I thought I'd give you a slight glimpse into 4th quarter of this year. This is the end of my 3rd school year at Faith. Check out the captions for info but also ways to pray for the ministry and the people in those photos. Thanks for reading! Meet Joy. She graduated this year. This photo was from our trip to the beach with all the boarding students. I don't have a lot of photos from that trip, but I loved this photo of us on the boat over to the island. She is one of my closest students as you'll see in the graduation pictures. I'll explain more on her later. With Palm Sunday comes the palm branches. Filipinos weave the coolest looking branches. Easter is not a celebratory event in the Philippines though. It is a dark time where it is evident that the people don't know that Christ's death was more about His resurrection than anything else. Pray for the country's spiritual health. Pray for people to hear the good news that Jesus is enough and they don't have to work for their salvation. If a staff member works at Faith Academy for 25 years, they get a day in honor of them. Our drama teacher hit her 25 years and so we had Lori French day. They do a ceremony in the morning, the kids are given a theme for dress up, and then they have a banquet type celebration after school for the staff and students that she knows well. They had a photo booth with all the props from plays she's directed. So much fun! We are so grateful for her faithful service! Faith Academy is in a conference of Christian schools for sports called Asia Christian Schools Conference. There are 7 international Christian schools in 6 different countries that compete in various sports once a year. The tournaments get hosted by a different school every year. We got to host the girls soccer tournament and what a blast it was to watch so much soccer and watch our girls come in second at home. We had a little down time in a homeroom and the boys were watching the Cars 3 trailer. They were so excited. I was 15 when the first Cars movie came out, so I watched it but these guys were about 5 or 6, so it means something entirely different to them. It's funny watching 16 and 17 year old boys get excited for a kids movie. All but 1 of the graduating seniors from the all girls dorm. I feel as though it's bad for the soul to say so many hard goodbyes at once. These kids are so special to me and will be dearly missed. This was my last dorm sitting night with them and so we went to get milk tea. Pray for these girls as they transition into new countries and new universities. Some are still unsure of what that looks like. Pray for their Faith to continue growing as they move on. This is my Bible study that I have attended for three years on Monday nights. Our fearless leader is leaving the Philippines and so I'm not quite sure what that will look like in the future. They have been a constant in my life in the midst of constant transition and change. Pray for decisions about a Bible study in the future as I decide what that looks like. This depth of fellowship has been so important for my ability to feel a little more connected with people. My roommate of three years is leaving the field to pursue a degree in educational testing with the hopes of coming back to Faith Academy with that specialty. Pray for Kelly as she transitions back to the US after 3.5 years of living in the Philippines. Pray that she will be able to come back as planned as well. These are the photos everyone had been dreading for months. I am not gonna post all of the ones I took but just three kids that I am closest to. This is Karis. She was my TA this year. What a great person she is. We've had such great discussions (and dance parties) this year. I cannot wait to see what God has for her. Pray for her as she heads to John Brown University in Arkansas. Pray for direction as she does not know what she wants to do for a degree. Pray for transition. Thankfully her family is doing a 6 month furlough and will be around for the beginning of her time. This is Jackie and Joy. I have had these two in a Bible study for dormies for at least two years now. We have talked about all things scripture and life. They have a deep thirst for the word and to know the Lord deeply. They are both very much Third Culture Kids and transition will be interesting. Jackie is Papau New Guinea and Filipino and will be attending university at Taylor University. Joy is Korean but grew up in China as a missionary kid. She is going to Korea for University to study art. Her Korean is not as good because she hasn't really lived in Korea very much. Pray for the transition for both of these two to very different cultures and away from their community here. I will sorely miss these two faces around school and in Bible study. This year Faith Academy celebrated 60 years of God's faithfulness. We took this photo on the celebration day. I'm on the far right though I don't think you can find me. Thank you for your support of the ministry here. Please be in prayer for the staffing needs for next year. We have a ton of open spots that will definitely make next year difficult if they aren't filled. Now we are off for about 6 weeks total! 