneak peek of next week to spark your interest, we'll have lots of pictures of my 5th graders as they took my camera after our tests and went around taking pictures of each other. It will also feature our special calendar issue which I know you'll be excited to see. Way better than firemen or puppies, or whatever normal calendars are of.

Thank you everyone for everything you have done for me. Whether it is supporting me while I am here, praying for me and the people here, sending school materials, or showing me that you love and care for me and what I am doing here. I appreciate it all so much and you are making such a huge impact on my life and on so many kids lives here.

2 Months In

Last week I talked about my schedule and gave you basically what I do. This week I'm going to get a little deeper into what goes on more within it, and some of what it's like being here and what I'm going through.
Boracay is a small island that resolves entirely around tourism. The island runs to provide things for the tourists to do and places for them to stay. The population of Boracay is all estimations because the last census was in 2000. It is estimated that there are around 30,000 people who live on Boracay. There is an average of 65,000 tourists arriving in Boracay every month, which fluctuates between high season and off season. The huge majority of people on Boracay work in some way to provide for tourists, whether they are vendors, waiters, work at resorts, give massages, trike or motorbike drivers, work in stores, or run tourist attractions. It is a very interesting situation living on a tourist island. There are a lot of pros and cons. It is nice to have a lot of things that are western and keep things more close to home than if it was somewhere that didn't need to provide for tourists. At the same time it is hard to live somewhere that is a perfect vacation destination and not be on vacation. It can be hard to see everyone around you on vacation while you work everyday and are on a budget. It is awesome to live somewhere so beautiful and be right on the beach and have a lot of fun things to do every once on a while, but can be hard when people are kitesurfing and parasailing and scubadiving right in front of your house and you dont get to do any of it because you are on a budget.
The hardest thing is that because I'm white (and American) everyone assumes I'm a tourist. Most people don't have a whole lot of respect for tourists, especially Americans. Walking down the street you get people that just give you bad looks and there's nothing you can do but smile back and just try to change their view of Americans. Everyone assumes that I have a ton of money because I'm American. People don't find anything wrong with overcharging Americans because we have so much money that it wont affect us anyways. It doesn't matter if you know what you're doing or where you are going, you have to pretend like you do or you will get incredibly overcharged. Things here have Filipino prices and tourist prices. If you look like a tourist you will get charged more than it cost. It can be hard because you can get into situations where you don't know what things should cost but you just have to pretend like you know to try to get charged the right price. So whatever price they tell you you say no to and tell them that you live here and then hope they lower it to somewhere close to where it should be.
There are two ways to get to the majority of places on the island. The main road runs parallel to the beach and goes down the length of the island for the most part. Most things are either along the main road, along the strip of the beach or in between the two. I live on the side of the island that is the least touristy. The majority of the resorts and attractions and restaurants are on the other side of the island. So we do a lot of walking down the strip to get to where we want to eat or shop or whatever. Along the way we are constantly saying no thank you to vendors selling food, drinks, souvenirs, toys etc. as well as the people working out in front of restaurants trying to get you to come in and finally the massage ladies. It is a constant "no thank you" "no thank you" the entire way down the strip. It gets even worse after dark, especially if I'm by myself, because of the ladies working the strip at night. It becomes hard to be able to constantly be nice and smile and be polite to all of the people even though we know we have to. It can get tiring sometimes, but I always try to politely say no thank you, smile and keep going. As much as people think we are tourists, a lot of people know we are missionaries. Word gets around very quick here and so everything we do is under surveillance, it is so crucial that we do everything out of love, because the last thing we want is for people to see us as representatives of a religion, and act in a way that would turn them away from it.
