Christmastime Came & Gone

I can't even express how quickly the past few weeks have flown by. All of my time was spent preparing things for Christmas. Things like wrapping gifts, choosing clothing for the children to wear on Christmas, preparing for parties, shopping for gifts, making a "Merry Christmas" lettering to go on the wall...all of these things completely filled my time. I had an amazing time during all of this and I am so blessed to have been a part of it.

My oldest M is doing wonderfully! She has now moved up and gets to hang out with the older Agape girls. She is really thriving in this area and is acting more grown up through the influence of the older girls. I am having so much fun with her! The girls are on holiday from school so now that Christmas is over I have been filling my time hanging out with them and playing games. It has been a nice restful time.

We had many visitors here for Christmas! Trip and Susan, the founders of Rainbow, are here for about two months. They are such legends around here! They have done so much for this community and pretty much everyone knows them and has been impacted by them in some way.

There was also a young missionary couple from Manila that came for two weeks at Christmas. They were so much fun! I will be able to stay with them on my return back to the States when I have my layover in Manila. I am so blessed to know them now and I can stop fretting about staying overnight in Manila alone.

We also had the staff Christmas party last week where all of the staff brought their families and the Agape girls were able to invite their families, if they had any. The party was great and it was a lot of fun getting to meet everyone. We also played a traditional game called "manito manita" It is like the American form of the "secret santa" game...but you have to dance around in a circle. We also had special numbers at the party. For our office staff number, I was the star for the song "Do you hear what I hear". The Agape girls did a skit about the birth of Jesus in the form of a newscast. I helped with the two youngest M's and we did commercials. I had to speak into the microphone and also sing a song! Highly unusual for me! I also helped with prompting if the girls forgot their lines. It was a lot of fun and I was glad when it was over. The yaya's also did a special number where they all dressed up and did a dance. Some of the staff's kids did songs too. It was really cute!

Here are some photos from all of the events!
The two oldest M's at their school's Christmas party. They sang a candle light "happy birthday Jesus" and they were giggling about something.
Dumaguete's Boulevard street with the traditional Christmas decoration... Stars! Just like the star the shepherds followed!
The staff Christmas play of "Do you hear what I hear"
My 3 beautiful M's
Christmas Eve night is called Buena Noche. We stay up until midnight and the girls get to open their gifts. They some of us slept outside on the patio!







Also the "Merry Christmas 2008" on the wall in the background of some of the photos... I made that! I have never hated glitter more in my life!

Blessings to all and I hope you all had a great holiday!

The Lord is my Shepherd

This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to go to Samboan, Cebu for church. I will do a sort of picture entry so it can be like you went too...sort of.
First we took a boat over, but I did not get a picture of that. It was about a half hour boat ride across. Then we got off the boat and took a pedicab to the bus stop. Pedicabs in this part of Cebu are different from Dumaguete's. I actually like them in Cebu a lot better!


Then we took the Ceres Liner. These are huge yellow and white busses that are all over the Philippines. Most of the time the drivers are very crazy because they try to get wherever they are going very quickly and everyone does a good job of moving out of their way. This is Carmen and I being a little bit worried...


Then we arrived at Calvary Chapel Samboan!


The congregation was very small maybe about 30 or 40 people. Ate Karen even said that since it was the first Sunday of the month all of the outreach bible studies come so there was a large attendance on this Sunday. Ate Karen had spent almost a month their when she first became a missionary in the Philippines. She has a lot of special bonds and relationships with the people. It was so nice to meet them all and see their love for the Lord. The message was all in Visayan with a little bit of English. I understood some of it. It was a very good message about Psalm 23. The Lord is our shepherd. We also looked at a passage in 1 Thessalonians. We are His sheep and we must follow our shepherd and obey Him.



After the service was over, we ate lunch at Ate Ping's house with her daughters Judah and Jedadiah. They are ages 6 and 5. Then we went on a walk around the town.