3rd quarter flew by and I wanted to send you some photos (and a few captions) so you could see just what's going on at Faith Academy. One thing I noticed this school year is that I am taking less and less photos in the classroom. This is my third year teaching the same class, so it's not all new and fancy anymore. Nonetheless, those classroom experiences are where the real relationships grow and are growing. Please keep that in your prayers as I get to do life daily with about 65 students. One cool thing about living in SE Asia is the friends we make that go on to work in other Asian countries. We met a friend who was volunteering with an organization here and did her student teaching with them. She went home, got married and moved to China to teach as missionaries with her and her husband (and baby!). It's so cool to hear about the work God is doing in other countries around us. Pray for the Ball's and their ministry in China. I am taking master's classes through Dallas Theological Seminary and I end up doing a good bit of homework usually. Recently, that homework load has been increasing. For one 40 minute period, I supervise some students who are in the weight room. I usually end up reading homework and watching PE classes going on. It's a crazy way to study, that's for sure! So loud! If you follow me on Facebook at all, you know I have a TA because she plays the leading role in a lot of videos. She's crazy silly and lots of fun. In this class, she was excited because she got a whistle to help me ref American Football. Pray for her as she is finishing up her senior year and transitioning to John Brown University in the US next year. Her name is Karis. I have never been a big play person, but Faith Academy is a play atmosphere as we have two to three school plays a year. I have started to really enjoy them. Wicked cam to Manila and was so so cheap compared to the rest of the world. I took the chance to see it and at intermission I said, "If they said, sorry this is the end because of technical difficulties, it would have been worth every penny already." So so good. I often volunteer to chaperone school dances/banquets because you get to go for free:) In that, I get to enjoy hanging out with students in a different atmosphere. This was our annual Sadies dance. It was a western themed and let's just say, I was the only person in the room with actual cowboy boots on. Every year, the elementary school has a parade of nations during their international week. They spend a week learning about and celebrating the diversity of cultures. They finish off the week by dressing up as their country or representing another country of their choice. The picture from this are always a lot of fun. Yeah Asia! While fundraising for our rugby trip, we held a touch rugby clinic. The hope was also to promote future touch rugby love. I helped with the elementary clinic and we had a blast. These stuck it out in the heat and learned a ton about the games. I reffed a game at the end against the Peaceful Shark Warriors and the Harry Potters. You can tell the kids named their teams. Haha. One of my absolute favorite things at Faith Academy is this little boy. His parents are the dorm parents for the girls' dorm where I spend so much time. He is three and we are best of friends. His name is JJ. I love when he drops by while I'm teaching. This particular day, he brought me a flower for my hair and gave me a big hug. My TA just so happened to take a picture of it. So cute. One fun thing Faith does to promote community is something we call, Guess Who Is Coming To Dinner. You sign up and they get random groups of staff together for dinner. the idea is that we span different departments and get to know someone new. I was hosted by a Korean couple and they were so incredibly hospitable. We taught my friend Trevor (taking the picture) how to use chopsticks and about Kimchi. This symbol we are doing with our hands is a heart with your fingers. It's very popular with the kids. Who knew??? I had the privilege of being able to help chaperone the senior trip this year. This class is very special to me and I had a blast with them. We hung out, hiked up to a waterfall, tried surfing, ate a ton, and got some sun. This is not a picture of the whole class, but maybe 50-60%. Pray for these students as they transition into what's next in their lives. So many are headed to other cultures to do university, work, or military. This is called a Boodle Fight. This is a popular Filipino dinner style. The table is covered in bamboo leaves and the food is laid out on the leaves. You eat with your hands and there is no throwing of food:) The place we stayed prepared this for us and what fun we had. These kids are an absolute blessing. Our rugby team had a dream to play in rugby in Australia (the land of touch rugby) and that dream became a reality. We found dirt cheap tickets and fund-raised like crazy. The school provides a stipend for coaches when they travel with their teams, so