The other week when my box came in I was going to carry it to my apartment because I didn't want to pay to have somebody take it there by vehicle. It was probably close to 50 pounds and just really big and awkward. I was walking down the street just barely after I left the school and a Muslim man asked me if I needed help. As much as I appreciated his offer I figured the box would be a lot harder to carry with 2 people so I said "no thank you I can get it". He asked me where I was going so I told him and by that time we were walking by his vehicle. He told me to hop on and put my box on and he would take me. Well nothing is free here, especially for Americans, so at first I was still resistant a little bit but I asked him how much he wanted. He told me not to worry about it, which doesn't always mean free, just not to worry about how much you'll be paying. So I asked him again if 20 pesos was ok and he said no, he didn't want any money. So I hopped on and he took me the couple minute drive to my apartment. I told him thank you and offered him 50 pesos, but he refused and said that he saw me walking with the huge box and wanted to help. He then told me to use the money to buy something for the kids. To me this was pretty shocking because he saw me coming out of a Christian school that is in the middle of a lot of the Muslim community on the island, and was so nice to me and so respectful of what I was doing. I told him thank you again and how much I appreciated his help. As he drove off I was completely blown away by what had happened. All I could think about is that if I didn't know a whole lot about religion I would know that he was a Muslim because of his clothes, and based on his actions I would be very attracted to his religion. I would have seen virtues that I would respect and admire and think would be worth pursuing. It made me think about how people were seeing me. Do people see me and become attracted to my religion? Do people see the fruit, the virtues that I live by that show what I believe and want to know more? Do people even know I'm christian? I have thought so much about it and how extremely important it is to be on top of my game all the time, to always be putting myself second, and to be always looking for ways to help people.
I wear a bracelet that says "I am second" as a reminder of the fact that God is first in my life, He is my everything, but I need a bracelet that says "I am third" as a reminder that I need to be constantly putting everyone around me before myself. Sometimes it makes you look crazy, but it also stands out and people can see what you are doing. There have been a few times when I've done some things that people have probably looked at like me like I was crazy, but they also saw the kindness and generosity that I was offering and that there was something more to it. Walking along the road up the hill on the way home from school I heard something fall on the top of the hill. A box of laundry had fallen off of a trike and was sliding down the hill. Nothing stops traffic here, people just drive if there are tings, animals, or people in the road they get hit because they shouldn't be there. Everyone just keeps going like there's nothing there. As I saw the box sliding down the hill and realizing it was going to keep going for a long ways and continue to lose clothes along the way, I ran out and grabbed it and some of the clothes close to it while trying to avoid the trikes driving by me. I took it up the hill to the person who lost it and helped them pick up the rest of the clothes that had fallen out, while everyone around just stood around watching us. People were looking at me like I was crazy and I was glad because I was glad I was able to show people that I care and that I am wiling to put myself in an uncomfortable situation and spend my time helping someone instead of just continuing on my way. They might have thought I was crazy, but it was a good crazy.
I continue to look for opportunities to be able to step out and to be able to show people why I'm here. Everything I do is seen by people and I want the things I do to back up the tings I believe. I want it to be visible. I might not wear clothes that show what religion I belong to like the Muslim community does, but I want to clothe myself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience (Col. 3:12) so that people can tell what I believe by my actions. In the sermon on Sunday Pastor Rolando said "As in sports, a player must know his position, and know how to position himself to make the plays." I thought that was an amazing way to think about it. It is so important to know what our strengths are and know what God has given us for the ability to help others. Once we know those strengths we need to put ourselves in the position to use them. Our strengths don't do any good unless we use them. God has given us abilities for a reason and he wants us to use them. Sometimes we need to get out of our comfort zones to be able to get in the best position to be able to use them to serve others.
As much as I look to impact people around the island, I spend most of my time and focus in the school. I get up in the morning and get myself ready to be the teacher to my kids that I would want to have. It is very challenging sometimes and is definitely frustrating at times. My second graders are so far apart in their abilities that it makes it very hard to teach all of them at the same time. I am trying to teach them about pronouns and how to write sentences when I have a kid who can't spell his name right, and his name is three letters long. Some of my students get everything that I'm saying and even more, and others aren't taking any of it in. It has been hard to feel so confident in how well I taught them something and how well I felt they understood it in class only to see half the class completely fail it on the quiz. Being a believer in the fact that student's success reflects their teacher's teaching makes it very hard sometimes to deal with the fact that my students do poorly. It is hard