After we returned back to the church we waited for a bus and took it back to the bus stop. But they dropped us off to early so we had to walk a bit of ways to catch a pedicab. Then we took the pedicab back to the boat dock. The pedicab we were in had a sticker that said "The Lord is my Shepherd". Thanks for the reminder! Then took the boat back to Sibulan and our trip was over. It was such a blessing to be able to visit the church in Samboan!

Parade and Pigs

Here are some photos from NORSU's (Negros ORiental State University) founder's day parade. The theme for the parade was Disney movies. Two of our girls were in the parade. One was actually walking in the parade holding up a prop, and another was doing crowd control on the street.









Our pig that was pregnant went into labor on Monday morning. She continued to have contractions, but no piglets were coming out. The vet came and gave her meds to induce labor. Still wal'ay piglets. Yesterday afternoon (Wednesday) she gave birth to a still born piglet. Several hours later, and after the vet had done more injections, the vet and his assistant were able to pull out, yes pull out, 4 piglets. They had left for a period of time in between to get supplies and dinner and during that time, another piglet began to come out. Leanna, myself, and some of the girls had to think fast and get the pig out. Leanna was very brave and pulled it out. Yesterday six piglets came out, all dead. Today, three more came out with assistance. Come to find out that the poor mama pig's birth canal very very small. It was such a sad experience and we believe that all of the dead piglets have been taken out of the mama. She has been trying to look for them, but they aren't there. Here is a photo of the first pig to come out (patay=dead) and then another photo of the vet and his assistant with piglet number three.

Proof

Here is proof of me driving stick shift


The other things I will mention, I do not have photos for yet. I have not updated in awhile. I have been very busy!

We had Fiesta and it was great. Fiesta goes along with the celebration of the city's saint. Usually the food for fiesta has been offered to the saint as a sacrifice. Yet most people now, as Christians, just want to celebrate what the Lord has given them and share it with friends and family. We visited 5 of the Yaya's homes and ate SO MUCH food! I was dili gutom (not hungry) for a few days after that. Each home had a lechon, as well as many other types of meats and special foods. At each home you are expected to eat an entire plate of food. Mostly all of the dishes were made of meat and neither I, nor my stomach enjoy meat, so that was a fun experience. Most of the meat was also, well, unidentifiable. I am pretty sure that I ate things like intestine and lung and liver. Yum!

We also had another day of eating when all of the Americans in Dumaguete who are missionaries or bible students or somehow work with a ministry here come together and enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Carmen and I were in charge of making a salad. We were told that there would be 65 people and that we had to make enough for everyone. We ended up buying all of the ingredients, many of which were expensive and imported, and buying too many of them! We ended up with three HUGE bowls of salad and had two and a half bowls left! The other food at the dinner was great, so I do not blame anyone for not eating my salad! It was interesting to see all of the traditional foods made with ingredients from the Philippines. After dinner we had a time of games which was a lot of fun.

Tonight at church there was a worship night. It was called "Healing Grace". The Pastor of the church had been inspired and lead to name the service that due to all of the brothers and sisters in the congregation who are suffering from cancer or other life threatening illnesses. It was a great time of worship and prayer as well as fellowship. It was very refreshing for me and I feel restored and renewed in the Lord. I have lately been having a difficult time connecting at church. I attend the Friday night youth services with the girls, but it is just not enough for me because the level is junior high to early high school. I also attend the Sunday service but I have been wanting more worship time and fellowship. So having this time of worship was great! One of the Yayas shared her testimony about how God healed her from her stage 4 cancer of the lungs. I had no idea that she had had cancer but I knew that she was sharing her testimony. When she got up on stage and began talking about her illness and how God had had mercy on her and saved her I was in awe of her story. She was speaking mostly in Cebuano, but what little I did understand her story really touched me.

