family fun

We started September with a family weekend.  We spent the weekend away with my sister-in-law and her family.  One of my nephews girlfriend owns a resort in pangloa and was able to get us a room for a great deal.  We spent Friday night at the resort and was able to go and walk the beach and have a shake on the way home.  The kids did a great job even with the late hour.  We got up early on Saturday to catch a boat and go "dolphin watching".  We did not get to see any dolphins but we went to a near by island and the kids went snorkeling with daddy and their nephews.  They had a blast and where so excited to tell about all the different kinds of fish that they saw.  From snorkeling we went to a place called virgin Island.  It is a sand bar in the ocean.  It is mainly dedicated to saints.  but had a cute little nature musuem.  The late night and early morning finally caught up with the little man so he took a nap on the boat ride out to the island.  he missed a little bit of swimming but had fun when we woke up.  

 

Mark napping on the boat

Jonah, Faith, Precious and cousin Ken

 

 

Precious, Faith and Aunt Melina



Mom swimming is fun

 

Sunday was grocery day after church.  Then the normal Sunday fun of basketball and relaxing with the family.  Monday is back to school routine and trying to recover from the long fun weekend.  Tuesday it rained hard for an hour or so, so we let Faith have a break from school to play in the rain with Mark.  Th kids love to play in the rain and it is impossible to say no because they never except

no as an answer.   

              

 

 

rain equeals mud mom

fun in the rain

 

Our september fun so far.  Hope you are all blessed and enjoy reading.  Love and blessings.

 

youth camp and medical issues

August has been a fun and not fun month all at the same time.  We have been fighting a few medical concerns with Precious.  It it nothing serious but still is not fun for her or us and makes life busy.  She has a couple of wounds that are having a hard time healing.  one on her leg and the other on her back.  At the same time she was having a persistent cough, sneezing, and at one point was having a little trouble breathing at night.  We ended up taking her to two doctors in Tagbiliran for the cough and the skin doctor.  We disovered that she seems to be allerrgic to dust and doctor also suspects that she fights environmentally induced asthma.  With the right meds and care the cough we where able to rid in a week the wounds on the leg and back we are still fighting they are looking better but still not completely healed.  soon after all this she started to have some issues with her right eye so a week after the first visit with the doctors we where back this time to see the skin doctor again and to visit an eye doctor.  The antibiotic ointment that the skin doctor prescribed the first time she was allergic to so we discontinued that and are just using the generic that you friends send in the first aid boxes.  That has helped and the wounds are healing instead of spreading.  as for the eye her iris was inflammed so we have two drops.  One to help tear production that is every two hours while awake.  We live by an alarm with that one.  The other drop is 3 times a day so not so bad.  That has been our adventures so far.  We have a follow up with the eye doctor the end of this month to make sure her eye is getting better. 

 

 

This last weekend we had one of our overnight youth camps.  We had about 150 young people come to worship play games and fellowship together.  It gets loud somewhat crazy here at these times but such a blessing to see so many learning and growing in the faith and even some learning about Christ for the first time.  Here are some pictures from the festivities.  

 

 

 one of the small groups

 Lunch time

 youngest member of youth camp

just a picture of my cute man

 

 

Thanks for sharing in our Journey and hope you are blessed.

July adventures

July is nutrition month at the local schools here.  This month the students and teachers focus on good healthy nutrition.  The classrooms have a feeding for the students once a week.  Each classroom picks a boy and girl to be there prince and princess of nutrition.  These students raise money throughout the month for the school and at the end of the month the money is counted and the boy and girl that raised the month is the king and queen of nutrition.  There is then one afternoon that the students but on a program for the parents with songs dances and competitions for the princes and princesses of nutrition.  Precious was princess for her class.  She did not smile much for the pictures because she was tired and had a bad bruise on her side but I am so proud of her for staying with it and doing what she had to.

Precious introducing herself

getting ready for the talent part of the program.  Faith helped with backup.

 

Part of her talent.  She did a drama with the help of friends and won the best in talent prize.

more from the drama.

Ate Sharon and Kuya Junrey where awesome helping with hair, makeup

 and anything else she needed

Part of the program was best in gown.  This was the dress she chose to rent.

mommy and Faith enjoying a few minutes together.

 

Precious with part of her team that day Ate Sharon and Faith

 

 

 

August has been spent with school for Faith and Andrew at home and just trying to live life.

 

Precious started struggling with health issues last week and we are still fighting that some.  We have discovered that she has environmental allergies and that has caused some asthma issues also.  She also has very sensitive skin so the smallest wound can become big and infected in a short amount of time.  She has four spots know that we are fighting one on her leg two on her back and she seems to have gotten one by her eye.  We where to the doctor last week and he gave us some cream for her leg and it is getting better but she has the new spots by her back and eye.  I like this doctor because he only gives oral antibiotics when everything else is not working.  We are thinking another trip to the doctor might be in order just to make sure that it is not something more serious. 

 

 

Yesterday was a long day of travel for us.  We went to a nieces wedding in Cebu and wanted to get home the same day so kids would not have to miss to much school.  Faith was a flower girl.  Left home at 2:30 and got home 22 hours later.  We are all a little tired and will be trying to catch up on sleep the rest of this week.

 

Thanks for reading and for all your prayers and support.  God bless.

 

 

 



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.

June days

June is already half over and so much fun and tears have happened.  The fun and laughter first.  June 2 we celebrated the birthdays of our twins.  Mark and Marah.  It was about a year and a half ago that they arrived to us and they have grown so much.  Marah was healthy for the most part when she arrived and she has continued to grow and develop as a normal two year old.  Mark was extremely malnourished, underweight and not reaching developmental milestones.  With the proper nourishment love and care he has grown to be within normal weight and has exceeded all the milestones. Both kids are fun and full of energy.  We enjoyed celebrating their birthday at the local beach with lechon (roasted) baboy (pig).  We also had many wonderful family and close friends to celebrate with us.  It was a great time of swimming, eating, and fellowship.

 Marah the birthday girl

 Mark and Marah enjoying a snack during their swim

 Yummy Lunch

Marah kissing the Pig!!

A few days after the party it was time to get back to business and get the kids ready for school.  Sounds weird to many of you I am sure.  I have been reading and seeing so many things about last days of school and here we are just starting.  Our school year runs from beginning of June to the end of March.  The first day of elementary and High school was a busy day here.  I was smart in that I had all the bags packed and ready before, but Jonah had to be out of town and left early that morning so had to get two kids up and ready for school and get Mark ready to go also.  I had to go with the girls to get them enrolled and was going to wait for Faith so I could walk her home as she would be done an hour before the others.  Got my two girls there and enrolled and the whole time Faith seemed excited but when it was time to go to class and for mom to leave she started crying so hard and would not go to class.  It has been since decided that she will stay home and homeschool with me (Jessica).  It is very quite though because the only kids we have in the morning from 8-11 is the three babies and Faith.  We send five off to school every morning.  Two go to day care (preschool) and then three at the elementary school.  grades 1, 4 and 6.  It is controlled chaos here in the mornings to make sure they are all up fed and dressed.  There are some days I dread that alarm.  But it is such a blessing to be a part of Gods ministry here and to see the kids learn and grow is amazing.  We have to also give a special thank you to our house parents because without them things would be even more crazy in the mornings.  The picture is missing Andrew and Nathan because their first day at daycare was a week later and they where not ready the morning we took pictures.

first day of school picture. L to R Precious grade 4, James grade 6, Tata grade 7, Faith kindergarten and Mickaila grade 1

Thank you for reading and for all your support in our ministry here.  Blessings to you all as you celebrate summer vacation.