knowing that I came all the way over here, and felt God really wanted me to do this and yet having feelings of not being good enough. It is also hard to be in two different classes, working with the 2nd graders and 5th graders, and being really successful with one class and not very successful with the other. I continue to strive to be able to find ways for all of my students to be successful and be able to learn the tings they need to learn to be able to keep growing in their education and move along onto higher grades. School is not something that is always done here all the way through. If you aren't able to be successful in school, you might choose not to go to school anymore, and no one is really going to stop you in most cases. I try to be fun but I also try to be encouraging and find ways for kids to succeed and be proud of themselves because the worst thing that can happen is that the kids feel dumb or feel like they aren't good enough for school so they decide they don't want to go anymore. There isn't always much reinforcement from parents and so that makes it really tough to keep kids in school.
It also makes a lot of other things difficult as well. Typically if a student doesn't do their homework or is bad in class you would talk to their parents about it and they would discipline the kid in some way and the kid would change their behavior. The problem here is that parents don't really discipline their children. Something that I have noticed in my time here as that parents let kids do pretty much whatever they want. Kids make their own decisions because their parents aren't forcing them to make the decisions that parents would usually make their children choose. So many of the young kids in our school have such a hard time in class because they have never been disciplined before. Getting in trouble for misbehaving is a new concept for them. Trying to control a class full of second graders that have never had to behave before is very tough, and it is even tougher for the kindergarten and 1st grade teachers. A lot of young kids smoke and drink here and it happens in the US too, but in the US kids typically try to do it in secret. Here it's just not a big deal because most parents just don't discipline them for it. They give kids the free will to do whatever they want. So we have trouble sometimes in the school and in the community trying to be able to implement discipline and teaching about making smart decisions when we just don't get a lot of support from the adults that are following culture. One of my first days here I sent a kid to the office for punching another kid in the head. The Filipinos were shocked that I sent someone to the office and weren't sure why. What I have found out is that a kid punching a kid in the head is a pretty big deal in the US, here it is something that happens all the time. It's just what kids do. So we are trying to make this into the big deal that it is and introduce the idea that punching kids are not ok. It is challenging to try to make changes while realizing changes aren't going to occur over night.
After I finish 2nd grade the Filipino teachers take lunch and the volunteer teachers do club time or MAPEH (music, art, physical education, and health). I have an art station for now but will probably change to health after a couple of rotations so that health is getting taught. I love doing the art though and it's so fun being an art teacher and seeing how creative some of these kids can be. I give them examples and ideas and they completely blow me away with the things they come up with and do. It is also a lot of fun to be drawing an example on the board and when I finish the whole class lets out a collective "wooooah" and then applaud. That is a pretty cool feeling haha.
After club time I go downstairs to the 5th grade class and supervise them as they take their lunch. It is a fun time to be able to talk with them and teach them card tricks or whatever else is going on during lunch. We have a geography book in class that has all the countries and there flags and all sorts of facts about the countries. They started to ask me what countries the flags were, and so I would tell them what they were. What I didn't realize is that they didn't realize that the flags had the name of the country right above them at the start of the section. They were amazed that I knew all of the flags. So we went for a couple minutes and I tried to make it look like I honestly knew them. Finally, one of my students realized that it said the names of the countries in the title, so they began to cover the titles up so I couldn't read them. What they failed to notice is that the paragraphs of information under the flags also started with the name of the country, just in much smaller writing. So I was still able to name the flags and they were truly amazed with how incredibly smart I am.
The fifth grade class has been very successful and has improved a lot since the beginning of the year before they had me. That gives me a lot of encouragement that I need to be able to deal with not feeling good about 2nd grade. It has been awesome to see my 5th graders do so well and be able to grasp the concepts we've been learning. They help me keep going and keep having confidence in my abilities. The pictures below are some of the posters that my 5th graders made. We were studying vertebrates so they were required to make a poster of either birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, or mammals.