This next week is also going to be another busy busy week. Becky is going to Manila tomorrow to finish the matching process for the triplets. I will be driving the girls to school on Tuesday since Monday is a holiday for something that I cannot remember, I think a national hero.
Other things that I will be doing this week:
Working with the M's
Finishing picking out clothing for the Christmas party and Christmas day for all of the children
Designing lettering to go on the wall in the patio saying "Come Let Us Adore Him" or "Glory to God in the Highest" (I'm up for suggestions or help with picking which one to do) for all of our Christmas parties that are coming up.
Organizing games and prizes for the school sponsorship party
Gift sorting for all of the staff and their children for the staff party
Going to town to watch the college girls' school's founder's day parade as well as choir competition
Finish decorating the big house for Christmas
Preparing a Bible study and craft for the toddlers
And I think that is all for now.

Prayer Requests:
Safety while driving the kids to and from school
None of the toddlers or babies are sick right now, so prayer for continued health for them.
For me to have more time with my M's
For God to use me more!

Thank you for your continued prayers and thoughts!


1 Corinthians 9:23-25

"I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever."
Let us remember to run in the race and strive to finish well and receive the crown of life from our Father in heaven rather than looking to our own selfish amibitions to win an earthly prize.

Lizard eating Frog

We were standing outside and heard all of this commotion, we had thought that the noises were just some bats fighting over fruit. After investigation, Becky and one of the Agape girls found this:

Shifting Gears

Well, I do not really have anything new to report. The same stuff is happening every day lately and I have been pretty much on the same schedule day in and day out. Although I have started driving when the gaps need to be filled so that has been interesting and fun. My first drive with the girls was taking them to school on Wednesday. They were all saying things like "We are going to die!" and "Prepare to die!" because they were scared and nervous to drive with me. Apparently I passed the test. They were all very excited when I dropped them off at school that morning. Almost all of the girls said "good job!" and shook my hand. I have picked up the drive at noon picking the two M's up from school. They like it and get very excited to drive with me. The other day I had accidentally went into 4th gear instead of 2nd and the car made some strange noises. One of them said "Ate, what is happening?!" and I told her that the car wanted to go, but i was not feeding it enough gas to go as fast as it wanted to. Then I was going over a very bumpy road and she said something like "Feed the car more gas!!!" It was very funny.

Becky went up to Manila this past week to do pre-matching for the triplets. They have two families picked out and I am so excited to find out which one is picked! As for the other kids who are in the various stages of adoption....One of the girls is waiting for her parents to complete a new home study report. Then the two brothers are waiting for paperwork from their birth mother to go through. As time passes the boys have been really needy and wanting attention. I hope all of their paperwork goes through soon! I am pretty sure they will be going to Italy. Two out of the last three placements have been to Italy.

Monday is the city's Charter Day so there will be no school or work. Charter day is to celebrate the Saint on which each city was founded on. I think that each city's Charter day depends on the birthday of the Saint, but I am not totally sure. Then Tuesday is Fiesta. Fiesta is a celebration to honor the Saint where families cook food and invited people over to their homes to eat it. Very interesting...

Manok

Manok means chicken in Visayan.
It is customary to receive a chicken on your birthday here as a birthday gift. One of the girls had her birthday on Thursday and her sister brought her a hen and a rooster. Tomorrow is Birthday Lunch for the month of November and so the birthday girl decided to butcher the chickens and I helped with the process. Of course there is photo evidence, and I have much more graphic ones, but I will only post the cleaner ones. Viewer discretion advised.

This is the birthday girl and her birthday chicken.


Cleaning off all of the feathers.


The birthday girl and her chickens just about ready for cooking.

God Loves All Things Big & Small

After a weeklong semester-end break, the Agape girls have gone back to school. My schedule has since gotten a bit more regular. I have been able to spend more time with my M’s in the afternoon with less distractions of doing fun activities with the girls. The M’s have started bringing their homework home from school now so it is nice to see what they are working with at school. They get very excited when it is time to do their homework. They like to show me what they have been learning. As for the youngest M, I found some great little shapes, colors, and numbers workbooks that I will start using tomorrow. I have been trying a new method of indirectly teaching her. When we do a worksheet or when I ask her a question, she freezes. So I am trying to teach her without really teaching her. For example, if we are coloring, I will say “oh why don’t you color the tree green and the sun yellow” and she is starting to pick up on it. It is a very challenging process, but I know it is working when we read a story and she points out letters, numbers, and colors.

