Al eating a sword pepper. He regretted this decision.
The teachers and shelter workers at our adoption forum.
Sheryl sharing her story at the adoption forum.
Our Art for the Nations project with the kids about their names.
Old MacDonald's farm visits Cebu. The preschoolers were great at their animal sounds.
A message from a middle school student during our gloop project.
Brad's Groucho Marx impersonation.
The Children of Hope school.
Teacher Tammy during a math lesson with the middle schoolers.
Magellan's Cross in Cebu City.
One of the many colorful jeepnees.
Time is flying.
Sunday
Praise God, Shannon's luggage showed up on Sunday night. She was relieved to have all of her stuff. Sunday was time to recover from jet-lag and become acquainted with the people of Cebu and the staff and kids of the Children's Shelter of Cebu (CSC). We went to a Southern Baptist church. A Campus Crusade for Christ rep gave a sermon on integrity from Daniel. We enjoyed the praise time with our Cebuano brothers and sisters. The afternoon was a free day for us to get to know the children. We spent time playing basketball, marbles, chase, and a host of other games.
Monday
The morning started off with a tour of the city. We saw the cross that Magellan staked here when he landed and we saw a holy shrine. We went down to the market area. It is an open-air market that sells everything from baskets to pigs. The workers who run the houses at the shelter go to the market early on Saturday mornings and some of us are hoping to be able to join them so we can experience what it will be like. Not everyone in our group has been exposed to the economy of a developing country and the depth of poverty can be startling. We drove by a cemetery where some children who have passed away are kept. I write kept instead of buried because people are put in above ground crypts not buried in the ground. People rent the space for a five year period. After five years they can continue to rent the space. If they choose not to the bones will be pulled out of the crypt and put in a bone pit under the cemetery. Some people live in the cemetery. They sell candles and other wares to people when they arrive at the cemetery as part of a funeral procession. We saw one such procession, in which people were riding bikes and walking on the side of the street.
The main form of transportation is the "Jeepnee", which is a colorful open-air bus like a taxi. It costs six pesos for a ride. We have seen many forms of transportation here such as; the motorcycle, horse drawn buggy, bikes with carriage and even a buggy that resembled a rickshaw. The colorful Jeepnee is local to Cebu. We heard the ones on Manila are all silver.
Monday afternoon our group taught a science class for the students. We made play-dough and we observed the effect of carbon dioxide bubbles produced by Sprite on raisins. The lesson was popular with the students. It helps when you can drink and eat the finished results.
We spent time observing the classroom interactions between the teachers and students. This has been especially helpful for Shannon and Kim since they are both involved in teaching. They have been discussing teaching techniques focused on modifying the curriculum to meet the student's needs. The teachers have quite a challenge in instructing each child due to the unique challenges. Some of the children have never attended school when they arrive at the shelter. I especially enjoyed seeing how the staff at the school integrated students with special needs into the classroom. The students have dedicated staff working with them but the teachers also provide individualized instruction. Tammy and Amy (teachers at the school) are certified teachers from the US. Tammy taught in Plano, Texas for three years and Amy in Mankato, Minnesota for three years. The school (Children Shelter of Hope School) also has several teachers from Cebu who have attended the local universities. The school is a first class facility. I remarked to Kim that the facilities here are better than the schools I taught at in Aurora. The facilities have a playground, library with internet access and special needs room with dedicated teachers and therapists.
Monday afternoon was additional free time with the children. Monday evening was a special dinner at the shelter with a birthday surprise for one of the children.
Tuesday
The group spent time assisting the teachers with instruction in math. We were involved in everything from patterns to adding mixed fractions. The teachers figured out quickly why I chose History as a major. Hopefully the damage is easily repairable. We taught an art class focused on Psalm 139:13 and John 3:16. Their name is important because they are important. They are important because God say they are important. God uniquely designed each of us with gifts and talents for his glory. They used their name to display their uniqueness and it will be a reminder to them that God loves them and he designed them to be just as they are.
We held an adoption forum last night for a group of workers at the shelter. This was the vision of Paul Healy and something we discussed when he visited us in Denver. He felt that the workers only had a limited view of the adoption process; what the specifics of the process were, why would a person adopt anyway and what were the challenges when the adoption was completed. Tammy, Sheryl and Al all have been touched by the adoption process. Al's wife was adopted and both Tammy and Sheryl have adopted girls from China. At the end of our presentation we had a question and answer period. We were very pleased at the involvement of the staff. They asked a lot of very good questions. We also heard from Clarita, a social worker for the shelter. She discussed the challenges of social work and told us some amazing stories of her work over the last 22 years.
Last night our group went out for an authentic Filipino dinner with some of the staff. The food was fantastic. I think you can pretty much cook anything in coconut milk and green curry and it will taste good. We had calamari, eggplant, mushrooms, fish and other stuff of which I'll never remember the names but it was all good. We made our own sauce out of soy sauce, vinegar and tiny red peppers, which look innocuous enough but pack quite a punch. And just a warning: avoid the green bean in the soup!
Over the past few days we have been very busy... We have been biking, hiking and swimming. On Monday we took some of the boys out riding through a mountains, next to the river, all of them did wonderful listening to us, avoiding traffic, and never giving up; it was incredible to see the endurance that these children have. Later that afternoon we took out 8 beginning riders, of which only 3 knew how to ride; by the end of the time 7 kids could ride on their own with out someone holding onto the back, again seeing the growth and the children's excitement of learning a new task just added to our own. In the evening we got the opportunity to help celebrate a 17th birthday and eat a delicious Filipino meal.