 

These next pictures are from the volleyball clinic that we have on Saturdays for the Filipino kids and the missionary kids and really whoever wants to be in it.

Volleyball becomes really interesting when there is a huge amount of wind. Not the straightest net in the world.

Due to time constraints and the fact that you've probably been reading for a really long time now I'm going to finish up with some more positive points and then finish talking about a lot of what it's like for me here next week.
This last week has been really awesome for me. I was asked to help lead a youth group for the Jr high and high school missionary kids here on the island, because they knew I had experience with high school and Jr high youth groups. I was hoping to be able to do something like this so I was thrilled about it. The only problem was that it was on Friday afternoons, which is when I go to the Ati village for a feeding. I love that site and those kids and I don't want to miss out on being able to go over there but I decided to try it for a week and see what I wanted to do. We had 10 kids and me and another missionary led the group. It is an awesome group and I absolutely loved doing it. It is something that I think God has given me the ability to do well and I think that I can't pass up on this chance. I am hoping that we can move it to another time so that I can still go to the Ati feeding but I just have to wait and see how it works out. I am so excited for this chance to be able to work with soe older kids and really have a small group that can grow and build great relationships with one another. It is hard for these kids being some of the only North American kids around, it isn't easy to leave your high school or jr high and all your friends to come to an island and be with a few other kids your age. I think it is also awesome for them to get some time to share their thoughts and get their voices heard which can be hard when you're family is on a mission trip. I really think I have an awesome opportunity and I'm really excited to see where it goes.
We had the group at the principal's house and we got typhooned in. So we stayed over for dinner and for a while afterwards and got to talk to their family a lot and learn more about them which was a lot of fun.
On Saturday we had a breakfast for the non-family missionaries, all the missionaries here by ourselves. We had an awesome breakfast and then spent most of the day playing cards and games and just hanging out. We had the volleyball clinic at 4 and then afterwards some of us decided to go for a run down the beach, which ended up being a run all the way to the end of the beach. We went for a swim and then worked our way back home. It was an amazing time of just getting closer to people and becoming better friends.There are three missionary families here with a lot of kids, and then there are six missionaries here by ourselves, 5 girls and me. Most peoples reaction to hearing I'm the only guy with a lot of girls is that it must be awesome. But it can be hard sometime being the only guy here. The girls do a lot of things on there own and I'm usually the odd one out. It hasn't been bad at all so far, they do an awesome job of including everyone in most of the things they do. But it can still be hard when you just want someone to talk to or have that close friend and I just don't really have it yet. I have friends from home that are girls that I can talk to as much as any of my friends that are boys, but when you are first getting to know people it can be a little bit harder. I am so glad that we are starting to do more things together and that they include me in so much because it can get lonely here by myself. I miss my family and I miss my friends. It can be hard not having people to talk to or hang out with or going to dinner by yourself all the time, but things are working out well and I have made a lot of friends.
One of the things that happens when you are the only guy on the island is you end up doing things like pilates, which I did today. They suckered me into coming by saying the kids would probably be playing basketball. So I went and the kids weren't there playing basketball. So I was stuck doing pilates. It actually wasn't as bad as it sounds. It was basically just core strength exercises with some legs and triceps in there also. But it wasn't really much flexibility stuff at all, so it was pretty easy for me. So it wasn't bad at all it was actually pretty relaxing, and if you had the view from the top deck of their house over the ocean and the island it would be worth it for anybody. So it definitely didn't turn out as bad as I thought at all.
I have been here for just over 2 months now and I have learned a lot. I have been through a lot of challenges and a lot of frustrations, a lot of joy and a lot of fear, but the one thing I know is that this is where I am supposed to be and God is using me to do amazing things for Him and for these people. There are a lot of times I miss home and i wish I could see some of the people or have some of the things but there is no place I'd rather be than right here, because I know this is where I am needed. Pastor Rolando said in his sermon last week "players succeed when they follow the gameplan". That is true, players follow the gameplan and they have a better chance of being successful than just doing whatever they wanted. However the difference between the sports in this analogy and us is that coaches aren't perfect. They usually have a good gameplan, and it's best to follow their plan because they are good at what they do, but they still make mistakes sometimes. Our coach however is perfect, and He doesn't make mistakes. His gameplan is perfect and he has the perfect gameplan for us, our job is just to follow the plan and put ourselves in the right position to execute it. The problem is we usually don't stick to the gameplan and we go off and do our own thing. We try our own plan, and our plans are always going to have flaws at some point. I feel like being here is the gameplan that God has for me, I am trying to follow it and keep myself in positions to be able to make the plays. I don't know the outcome, and I don't even know the whole plan, but I take each day one step at a time and focus on following His lead in everything I do to be able to be the best that I can be at whatever He places in front of me.