Today our last hospital pneumonia patient came back to Rainbow. For the most part, everyone is getting better from their illnesses. We had a new admission arrive yesterday. He is the brother of one of the toddler girls. She is about a year and a half old, but she understands that this little boy is her brother and it is very cute. We will be trying to have her interact with him as much as possible so she will grow to know him more and more. Due to this baby being her brother, her adoption file will be pulled because Rainbow keeps sibling groups together. Yet I do not think it will be long for them to be adopted. On Sunday one of the children in the nursery went home with her adoptive family to Oregon. They have previously adopted from Rainbow and it was great to hear all of the yayas talk about the child and their memories of him. The baby did great meeting her new parents! She went directly into their arms. Sometimes it is difficult for children when they are adopted and they are full of emotions from all of the changes. Yet she did great!

I think that is all for new information. Today was my day off so I hung out in town doing some shopping and Carmen and I decided to catch a movie. We had seen the poster for the movie and we thought that it looked nice. When we bought tickets the woman told us that the film was in Tagolog. We said we did not mind, secretly hoping that the movie would have subtitles. Then when we gave our tickets to the ticket taker, she again said this movie is in Tagolog, are you sure you want to watch it. Well, we had already bought the tickets so we figured we could sit though it. It was a cute little movie and I was able to understand some of the words. Before we went into the movie we had gotten ice cream from a local ice cream shop and taken it into the theater. I had set my trash on the floor in the plastic bag that it came in. I suddenly heard a rustling of the plastic bag and I quickly moved my feet up onto the chair in front of me and told myself I would not look down until the end of the movie. After the movie was over, I looked in the bag and the entire container was clean. I am thinking that it was a rat that climbed into the bag. Yuck!
Speaking of strange animals, here are some photos of animals found inside and outside of my house and grounds…
1. A huge grasshopper hanging out on my front door
2. A cow that lives just outside of the gate and I hear her "moo" all of the time
3. A spider as big as a cracker on the bathroom floor
4. A very large beetle also on the bathroom floor

Busy Busy Busy

As the Christmas season starts to approach, everything is starting to get more and more busy. Tomorrow we will take the Christmas photo with all of the kids. I have spent the past day and a half preparing for this with various helpers. We have sorted through two large bins full of Christmas clothes pulling out fancy dresses and button up shirts so that every child has something nice to wear. We also had to go through and make sure everything fit for everyone, that was a huge challenge trying to play dress up with 20 kids all under the age of five.

Rainbow Update:
The smallest baby is home from the hospital and our newest baby is set to come home around Friday. They both had pneumonia and needed to be on an IV to combat against dehydration. Today I went and visited the baby in the hospital and talked with the yaya. There must be a yaya present to be with the baby to take care of them. Hospitals here are not like they are in the states. The only thing the hospital provides for is the medical aspect of the facility. The feeding, clothing, and diaper changing are all left up to the child care providers. It made me laugh when one of my favorite yayas told me that when the baby cried, she would dance around the room with her until she fell asleep.

The girls have been out of school this week for semester break so it has been getting to spend time with them during the day. Today we harvested mangoes from the tree behind my house and then we sat and ate them and talked together for awhile. Then at night we went over to Ate Karen's house for a movie night and Carmen and I made rice crispy treats for the girls which they loved. The girls have also been working on their Christmas play which is hilarious because they are all so dramatic. The theme of the play is about a News show broadcasting the birth of Jesus. I will be helping the two youngest M's and we will be in the commercial segments of the News program.

