June, July, August

It's been a while since my last post. It has been a busy and crazy couple months. I have a commitment to you in writing this blog and keeping you informed, it has just been hard to find time with all the other commitments I have here. It has been so awesome to be blessed with so many opportunities to take on new responsibilities here. But with new responsibilities it is important to continue your original ones and so I apologize for not keeping you updated on how things are going for me here and how your support is impacting the world.

There has been a lot to happen in the last three months so I plan on doing three different posts to get you updated. This post is an overview of the last three months to get you caught up on what's been happening in my everyday life and ministry here. My next blog will be on the mission team that came in July for 2 weeks to help out in the ministry here and did some awesome things. My third one will be about my new ministry which I have been able to start up this last 3 months and I really want to let everyone know about that and everything that is going on in it.

There has definitely been a lot going on this last 3 months. A lot of normal everyday stuff and things that I've been continually doing while I've been here, and also some new and exciting things. Along with that, have been many challenges as well, but God is good and is constantly giving me the ability to get through the challenges in order to just focus on Him.

 This July I had my one year anniversary of being on Boracay, they were so excited they even had a fireworks show just for me! Or maybe just for themselves, but I was there and I celebrated just the same. It's crazy to think it's been over a year already. Time flies when you're having fun.

The Filipino school year is different than in the States so we start school in June. The beginning of June was really hectic on a lot of different levels trying to get everything ready for the start of school. We had to get the teachers ready and the scheduling figured out as well as all of the finishing up construction and prepping the classrooms. It was a lot of work but the teachers came together and did it. It was really awesome to see our new teachers coming together and working so hard to get everything done in time. Last year we had about 170 students. This year after we finalized everything and figured out our capacity we ended up with 280+ students. We had an enormous amount of students wanting to come to our school this year but due to classroom space and teachers we worked everything out and were able to take in 280 students. It is still a huge increase in students from last year and obviously provides challenges along the way. Things have seemed to go fairly smoothly as far as the teachers and teaching is concerned. I requested for the year to teach grade 4, 5, or 6 for English, science, or math in a combination of whatever worked out. I ended up with grade 5 and 6 for English and science which has been awesome.

 My grade 5 class with their Filipino teacher Ms. Jona Rose. (3 students are missing)
From left: Abdul, Ronnel, Ar-jay, Sherwin, Elijah, Joy, Aubrey, Sofhia, Kathleen, Sakina, Norgaynie.

 My grade 5 class with me.

 My grade 6 class with their Filipino teacher Ms. Mae Sun. (2 students missing)
Boys from left: Reynald, Rosh, Nickel, Toby, Emmanuel, James
Girls from left: Evita, Nicole, Kimberly, Keith, Krezia May, Shinne

 My grade 6 class with me. It is awesome to have the same kids I taught last year and to see the change that has happened in their lives and also being able to develop close relationships with so many of them. Ten of my students were in my grade 5 class last year and four are new to the school this year. They are a great class and a lot of fun to teach. I love challenging them and getting them to think out of the box and think critically about things. It has also been awesome to see how far they have come in their ability and comfort level of speaking in English and speaking in front of the class.
The grade 5 class is all new to me. I was hoping to teach the grade 5 this year because I really loved the grade 4 students from last year, but a lot of them aren't in our school this year. Many of the grade 5 are new to the school this year. They are a fun class, but they are also a very challenging class. We're now in the start of the second quarter and things are going well, challenges and all, and it's fun to work with these kids.

Before school started we had an orientation for all of our teachers. We have 3 Filipino teachers returning from last year and the other 15 are new. We had orientation to go over the rules, goals, and mission of the school, as well as just introducing all important things they need to know before school. Our principal from last year, who stayed to get the first part of school going smoothly for us, led the orientation and asked me to help provide games and team-building activities for the orientation. I was honored to help and was able to lead all the team-building activities I know, which was so much fun. We had a great time and got to know each other a lot better trough silly introduction games, and were able to build on the introductions with games that required everyone to work together to be able to succeed. The best part about the games is they relate so much to the school in general. We need the teamwork, strategy, cooperation, and leadership within the school for the school to succeed the same way as in the games.

We also had some serious time, besides the fun and games, to talk about our goals and things we wanted to see in the school.

Some of our awesome new teachers.

Teaching some partner team-building activities, working together to achieve a goal that would be impossible without your partner.

Human knot!

After the orientation the new teachers enjoyed a sunset sailing trip.