A Week in my Shoes (flip-flops)

Now that I've been here for a while I have started to get more of a routine and regular pattern of what my day and my week looks like. So I'm going to try to share a little more detail about life here and what I'm doing.
I'll start with Tuesday since that is where I left off in last weeks blog. My daily routine for school is the same everyday. I'm not a morning person at all so it worked out perfectly for me to start at 9:30 instead of 7:30, which means I go until 1:30 instead of 11:30, but I enjoy not waking up at 7. Every morning I roll out of bed and get ready for school. I grab a granola bar and take off up the hill to school. It's about a 7-8 minute walk to school but starts off with a pretty steep uphill for about half of the walk and then a pretty steep downhill for the rest of the way, so that usually wakes me up, especially if it's pouring down rain. I get to school at about 9:20 and get my things ready to start at 9:25. I teach the second graders in the morning. From 9:25-10:25 I teach English and from 10:25 to 11:05 I teach science. I love my second graders but they definitely present a lot of challenges for me. My experience is all with older students and so I knew 2nd grade would be a challenge, but it makes it even tougher when the majority of the students aren't near 2nd grade level.
As with teaching any class it is a challenge to teach and challenge the students who understand the material and need more as well as teaching the students who are nowhere near the level of what is being taught, all at the same time. My class is literally the anti-bell curve, typically the majority of a class tests about average and then a few students test really high and a few test really low and it makes a nice bell shape. My class is more of a bowl shape. A third of my class tests extremely well and has no problem acing the tests, while almost half of the class tests really poorly, and there are only a couple of students who are in the middle. I have some extreme overacheivers in the class and some students who are still trying to grasp the alphabet and can't speak or understand much English at all. I have one girl in my class who actually reminds me of myself in elementary school, who is always asking for homework and things to do because she has fun doing school work. She asks me if she can do something for homework and I'll tell her sure and she looks as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. One of the questions on our last quiz was name 1 thing that plants need to survive. She raised her hand and asked if she could write more than one thing, so I told her yes of course, and all the questions on the quiz that asked for 1 thing she had about 5 things written down. At the same time we had an assignment the students were working on and I had 4 different students ask me how to spell TV.
As much as it can be hard to see so many students struggle there are also several times when it can make you smile with certain answers. In science we were learning about living and non-living things. We had gone over the living things and I asked who could tell me an example of a non-living thing was. A student raised his hand and I called on him and he said with absolute confidence in his answer "zombies". He was so certain of his answer, it definitely made me laugh. Another question was to name something that humans needed to survive. I called on a kid and his answer was "men", I asked him "men?" and he said "yes, they need men". One of my fifth graders on his quiz answered the question "what is one thing the kidneys do for us?' with "they hurt when you punch them". That definitely made me laugh while I was grading the quizzes. A little more time studying and a little less time watching UFC would be good.
From 11:05 to 11:35 the North American teachers teach MAPEH which stands for music, art, physical education, and health. We just changed up the schedule so that we'd be doing this now and it works out pretty well. Each teacher has a class that they take for the day and the classes switch teacher every day. The different teachers have different subjects they do some music, some art, one PE because of the limited space, and I will probably be doing health starting the next rotation. Because of the fact that we have another PE teacher on staff I said I would do art and I really enjoy doing it but I will probably be switching to health since we don't have anyone doing health and we have another teacher doing art. It would also be fun to switch around every once in a while to do PE so that is definitely possible to at some point.
At 11:35 the kids have lunch so I go down to the 5th grade class to supervise them. At 12:05 I start teaching with the 5th graders. I teach math until about 12:50 and science until 1:30. As much as I love my second graders, I really enjoy teaching 5th grade. It is a totally different atmosphere and a place where I can get them to do so much more learning. It is just way more into my style of teaching than 2nd grade is. With the exception of 1 student my class usually does very well on things. I have a few students who do really well on things and are just awesome and bright students. I have a couple who struggle with some things but can keep up with class and do the things they need to do to be able to succeed, they just need a little more one-on-one time sometimes. Most of my class is in the above average range though and does well on there work and are able to learn and grow in class. It has been awesome seeing the grades the students go on their preliminary tests before I got to school and then seeing their first quarter tests and seeing that the majority of the class has improved by a lot. It is awesome to see how much they have grown and how well they have responded to a lot of the changes I brought in from doing things the typical way in the Philippines to doing things I feel help them learn so much more.