I have not been able to work with my M's as much as I have wanted to this week. I think Monday was the first day in about three weeks that I have been able to work with all three girls in one day. Having one on one time with me is a privilege that is often taken away from them when they disobey. Sometimes this is difficult for me because I lose the consistency when working with them. The oldest one is continuing to improve and we are now working on the "TH" sound like in "this" or "that" or "tooth". The middle M is still working on the basic sounds of letters but we are now moving up into a bit more difficult books. The youngest one has been very excited to work with me and has been a lot more attentive and grasping more and more things. Lately we have been working on the basic colors and she has really been enjoying it and actually learning the names! I'm starting to become more creative with my "lessons". The only thing I lack is to keep their enthusiasm and motivation for learning. Please continue to pray for guidance for me in this area.

Lately I have been having a lot of fun with PJ the blind autistic special needs boy. I have been taking him on walks around Rainbow and the yayas have been asking me to feed him his snack. The only issue we have been having is that when it is time for me to leave or when I won't let him eat leaves and dirt, he gets angry and has an episode. I have encountered some scratches on my hands from him when he gets angry but he calms down and returns back to his happy self when given a cold glass of water and when he gets to swing on his tire swing.

Ate Sheryl and Kuya Mike left for furlough last week and Ate Becky has returned from hers so some things here are slowly getting back in order with so much leadership movement changing around. It is especially difficult since so many of the children are sick. Please continue to pray for the children as they are in the process of getting better. I am becoming a master of taking temperatures and knowing when a child has fever. One thing I am not good at however is converting from Fahrenheit to Celsius. Thankfully my phone has a conversion program on it. It is a true life saver.

I leave you with this photo of PJ and I on the swing near my cottage.


God Bless!

Donations & Letters

Some people have been asking about making donations and sending letters.

If you would like to make a Christmas donation my parents are sending out a box in the next week or so you can contact me and let me know and I will tell them, or if you know them personally, you can contact them yourself!
Some items that are needed here are:
cloth diapers
diaper pins
plastic pants
boys brief underwears
infant formula (brands like Kirkland from Costco are good)
a cash donation is also accepted for special projects or necessities around Rainbow as well as unexpected fees due to hospitalization of the kids or school outings and thins like that.

Also, if you would like to send a letter it takes about a week to send and you have to get special postage which is around a dollar. If you want to send one for free, you can get it to my mom before she sends the box and put it in there.
The address is:
Rainbow Village
Attn: Amanda Schaffert
PO Box 84
Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental
Philippines 6200

This Week in Photos

I only took a few of these photos. The others are ones my friend took. We all share pictures which is very nice since i never seem to have my camera when I want it.

This is Mike
He went to Italy!



This is the swing set in the play yard. And this is a normal sight. All of the kids wanting to be on the swings at the same time. Also, the other woman in the photo is my favorite yaya Mitchell.




These are three of the girls at the Buglasan festivities.




One day Carmen and I took the toddlers on an "outing" around Rainbow. We went to see the pigs and then we walked out of the front gate down the drive way. They all had a great time. All of the kids liked the pigs except one of the triplets...but he doesn't really like anything new.


Enjoy!

Wow!

Wow! So much has happened since the last time I updated! The city festival called the Buglasan is now over. I attended the parade where each province has special costumes and dancing that symbolizes their place. It was really interesting to watch. Each province had a banner that told where they were from and introduced the theme of the province. Then dancers would follow and then there would be a group in beautiful costumes. Then there would be more dancers and then a band of some sort. It was so beautiful!



One thing that made me laugh was that before I left my grandpa asked me to take pictures of monkeys. Although I have not yet seen a real monkey I did see these guys in the parade. So grandpa...here are some monkeys for you!




On Saturday and Sunday night there was a fire works contest. I did not get to attend Saturday nights, but I did get to see some on Sunday night. Downtown was full of people wanting to see the fireworks display. Most of the people here are not shy about speaking out about things so when a big beautiful firework would go off everyone would "oooooohhhh!!!!" and "ahhhhh!!!!" and "wow!". It was so exciting!

On Sunday I also was able to attend a soccer game that was apart of the "Uni-Games" meaning University Games. It is made up of all of the teams on Negros Island for most sports and it is their one chance at competition during the year. This was a lot of fun to watch as well.

