the happenings

Our last post ended with sending our kids off to school.  There is only one change in the school area and that is with Andrew.  He is "to young" for school and was struggling to learn and the teacher, himself and our houseparents where getting frustrated.  I learned that he does not have the fine motor control to write and do the work that was required of him at school.  He has since been pulled and spends his mornings with Faith, Mark and I.  I have learned a few things about my kids in this whole school process.  Precious does better in the scheduled, structured school setting so in some ways I think I failed her in previous years by keeping her home.  I know that it is all a learning process as parents and I thank God that kids are sturdier than we sometimes think.  Anyway Precious is thriving at school and is really enjoying it.  I am glad that Faith is still home because in some ways I fear that she would have gotten bored with learning in kindergarten.  She is excelling with the homeschool curriculum and could very well excell through two grades this year.  She has an eagerness and love for learning and that is all the motivitation she needs.  Precious needs the motivation of the structure that she finds at school.  Mark is a smart little boy and learns new things everyday.  He is using 4-5 word sentences and speaks mostly visayan but knows english also.  most people talk to him in visiayan so makes sense that is the language he would speak most often.  My girls even struggle to speak english sometimes so will be interesting when and if we move back to the US. 

The end of June saw us celebrating more birthdays.  We had a nice dinner at home for precious and Jonahs birthday.  Precious also had a cake to share with her classmates at school.  We would love to have a party to celebrate all our kids birthdays but they are so close together and it would cost to much.  So we rotate the kids that get a big party and the other two get to have dinner with the compound.  which consist of three houses, ours, the orphanage and there aunt and uncle and three cousins. 

July slowed down some if that is possible.  It seems there is always something to do.  July was made a little more difficult when an earthquake happened near our power source and damaged the structure.  we went about two and a half weeks with no power at all and since then we have been on a rotation for power. At first it was sporadic and we could not figure out a schedule.  know we are supposed to have power for a period of hours to days withit being shut off every so often for four hours but even that schedule is sporadic at best.  The one thing that is interesting here is that the world continues at normal when the power goes out.  there is still school, church, stores are open with or without a generator.  It makes life hard when it is power out at night when you have several kids afraid of the dark.  It is hard to sleep when it is so hot also but we have learned to survive and are thankful for power when we do have it.  This is supposed to continue till the beginning of August but who knows for sure when it will be back to normal.

Mid July was a lot of parties again.  We celebrated Faith and her kuya Ken's (nephews) birthday and had a good friend celebrate his birthday all on the same day.  The next day we had a house dedication party and the next Wednesday we had a dinner with the local teachers and gvernment officials as a way to bridge the gap between the two and try to come to an understanding that we are not agianst each other but should try and work in unity.  There was a roasted  pig at all of these parties.  We enjoyed the time with family and friends but definitly ready for something different to eat after all that pork.  Thank you for traveling along with us on this amazing, fun, and often crazy adventure we call our life.

That's all folks!!  see you next time.