I usualy have to stick around a little bit while the kids clean their room after school. Then I take off for home back up the hill and then down the hill to my apartment. I usually get home at around 1:50 and eat lunch and try to talk to anybody who is still up on facebook at 11pm in California. I typically have 2 peanut butter and banana burritos for lunch everyday unless I feel spendy and have a couple bowls of cereal. Both cereal and milk is expensive here so it makes cereal with milk a rare occasion. I was happy when I got my box that my mom sent and it had a box of cereal in it. It is unfortunate that it is so expensive because it makes it so much easier to have the milk. There is absolutely no dairy on this island at all. If you can find cheese somewhere it is extremely expensive and all of the milk is fake and from New Zealand. The cereal is awesome because it makes the milk taste like cereal instead of like gross fake milk. I have bee trying to keep having milk as much as possible because there isn't really any way of getting calcium on the island. It's just so hard to drink it when you have taste buds. The milk is so gross that the starving cats around my apartment wont drink it. It is so gross that not only would they not drink it but the mere thought of me making them drink it made them poop all over my porch. It comes in boxes so its hard to get the last drops out, so I poured out the last drops onto my porch because there are always a bunch of starving cats running around and sleeping on my doormats. I came back after school and the milk was still there, and there was cat poop everywhere on my porch. That is the only time there has ever been cat poop on my porch. I got the hint I won't put anymore fake milk out anymore. Apparently beggars can be choosers.
Anyways, after I get done with lunch and check up on the baseball games and anything else going on I have an hour or two to get anything done I need to get done before the feeding sites. Whether it's shopping for groceries, getting things for school, or any of the little things that always seem to come up. On Tuesday's we have the feeding site behind the jungle barn but I may be starting to look for another feeding site that needs financial support and someone to go to it. There are 18 different feeding sites on the island but a lot of them aren't being done all the time because there isn't enough financial support right now to support them. One of the things I really wanted to do here was be able to use some of my financial support to be able to do things like supporting the feeding sites. So it means living on a budget so that I have the ability to give money and to be able to get a feeding site that serves between 30-80 kids a dinner, teaches them about the Gospel, loves on them, and provides them with first aid care, to keep going every week. For me that's worth it. I am talking to the pastor's wife who runs most of the feeding sites about what site needs the support to be able to keep providing them with dinner every week.  So I am looking forward to be able to get that started.
After the feeding sites I go out to dinner usually with the 2 other missionaries who live by themselves here. The nice thing about eating breakfast and lunch that costs very little is that I have the ability to go out for dinner. My other option is cooking, which is sometimes a little bit cheaper than eating out but with the cost of the gas and the fact that most restaurants are extremely cheap it isn't too much of a difference. The biggest difference is that the cooks at the restaurants actually know how to cook. There are a ton of really good and cheap restaurants here which is awesome. The most that I typically ever pay for a dinner is $6 and that's for a really good meal at a really nice restaurant that would probably be something like 10-12 dollars in the US. The majority of the time I stay under the 200 peso mark ($5), and still get really good meals. On occasion I'll find places to get a dinner for about 100 pesos ($2.50), or less sometimes.
It gets dark here by about 6:30-7, which was weird coming form back home where it was getting dark really late. After dinner I go back home and get my lessons planned out for the next day and get everything ready or done that I need to do. At about 11pm here some people start coming on facebook from back home at 8am there so it is good to be able to talk to people sometimes.