As for during the week, most of the activities were the same as they usually are. Since I have been spending a lot of time with the kids, many of them have been getting attached to me. It is so hard when I want to pick all of them up at once! I also spent a few hours down at the doctors office with some of the children. Many of our babies here have pnemonia! The smallest baby is actually in the hospital due to his case and will be there for about three or four days. It is very common here for children to develop this problem because of the climate.

Thursday was Carmen's 18th birthday. Here in the Philippines turning 18 is usually the coming of age type celebration. Since she did not have a Debut, as they call it here, we tried to make the day as special as possible for her.

A family from across the island came to visit during the morning. There are 24 children in all, most in various stages of adoption. The parents have a few biological kids of their own and have opened their hearts to these children. They are such a great friendly family and we were able to fellowship with the during the morning. Then for lunch Leanna, Aaron, Carmen, and I went to lunch at a pizza place then went to the movies. After that we were able to meet up with the Yandall family again at the house they were staying at for a game night. There we had a surprise birthday moment for Carmen. Everyone had the same idea to bring a cake and so instead of just having one cake, there were seven or eight! It was a lot of fun for everyone to join in and sing happy birthday and everyone got a laugh out of Carmen having to blow out the candels on so many cakes!

I think that is all the update I have for now. Later on today I will post some more photos.

Balut!

Balut:A fertilized chicken or duck egg with a nearly developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell. It is a very common delicacy in the Philippines

And I ate it. Here is some photo evidence...








So after that excitingly disgusting bit of information....
I am doing very well! On Monday we had a woman's missionary lunch and it was great to come together and lift each other up in our ministries. It was such an encouragement to get together and talk about how God is working though each person and seeing Him in what we do. It made me think and reflect on what I have been doing here and despite some recent discouragement with working with my 3 M's, still making a difference and an impact. My M's have been very defiant and disruptive. We are dealing with issues with them such as disobedience, stealing, destruction of property, and we are really trying to teach them God's way in all of this. It is very difficult as each member of the staff here has to come together and support one another as well as the girls.
A few of the kid's here have been getting sick with fevers and one or two of the children have pneumonia. Earlier today I helped take six of the babies to the clinic to get immunizations. It was really fun because since the babies are so small we needed someone to carry each baby separately and then we needed a driver so there was 7 of us totally. We called it the parade of babies. I was able to hold one of our smallest babies. He is two months old and the poor boy had to get two immunizations. He did not like it very much.
Other than that, not much else has been happening that is new and exciting to write about.

Prayer Requests:

Continued Prayer for the M's. Please pray for their hearts to be softened to hear and understand what they are doing. Please pray for the staff here at Rainbow for guidance, patience, and understanding while we deal with these issues.

Health of the children. Many of them have fevers and coughs which can be fairly dangerous for small children.

Safety for the family that has just picked up their child as they head home to Italy. Please also pray for the bonding of the child to his new parents.

Please pray for me as I am learning stick shift. I had my first lesson and I did not stall or crash anything but I am still a bit uneasy about driving with the Agape girls. Please also pray that I have the patience, guidance, and knowledge to work with all of the children I work with.

Thank you for your prayers!

Isaiah 43:2 "When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze."

This Week in Photos

This is the wedding cake from the wedding. They do the traditional cutting of the cake thing, but then everyone who wants cake goes and serves themselves. It was pretty hilarious to see everyone, young and old, digging their hands into the cake and licking their fingers of the neon green cake frosting. Utensils are optional here in the Philippines on most occasions.




For the Whitehead family. I thought you would enjoy this. This little guy was wandering around at the wedding begging for food from the lechon. If you don't know what a lechon is, google it for some great images.


These are the pedicabs I ride around town in. It costs 8 pesos for a short ride into town. This is about 17 cents to go into town and then another 17 cents to come back home. Usually there are 7 riders and then the driver who ride the cabs. Four people sit inside the cab and three and the driver sit on the motor and on part of the metal frame. Usually it is a lot better to sit on the motor or the frame than inside because it is so hot!




