This weekend we worked on another shelter that needed the entire roof replaced, and a few other things repaired. We had to take down all the nipa from the roof, which was actually a lot more work than I thought it would be. Then we replaced some of the bamboo that was rotted out up on the roof with new bamboo. Then we obviously had to put up the new roof on the shelter. That was the hardest and most time consuming part. Luckily we got some help from some Filipino men from the community and they were a lot better and faster than us. We also made a couple of benches for the shelter for the kids to sit on. I was working on one of the benches and a little boy came over and started to help me. He wanted to hammer so I let him hammer. He stayed with me and we did the entire bench together. He was a trooper. I definitely was scared for my thumb several times but he never managed to hit it so that was a success.
Starting to take the old roof off.
Today I took my fifth graders on a field trip through the community picking up garbage. We had a unit in science about conservation and we learned about pollution and the effects it has on the environment. We also talked about ways we can help prevent or help fix problems of pollution and the importance of standing up against pollution. We brainstormed ideas of what we could do to help our environment and they came up with the idea of a beach clean up. I thought it was a great idea and was excited for it, except that we ran into a problem. The Philippine Gov't won't let anyone clean the beach because there are people who are paid to clean the beaches. Clearly they don't do that great of a job, but apparently they exist. So they won't let anyone clean the beaches because it would be taking away from someone's job. I'm not sure how much sense that makes since their entire economy is based off of people coming to see the beaches, you wouldn't think they would turn down people volunteering to help pick up all the trash. But there wasn't anything we could do about it so we decided to do a clean up within the community around the school. The cool part of it is that the community behind the school is almost entirely Muslim, so a lot of the area we cleaned up was the Muslim neighborhood. People were very surprised to see kids going around picking up garbage and it was just really neat to go around in our Agape uniforms and having people see us and what we are all about. The best part about it was seeing my kids going through the neighborhoods with a motivation to do there best and pick up as much trash as possible. It would have been easy for them to complain and not want to do it or be lazy about it, but they weren't. It was like a challenge to them to pick up as much as they could and that was so awesome to see. To see them walking around picking up trash with smiles on their faces was incredible. We even had to go back 20 minutes earlier than scheduled because we had filled up all of our trash bags so quickly.
Here are some pictures of my kids from my feeding site at Cagban.
My second graders also got in on the Valentine's Day gifts. They all made cards for me, and I also made cards for them. One of my 2nd graders even got me cologne which I thought was really funny.
One of most awesome opportunities I have had lately is being able to help out an Ati family on the island. The Ati are the original people of the island have been pretty much removed except for a few basically reservations on the island. The Ati don't have many rights, if any at all, so they are in very extreme poverty. A lot of the Ati on Boracay are homeless because they simply are given any opportunities for anything else. I have about a fifteen minute walk to my feeding site at Cagban because it's pretty far out into the jungle and so I walk through a lot of different areas on back roads and paths and things to get there. Along one of the roads 3 weeks ago there was an Ati family camping out under a tarp and living in that spot. There was an older couple (grandparents), a younger couple (parents) and four kids. On the way back from the feeding I decided to stop because I had everything with me from the feeding that I could give to them. I had vitamins for the kids, first aid, and the Bible lesson coloring sheets and some crayons. I gave them everything and they spoke about as much English as I spoke Tagalog so we weren't able to talk much but just were able to communicate our love and caring for each other. The next week I stopped by the family again and gave them everything on the way to the feeding. They were very thankful and we were even able to communicate a little better through our limited bilingualness. After the feeding I was walking back by them and they were cooking their dinner which didn't look like much more than rice and a little bit of some other things. We said hi and then they asked me to come join them for dinner. I was absolutely blown away. This family had nothing, they were homeless with nothing but a tarp and some pots and pans in their possession, with probably not enough food to fully go around, and yet they were willing to share what they had with me. Even more than that was the genuineness of it. It wasn't just a half-hearted offer or just a nice thing to do kind of offering, they were genuinely appreciative of what I had done for them and the relationship we had after just those 2 weeks was as if we had known each other for a year. It was amazing. Because of health reasons and because I didn't want to take the little amount of food they had, I didn't stay to eat. I was really excited to see them the next week though and offer to bring them a meal, and sit down and eat it with them. Unfortunately as I was going to my feeding this week the family was no longer there, they had packed up and gone somewhere else. It was sad that I wasn't able to see them again, but my hope is that they are somewhere better and safer. I don't think I will ever forget that family though and their incredible act of kindness and selflessness. I was feeling good about what I was doing and what I was giving them, and they turned around and gave me a lesson on giving. We have so much and give so little, they have so little and were willing to give so much.
Kids say funny things, especially when they are learning English and say whatever random thing comes up to them. My second graders always come up to me and practice there English phrases that they know. They just like to be able to talk and feel successful in having an English conversation, which is awesome, but sometimes they say some pretty funny things. The other day one of my kids comes up to me as I walked in the door and says "Mr. Schmidt, you are not young". I don't know if you've ever been called not young, but it is actually a lot worse than being called old. If he would have called me old I would have been able to tell myself his English vocabulary is off, because I'm not actually old. But when he called me not young all I could do is say wow, that's actually very accurate.
Not everything they say is so bad though. I forgot to add this story to my last blog, so I'll share it now. A lot of the kids here are very fascinated with facial hair because its something Filipinos just don't typically have. So a lot of times they like to feel my beard and are very interested in it. One of the girls at my feeding site reached up to my beard and said "you're like Jesus". My response was "well sort of", but my response in my head was "I know, right?". Definitely one of the best compliments I've gotten, it may have been technically for a different reason then I had hoped, but still I'll take what I can get.
Thank you again for all of your support and prayer. Please continue to pray for our school and ministry as we go through a lot of changes for next year. Please also continue to pray for me as I am super busy with so many different things going on. I have been healthy for almost three weeks now, which is probably close to a record so please continue to pray for my health so I can continue to be at 100% to be able to do everything I do here. Mahal ko kayo. (I love you all).
