We have a new after school activity;  Puppets.   Twelve of our kids are in a  once-a-week class to learn how to use puppets.  They will be putting on a show for one and all in a couple of months.  They will  even be making their own puppets.  It is great to see the kids use their creativity and imagination once their hand gets inside a puppet.  My good friend Mary (A  BGC Missionary) and her friend Diday,  are the teachers.

I had  five “piggy” banks full of coins that  I have been collecting for the past few years.   I decided that it was time to do something about them.  The kids thought they had discovered a treasure chest when they saw my stash!  They had never seen so many coins in one place before.   We had a great time,  as well as  mathematics practice,  figuring out just how much money I had!  The grand total was over 6,000 pesos  (over 12,000 individual coins)  -  just under $150. The kids are pretty sure that I am rich now……they  thought it weird that I called all these coins “change” – they wanted to know what I was going to change it  all to!

We have recently said goodbye to some kids… a first hello to others and even got the good news that more will be able to have an adoptive family.  This has certainly been a year of change at CSC.  Change is good. Both kinds of change.

Speaking of change,  I am going to be changing the Island that I live on.  I will exchange the island of Cebu (125 miles long and 25 miles wide) for the “Island” of North America.  I will have hot running water,   a garage door opener,   a dryer, grocery stores that I seem to remember have way too many choices,  roads that I will be able to drive over 20 miles per hour on,  gas stations where I have to pump my own gas,  electricity that is reliable,  I won’t see naked kids playing on the road side,  I will be in a place that I look like I belong (as opposed to being an obvious foreigner here) but in actuality I will feel like a foreigner there ….but I am ready.      I am NOT ready to say goodbye here but looking forward to saying hello to my family and friends there.  You gotta love change.

Enjoy the photos!

The kids are still settling into school and adjusting to “not having enough time to play” these days.  I have more office time without all my little visitors coming in and out of my office  all day (I love having them though!)

We have had lots of rainy weather so are having to find more and more “indoor” activities for our active kids.   We did find plenty  to keep the older kids busy – helping us clean up after more than one foot of water flooded the whole basement of the Duterte Home.  All our storage is down there…..quite the job getting that all cleaned up and arranged once again.  The kids had great attitudes about helping though!  Better than some of the adults.

Adoptions keep happening….we said goodbye to our darling Paula last week.    We miss our kids when they leave, but  we are also happy that when someone leaves it  means that another child can come to take their place;  another young life that needs a bit of help along the way.  What a blessing we have to be able to be here for these kids.   Sometimes the long days do not seem like a blessing I have to admit…but by the next morning I KNOW they are.

Here are a few blessings from the last week.

We have admitted five more kids,  a sibling group of three (two boys and a girl) and a sibling group of two (boys).   Pray for one of the new little guys,  he is almost four years old and has had way too much sadness in his life.  This little guy is severely malnourished,  but has also been physically abused.  I have  never seen the degree of sadness and loss of hope that this little guy had when I first met  him.  We have had him for almost two weeks now and have seen a couple of fleeting smiles and a flicker of a spark of hope in his eyes.   He has gained two kilos of weight!   He will look us in the eye now and has even said a few words.  We know he loves spaghetti, chicken and ice cream, and we know he loves to go for a ride in a vehicle.  I am so looking forward to getting to know him more and helping to communicate to him that he is loved and cherished!     Oh my…..one of the biggest blessings that we have as staff here at CSC is to be able to see the changes that happen in our kids,  I am so looking forward to seeing the changes in this little guy.

We have added another CSC adoptive family to our big and growing family as well!   Adoption is such a blessing and a  solution to the problem of neglected and abandoned kids here in the Philippines (and all over the world.)

We have had lots of visitors!   We loved having Joel’s family and friends here to attend his wedding.  Joel and Jinkee are now married.  They are due back from their honeymoon today.   We had some fun times with a good friend and her family who spent a few days playing!   She lived here with her missionary family when she was a child and now is introducing her  husband and daughters to the Philippines.    Two of our  CSC darlings returned with their adoptive family to visit us.  One left as a baby so does not have real memories of being with us, but she enjoyed all the hugs and exclamations of joy that she received from all of us who do remember her! Her brother was 12 when he left CSC, it was fun to hear him talk about all his memories and to see the pride that he showed in introducing his adoptive family to his CSC family.   I love that our kids are proud of who they are and that they want to come back and visit.  God is good.