This is the piggery and the two pigs. We just had a donation to get the roof redone because it was broken and the poor piggies would get wet in the rain.

Attention Attention!

First things first, again I had a lack of internet for the past week. But it is back on now so everything should be okay. So much has happened in the past week that I do not even know where to begin! As in the last blog I promised to write about the process of getting a Philippines drivers license. So here we go:
First I went with Leanna to LTO (Land Transportation Office). LTO is exactly like an American DMV, nobody wants to be there and you have to basically spend hours on end sitting for no reason. To obtain a drivers license here the first thing you need to do is pass a drug test. This may be a bit too much information for some readers but lets just say a few things about this test...you must give a urine sample. They just about give you the smallest container and it is not a normal toilet, it is a squat toilet. Praise the Lord for having a father that taught me how to be a boyscout!! Secondly, you must take the sample and give it to the worker in the testing center in front of everyone else who is in there. They take your picture. Then you go down to the doctor for a physical exam. When I went to see him, he was not there, but he had already signed a paper and some random man filled out my medical report for me without even asking me any questions. Good news, my blood pressure is 120/90. After I finished the tests I filled out a paper and then was told that the systems were down so I ended up going back Tuesday, waiting for 5 hours, and finally getting my paper license! Now I just need to learn stick shift!

Wednesday was my day off and we had a team of four from southern California come and it was fun to hang out with a small mission group. Then I went into town and went shopping for some much needed kitchen supplies. I had a pan for cooking but all of the coating was scrubbed off and everything I cooked tasted like the meal that was eaten 7 meals ago. So i bought a small teflon coated pan and it was really great to finally cook something and have it taste like it was supposed to. Then I went on a bike ride with Carmen and we traveled up the road on mountain bikes. It was so much fun! Once we road up to the river and back we headed on down to the bread shop. Bakeries are my weakness here! The bread is so fresh and so good!

Thursday was just a normal typical day. Then on Friday we had an adoptive family come to meet their son! The family is from Italy and the little boy had a bit of a rough time meeting his parents for the first time. After about a day he warmed up and now he is staying with his mom and dad at their hotel.

Today was a great day! I was able to play with the Agape girls for most of the day. We made many scavenger hunts and Carmen and I had a great time laughing at the girls with all the funny things we made them do. Then I had the chance to attend a Filipino wedding of a friend. It was great! I have a few pictures, but not many because it was dark by the time the ceremonony was over. I am very tired but I wanted to update since I haven't been able to.

Drivers Wanted

Guess who is getting their drivers licence?! Yes, that's right, ME!

Ate Sheryl and Kuya Mike do most of the driving here around Rainbow. They will be going on furlough and there is a need for a driver and they asked me if I could feel comfortable with doing that. The strange thing is that I had just been talked to Carmen about how I missed driving and how you get a licence here and how I wanted to get one just to have it. It is going to be fun getting it here. I'll write about it when I go get it, which I think will be tomorrow.

Besides that exciting news not much else has changed in the past few days. It is currently raining here which is nice because it gets so hot and humid right before it rains and then when it does it cools down to like 80 to 85 degrees and i actually have to wear a sweatshirt or I get cold!

One of my M's got in trouble at school and faces a one week suspension. I won't go into details about what she did but she was very full of rage and we still aren't sure what set her off. She is pretty much under lock down for a week here because of all of the things she did. She gets no snack, no tv, no play time, and no special time with me this week either. Kind of a big bummer for her. Please pray for her! She will be having a sort of intervention meeting with Ate Sheryl, her teacher, and the principal this week as well.

That's all of my update for now. Hope everyone is well!

Love love, Amanda

Photos for you Viewing

Baby F. The Yayas call him "tambok" which means chubby or fat.

Baby R

New Baby S

B hiding behind a tree with his signature face.