Wednesdays are pretty much the same as Tuesdays except that we have staff meetings at the school in the afternoons. So I don't really have an afternoon on Wednesday. I have been going to the helicopter pad feeding on Wednesdays which is one of the poorest neighborhoods on the island. I have become the official doctor wherever I go and this site has some pretty bad injuries. It is so hard for the kids to be able to stay clean, especially on their feet and lower legs, which is where they usually have their injuries. Kids don't really where shoes here. If they are wearing anything it's flip-flops, which don't really do anything to protect their feet. They get some big cuts that are pretty bad, but most of them just have small cuts, but they don't get cleaned or treated at all and so they get infected and turn into a lot worse problems than they should be. Things like band-aids and clean water for washing are things we take for granted so much but it's something not everyone is able to afford, and that makes it tough for some of these kids.
Thursdays again are about the same as the other days. I went to a new feeding site this Thursday that I hadn't been to before. it was in another one of the poorer areas on the islands. It was basically in the middle of the jungle. As we were walking into the site the Pastor's wife was telling me that ten years ago this was all just jungle and swamp, and I thought besides the muddy dirt path we're walking on and the bamboo huts the people are living in it basically is still all jungle and swamp. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take any pictures of the site for you because I was busy the whole time. We run the sites pretty much the same everywhere. We lead them in songs and then give them Bible verses. We read them a Bible story that is translated into Tagalog for them. We usually have some games to play with them. We have coloring sheets for them to color and then we get them ready for dinner by washing their hands and giving them each a vitamin. Our dinners are always very nutritious and include things that they aren't getting in their diets, like vegetables mostly. The food is either really tasty or they are really hungry, probably both, but they usually have enough for seconds and they go back until every last drop is gone. As they are finishing dinner I get the med kit out and become Dr. Anderson. This site had a lot of bad injuries too and I'm hoping to be able to go back again this week to be able to treat some of them again.
Thursday nights we have a Bible study with all the missionaries. It is an awesome time just to be all together and have dinner and learn a little bit more about each and spend some time in a good Bible study and prayer. We have it every Thursday and it is definitely something I look forward to every week.
Fridays are a little different because right after school I go over to the other island to feed at one of the Ati villages. We leave right after school to get on a ferry to get to the other island. We stop at the market and pick up the food for the dinner, lots of veggies. We take about a ten minute trike ride to the village and get the food to the kitchen to start cooking it. Some of the mothers from the village cook the meals each week which is awesome. We have a lot of time before dinner to play with the kids. I love this site because we have that time. The other sites we are always doing something and we get to love the kids and talk to them and things but at the Ati site we are able to just hang out and play and try to talk even though we don't speak much of the same language. We really get to know the kids so much more than at the other sites and play is it's own language, we might not know a whole lot of the same words but there is so much more to communication then what we say.
After the feeding we come back to the isand usually by 6 or 6:30. I get dinner and then spend my Friday nights grading quizzes. That's how you know I'm dedicated.
Saturday mornings I get to sleep in a little bit, unless I'm skypeing because it's the best time I really have to skype with people from California. I typically spend Saturday morning relaxing and then Saturday afternoons there is a volleyball clinic that one of the other missionaries puts on that is a lot of fun to help with. Typically the missionaries do things together on the weekends most of the time. So we get dinner and things all together which is a lot of fun. This Saturday we had a potluck and all got together and played games and ate and just had a really good time.
Sundays some of the missionaries go to breakfast together before church at a restaurant that has really good and cheap breakfast. Our church starts at 10:30 and goes to about noon. It is part English and part Tagalog. The worship songs are usually have done in English and half done in Tagalog, although lately it's been mostly English. The message is done mostly in English with translation into Tagalog but there are definitely some parts that he says in Tagalog that he doesn't say in English and it can definitely get hard to follow some times. He also tells all his jokes in Tagalog and none in English. He'll be talking in Tagalog and then start laughing and all the Filipinos will start laughing and the missionaries just sit there not knowing what the joke was about. But it is a great church. The messages are long because of the translation but they are good. I think he does an awesome job of applying his sermons to both the Filipinos of the church and the missionaries. The worship is also really great. They have some awesome singers and have a whole band set up with drums guitar and bass. It is a really nice church but it does get hard sometimes with the language.

