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.