The Oldest M


So I did not get to go to Cebu Island for church on Sunday due to the fact that there was the biggest thunder storm I have ever heard on Saturday night. I cannot even describe how loud the thunder was. It was so powerful that it shook the houses and I am pretty sure that nobody in the entire town slept through it. Even at church the next day they talked about how it was the loudest storm they have had in quite some time. It reminded me of the hymn "How Great Thou Art" when it talks about the rolling thunder. Hearing the power of the thunder really shows just how great and powerful God really is.

Yesterday we celebrated Baby F's (see photo above) first birthday. I wish I would have taken some photos of all the children with cake on their faces and Baby F poking the cupcake because he did not really know what to do with it.

Ate Sheryl is in Manila right now at ICAB (intercountry adoption board) doing placement stuff for two brothers ages 4 and 1 and 1/2. I am really excited for them! She is also checking up on some medical visas for a few of the other kids who will be going to the States as well as some other issues for some of the other babies. I cannot wait for her to come back today so I can hear her report!

Yesterday the M's stayed home because they thought that they had another pre-trail but they did not. When they are home during the day, things are a bit hectic. I usually have a schedule when I work with each of the girls but since they were home and like most siblings do...they were very mischevious and got in trouble and were on time out. Needless to say, I ended up having a very short time to work with them. I'm trying a new goals system with them. They have to tell me how many books they want to read during the week with me, and if they meet their goal, we will do something fun. I'm thinking this week we will make bookmarks if they reach their goals. Which I am pretty positive that they will because when i asked them how many they wanted to read the older one said 12 and she had read 6 already, and the younger one said 20 and she too had read 6 books.

I think that is all that I have to report on today. I hear all of the toddlers outside and I can't wait to go play with them! I am also going into town today to go shopping so I will try to take more photos. If anyone wants to see a photo of anything specific, please comment with it so I can show you!

love love, Amanda

So pretty much everyone at Rainbow is sick right now. Apparently it comes and goes in waves. There will be several weeks where nobody is ill, then one child will become ill and pass it around. Thankfully I have not gotten it! I've been helping take some of the kids to the doctors. This is a fun event. Especially when we took the triplets and I held the one that cries just for the sake of crying. Everyone in the tiny doctors office was looking at me like I was upsetting the baby! It was funny. Then yesterday I went with Ate Karen, the nurse, to the doctors. We brought two brothers who are hopefully going to be adopted soon to get some paperwork filled out. We also took one of the babies in because she was so sick and she is so small. Thankfully this time, nobody cried.

This week has been very difficult working with my 3 girls. They have been very emotional since Monday when they had their pre-trial. Just to give you a taste of what I work with...I was not able to pick up the girls from school yesterday like I usually do because I was at the doctor and when they arrived at home, the oldest girl saw me from across the yard and began yelling at me because I did not come. It took a good 15 minutes to calm her down. Then she realized that Carmen, another missionary, wasn't here at Rainbow because she was sick. She then got mad at me and didn't talk to me for another 15 to 20 minutes. Also, we were supposed to go to a very nice resort for our outing with the toddlers yesterday, but since Carmen and Leanna were both sick, we had to postpone it. The youngest M did not take the news very well and pouted and went and hid behind my cottage for about an hour or maybe a bit longer. Sometimes progress is slow when I work with my girls. These are just small examples. Please continue to pray for these girls.

Today the older girls have a bazaar at their school to raise money for their school's outing. The girls will not be able to attend, but they are helping their school nonetheless. They were all very excited to be waitresses and serve food at the function. I think I will be going a little later in the day. I will try to take some pictures if they let me. I tried to take some photos but they are all so shy!

Tomorrow, if it does not rain, I will be going over to the island of Cebu for church. The service will be entirely in the Visayan language. It is a sister church to Calvary Chapel Dumaguete. Where the church is it is only a 15 to 20 minute boat ride. I'm really excited and praying for no rain! I'm sure I will take some photos there too.


On another note, here are some pictures from the week:
Carmen and me going into town.
Me in a pedicab.