3 weeks left!

I cannot believe that in three weeks I will be returning to the States!
I almost feel as though many of my relationships are growing stronger due to the fact that I am leaving. I am having more in-depth conversations with people and it is such a blessing! I have begun preparing my 3 M's, telling them that I will be leaving soon and that I will no longer be their tutor. They seem to handle it well right now but I am sure as time gets closer they will start to act out more about it. The Agape girls wrote on their calender "cry day" for February 9, the day that I leave Dumaguete. Then on February 10, they wrote "cry day 2" because that is the day that Becky and Leanna will be leaving. It has been such a blessing to work alongside so many Godly people and if I were to elaborate, I would be writing this blog forever so I will leave that for another time.

Now for an update on the past week or so. Since coming back from Siquijor I mentioned that I had a minor head cold. As soon as that cleared up and I felt comfortable going around the kids, I went into the nursery. One of the kids had the flu and I did not really think too much of it. Later that afternoon I began feeling a little sick to my stomach but just thought it to be a normal everyday stomach ache. After I tutored my M's I began to feel really awful and was really confused by the odd sensation in my stomach, I came back to my cottage and was freezing and had the chills and I knew something was wrong. Shortly after that began a massive all out flu attack on my body. I have never had the flu that bad in my life! (Or, rather, that I can remember) At some points I thought that I was going to die. The major flu symptoms of vomiting and well, the other thing, lasted for two straight days. Then I was stuck in bed for an extra day and a half because my body was so weak. Today was my first day of feeling better and I allowed myself to go play with the kids once more. Needless to say, I was a little weary entering into the nursery for fear of what happened the last time I entered it, but I conquered it.

I have had great success in my "class" with the youngest M. She knows all of her colors now by name and even says them out loud when we color to ensure that I know that she knows them. We are working very hard on learning letters, for some reason it takes her forever to grasp them. We can so a whole lesson on one letter for an hour and at the end, I will ask her what the letter is and she will say "I dont know R?" and it will be letter B. So I am definitely learning patience through all of that. I am also having a great time with her using projects from an activity book I found in the office library. There are many pictures where you color a few objects, cut them out, and paste them in the correct places. She has a hard time cutting and it makes me laugh when she says "Lisod kaayo!!" meaning "This is very hard!"

The middle M is going to have her 11th birthday on January 30. This came as a surprise to me because I believed it to be her 12 birthday. Come to find out we were all very confused and so she will be 11 for one more year. When the three M's came to Rainbow, they did not have the correct information on their dates of birth or even their correct names! After double checking, we found out that her age is currently 10 and she will be 11. She did not seem to mind or understand at her birthday celebration at our family birthday lunch this past Sunday. We were making jokes that when she is older people will ask her why there are so many photos of her when she was 11...

I am currently tutoring like crazy at night time as everyone is having a hard time with their math and suddenly, I have become a math expert! (thank you dad!) I am relearning geometry and working through proofs with one of the girls and also helping so many girls with algebraic equations and simple physics and chemistry. Its so strange!

Colossians 1:10-12
"And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you[a] to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light."