About a month into school I had my first workshop. Myself and another teacher in the school put together a workshop for the nursery- grade 2 teachers. We worked on all sorts of things including; classroom management, phonics, reading programs, group work, and more. My partner was a preschool teacher in the states and introduced a lot of ideas, techniques, and programs she knows as well as providing the teachers with a lot of resources to do new things within their classes.
I introduced three different programs to the teachers. The first thing I introduced was a grouping technique that I use within my class. Because of our small class sizes (20 or less) the technique works perfectly. I give each student a playing card. Throughout the class there are 2 of each number (two 2's, two 3s, etc.) one red and one black. I have the other two of each number in a set for myself, one red and one black. I also alternate the suits of each number so that there are an equal number of each suit within the class. I use this technique for several different things throughout class. If I want to call on a student to answer a question or do something, rather than singling someone out I am able to pull a card fro my set and choose someone at complete random. I also use the cards for grouping. Anytime we do partner work or group work I can use this to divide into groups. Coming from a PE background we stress transition time very much. There are always a lot of transitions between activities and it's important to have techniques to make transitions happen quickly. I have brought that into the classroom with this. If I want the class in partners I have them get together with the student with the same number as them. If I want to divide the class into two groups I have the red cards on one side and the black cards on the other. If I want to put the class into four groups for a small group project I have them get into groups by their suit. It has worked great for me and I am hoping some other teachers will be able to use it as well.
I also taught two programs that were taught to me by our principal from last year. We have a guided reading program that we have books for in our library and they weren't getting used because no one knew how to use them. They are a very easy and effective way to have reading within your class that allows students to learn in several different ways. It reaches many of the multiple intelligences students learn through to give more students a way that might allow them to learn it more effectively. The teachers know how to use it and know we have it in the library, so hopefully it will be used a lot.
The last program I taught was a spelling program. It uses block letters as a more visual way for students to see the words they are trying to form. it focuses on breaking up the words in an easier way for students to see and uses sounds for students to be able to spell words correctly. I owe a big thanks to my family for cutting out and writing 5,000 block letters so we could have 5 different sets to do the program with. They saw how great it could be and were willing to spend an incredible amount of time making them. I am so grateful for that.

Teaching the spelling program to the teachers.

It was so awesome to see my co-teacher from last year and another teacher using the blocks for a spelling lesson I their class already. It is such a great program and is so helpful to the students. This is one of our grade 2 classes using the program.

And here's a picture of me with a lion just for fun.

I have also continued my feeding site in Cagban every week. I have a feeding every Thursday that is financially supported by all of my supporters. You are paying for the dinner for the 50 kids every week and allowing them to get a big serving of healthy and nutritious food. When we have teams here I also take the teams to Cagban on days when they visit the site. It is so awesome to have become part of the community. The kids all know me and the parents all know me. They have made me feel very welcome in the village and it is so awesome to feel so close to them. I know the kids so well and it is great to continue building relationships with them and grow deeper with them. I don't have any pictures of them because I'm always busy running the site so I just haven't had the ability to take pictures. I do want to get a picture up in my next blog though of one of the kids there. He has diabetes and so his wounds don't heal like they should. When I started going there maybe 10 months ago he had some huge wounds on his legs that were absolutely massive and extremely infected. I have been working on his legs for this entire time and as of now he has no open wounds on his legs! For a couple months through June and July we always had teams here and so we were able to work on his legs multiple times during the week. I also finally got him to start to take care of his legs by keeping them washed and clean, and that made a huge difference. As his wounds were getting significantly smaller I started going to Cagban on Saturday and Monday also to work on his legs. As of this week there are no more open wounds. It is really awesome to see how much of a difference that has made and I'm really glad I was able to do that because otherwise he would still be in the same condition if not worse than when he started. hopefully I'll get some pictures up in my next blog.

 This is a story I posted on facebook this week. I will just leave it in the same form for you to read.

Yesterday as I was doing my normal doctor duties at my feeding site, I was working on a kid and a little boy comes up and taps on my shoulder saying Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. I turned and looked at him, laughing and said, I'm not Jesus, you know my name. I thought it was just one of those funny things that kids do sometimes, but then I began to think about what I had just got done doing. I had just stood in front of all the kids and told them a story about how Jesus was standing in front of a crowd and teaching them about God. Then Jesus fed the entire crowd. After telling the kids this story we fed them all. I immediately thought to myself what an incredible compliment. I am nowhere comparable to Jesus, nor do I claim to be, but what an amazing compliment that was to be confused for Jesus.
I am not trying to boast about my actions, or say they are worthy of being compared to Jesus, because they're not, but what I am trying to say is think about your actions. If someone saw only your actions who might they confuse you for?

Thank you so much for all the support you have given me and the continued trust in what I'm doing through these last couple months even though I haven't updated you. I couldn't do any of this without you, so I am so thankful. All of this is happening because of you. And with that said it is September 1st, officially the start of Christmas season in the Philippines, the Christmas music is already playing, so I want to wish you all an early Merry Christmas and hope you enjoy this Christmas season!