Birthdays!  Yep,  we always have them too!

We celebrated July 4th – Filipino-American Friendship day – in style.  We had a fun program at school with the kids and a burger Bar-B-Q  with the staff.

I am preparing to leave for my one year in the USA.  I will be there towards the end of August.   I am looking forward to seeing family and friends there,  but not looking forward to the goodbyes here….the dilemma of having two homes halfway around the world from each other!  I am also looking forward to telling many of you about all the amazing things that God is doing here in Cebu City. Invite me to share with your church, small group or just a gathering of friends!

I have included a few CUTE KID photos as well….may as well being my camera is full of CUTE KID shots.

I was sitting at a stoplight today and found myself face to face with President Obama….I didn’t realize he was selling coffee here in Cebu City!    I took some photos to prove it to you.

I thought I would give you a little clue as to how fast our four little newborn boys  are growing too….

I may have to add a few more of the weeks events later…but for now I think our babies, the huge storm,  and President Obama will have to do.

It was a good week though.  The kids had VBS, biking, eating out, swimming, snorkeling, eating out, olympics,  crafts, eating out,   Zip line,  mountain top experiences, eating out and Bible studies!  The kids were dragging by the end of the week, ( not because they had not eaten)  but that was good because all the adults were dragging as well!

Added to all the work team activities we had  6 birthdays at CSC!!

The kids had a great time.  It was a week to remember for all of us.  We have lots of new kids so all the extra excitement and  busy schedule made for some pretty wild days for us to try to keep everyone doing what we wanted them to do and not taking advantage of every opportunity to do what we didn’t want them to be doing! The new kids are going to be a little shocked to know that there are not ALWAYS 13 white people around that will let them crawl all over them,  borrow their camera and play with them all day long!   Reality will be tough for a bit!

We survived the week  with only one bike accident and one house parent with his arm in a cast.  Oh yeah….and about 10 kids with jelly fish stings!

Here are some photos of our WEEK THAT WAS!!!

A cute story is that three of our brand new kids just came out of Isolation a few hours before the big event.  These three kids were very confident that they were not going to like it here, that they were going to run away and go find their birth mom.  We kept telling them that they just had to wait, that their mom will come and visit and that they WOULD like it once they got out of Isolation.  Well….they did!  What an introduction to life at CSC..a full day of games and activities!  They already have friends and participated in everything offered!   They are no longer planning to run away, but they do want their birth mom to come and meet their new friends and see their new home.

After all the activity everyone got treats for being good sports and great competitors!   We ended the event with a prayer….it was a wonderful day.

We even got to have a birthday party before  the day was over!  Madelyn turned 3 and Jolynz 1!

Here are about half the photos!   More to come in a few days.

But,  to help make up for the fact  that the weekend just never seems to get here …..I’ll share a few photos from one of my recent tuesdays!

Enjoy.

We also see lots of hello’s and goodbyes for our kids…. recently I watched one of our new  kids say goodbye to loving grandparents who are too old and sickly to care for him, they love him enough to give him  the hope for a future that they know they cannot give him.   He had trouble understanding that fact on the day he said goodbye….but he will understand in the years to come.

We often get to  see  CSC ”Kids”  who were adopted  years before come back to see us –  and  to look for birth family.   Hello’s and goodbyes.  That pretty much sums up our lives here.

For some reason a quotation by C.S. Lewis I had seen years ago popped into my mind recently - so I had to find it.   Love the internet.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal.   Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries;  avoid all entanglements;  lock it safely in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.    But, in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless…it will change.  It will not be broken.  It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”   C.S. Lewis

I guess I will keep on giving my heart to these kids…. and saying goodbye.

Here are just a few of the recent hello’s and goodbye’s we have had.

Thursday we colored 15 dozen Easter eggs.  We don’t have all the fancy smancy kits that you can get in the USA.  But we get some pretty fancy eggs.  The kids use crayons, scotch tape,  and balloons to create some pretty colorful eggs.

Enjoy the photos!  Sorry about the sideways ones.