 This is a picture of the outside of the church.

On Sunday afternoons I go over to the jungle barn to upload the pictures onto my blog because I don't have good enough wifi at my apartment to do it. Usually the kids from the neighborhood are out playing something in the afternoon so it's fun to be able to play with them whatever they are doing. Last Sunday I played some baseball in front of the jungle barn with the kids and that was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures.

They have a piece of bamboo a rubber ball and a beach, they make it work.

That's a little bit better form.

She missed this one, but she was actually a really good hitter, I was impressed.

Toby from my 5th grade class getting ready to crush one.

This was my first pitch, and yes it was a home run haha. The kids didn't want to chase the ball down.

Did I mention it's a pretty nice view playing on the beach.

Sunday nights I get everything ready for school for the week and figure out my lessons and everything I'll need. 

Mondays I start back in school and then have the afternoon to get stuff done that needs to get done and then start writing my blog. That pretty much makes up my week. It changes from here to there but that's basically what I'm doing every week. 

Sorry I was lacking a lot of pictures this week. I hope to have more up next week, and I'll share more of what life is like for me here. So this is what I do but next week I'll go deeper in to what it's like  doing everything I do. So yeah little bit of a cliffhanger there. I bet you can't wait. 

If you read all of this you're awesome. Thank you for all your support and for caring about me and about what I'm doing here. I really care about what I'm doing and it is so awesome to see other people care about it as well. Thank you and good night, well good morning for you.

Lots of Pictures

I have done a lot this week and it has been good to be able to help keep focused on what's going on here instead of constantly worrying about what is going on at home. On Wednesday the school had a celebration for something like national Filipino day, it was basically a celebration of their country and their culture. The kids were all dressed up and did all sorts of presentations with their classes like dancing, singing, story reenactment and poetry. It was amazing to see all of the school come together for something like that. The Filipino teachers had worked really hard for a while to teach the students the performances and they all did amazing, even the kindergarten classes.

My 2nd graders are crazy and had a ton of energy and excitement to try to control during the program.

                                                  Jules and Kristian, Jared in the back.

Toby and Reynald. The kids here never take pictures without weird hand signs. They wait until right before you take the picture and then throw them up.

My 2nd graders on stage getting ready to do their dance. I have videos of both of my classes but I haven't figured out how to get them small enough to put on here so hopefully I will have them up at some point.

On Thursday I went to the helicopter pad feeding site on Boracay. It is one of the poorest areas on the island and a lot of the kids aren't able to go to school. It was my first time at this site and it was crazy to see the amount of poverty. We went without the lady who typically runs the feeding site because she was sick, so one of the other missionaries who has a lot of experience at the site ran it. It was a little bit harder to do without a translator especially at this site because the English was very limited. We did songs and games and had coloring sheets for them.

At every feeding site before they eat we have them wash their hands and give them a vitamin.

The kids always enjoy the meal no matter what it is. We usually have some type of soup.

I have somehow become the doctor at the sites, which I am fine with and enjoy, just not sure how I got the job. This site was very hard because these kids had some very bad injuries. The biggest problem for them is that they don't keep them clean. Many of them had normal injuries but they got infected and became a lot more serious. There were also some more serious injuries though that definitely needed more than neosporin and a bandaid but they don't have the ability to get them treated. There was a boy who had a really bad cut on the top of his big toe that probably could have used stitches. The problem with cuts on their feet is that they will never stay clean. I washed it out with hydrogen peroxide to get it clean but once the band aid comes off in a day or so it is going to get filled with dirt again.

This little girl was begging me for a bandaid the entire time and searching all over to try to find a cut but she didnt have any. She finally won the battle and I gave in and put a bandaid on her ankle. It definitely made her day, but I figure it was an even trade because she definitely made my day too.

This boy had his fingernail barely hanging on. I did my best to try to treat it and get it clean but it was a pretty brutal injury.

On Friday I went to the Ati village feeding that I go to every Friday. I love going to the village and have started to get to know so many of the kids and I love getting to be able to play with them and get to know them better. They are such awesome kids and full of so much joy and excitement. They are so inspiring and inspire me every week on how amazingly content and happy they are when they have next to nothing materially. They always love the coloring sheets we bring and always make them extremely colorful, although for some reason it doesn't show up in my pictures at all.

The following pictures were taken by these two girls. They loved seeing the pictures in the camera and taking pictures of what ever was in front of the camera. They took about 100 pictures, I'll put some of the better ones up.

 They didn't always get full faces into the pictures haha.

I love what I do.