I went for even less. We got to go on a trip of a life time and I basically paid $100. The Lord blesses us in might ways sometimes. This picture was at our awards ceremony for the season (which happened before Aus) where our kids put the coaches pictures on Australian images. So fun. We were so pumped to go. Once we flew up to Sunshine Coast, we got to speak at two school chapels. This school is a Christian school in the sense that the church owns the school, but it has only been a part of the church for 8 years and only about 10% of the school's population are believers. We got to share about what we do in the Philippines and two students shared their experiences in the Philippines. So cool to hear the gospel shared in a place like that. We did get to share in another Christian school that was much more like Faith as far as amount of Christian students attending there. Their final game on the first big day of playing was against a club team under the lights (Faith doesn't have lights, so that is fun for us). The club hosted us with BBQ after and the kids all sat around and got to know the other team. What a sweet time of connection it was for them. They played games, sang songs, and learned about each other's cultures. We were set to play some of these girls again the next day As we come back, we are full speed ahead into 4th quarter. The pressure is on as the end of the year approaches rapidly. I snapped this shot in the halls today as some of my students are hard at work during study hall. It just so happens that they are studying a favorite book of mine, To Kill A Mockingbird. The yearbook needs photos of the seniors in their cap and gown and so we got a preview of what we will get to see come June 2nd. For Faith Academy, the end of the year is the saddest and hardest time of the year. For us, this is our community and friends and our life. Because of the high turnover with field changes, furloughs, or people leaving the field, we lose a lot of students, friends, and coworkers at the end of the year. The last day of school is almost a day of grieving the community we are losing. We do enjoy summer and do enjoy coming back to the community that returns (including some who have been gone on a year long furlough), but it's a hard time. Pray for the goodbyes and the transitions, especially for our seniors. Their whole world is about to change. Pray for their faith to remain in college and to make it more of their own. I know it's been a while since I've posted on here, but I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things. I want to catch you up on this semester:) One of our student's parents has an orphanage. They take in types of people and a lot of times, they get babies such as this one. A friend was taking her for the weekend to get her out of the orphanage. She is very premature and had no name. It broke my heart to hold her. This family does such incredible work. The mom is a ferocious lover of children. Two girls were brought to the orphanage because they were sexually abused by their father. The lady went to the neighborhood looking for the girls' family. She didn't say that she knew the girls were raped but just was looking for them. The girls had described what the inside of the house looked like. The mom managed to find someone who knew the parents. She led them to a crack in the wall. The orphanage owner (and a few other people with her) followed the lady into the crack to a hidden house. Inside the house, she found tons of gambling and other illegal activities going on. She noticed the things the girls' mentioned inside the house. Turns out the dad is a notorious drug Lord and everyone is afraid of him. She was able to get the information she needed to report him to the police. Pray for justice for these girls and for this orphanage ministry, which needs to remain unnamed. This year, we unveiled a house system in high school. If you've seen Harry Potter, they use a house system and while ours looks very different, it's a similar idea. Instead of everything being about grades, we have horizontal teared groups. Please pray as this has been a huge transition and a point of contention for some. Please pray for unity as we move forward. High school retreat is one of the first things we do as a high school and it is a great chance to escape Manila and bond. What a blast these kids are. I am blessed by why I do. On the top right is my TA, Karis. She is a senior and if you are my facebook or instagram friend, you've seen her appear many many times in videos and pictures. She keeps me in stitches and she's a wonderful person. The grade 12 literature class was studying the Holocaust and Jewish oppression, so they had "Jew For A Day" day. Basically the kids who were labeled as Jews from that class had special rules for them. They couldn't wear socks. They could only use one set of bathrooms in the entire campus. They couldn't shower after PE. They couldn't speak unless spoken to. They had to do anything any non-Jew told them to do. The list kept going, but that's the basics. It was simply an illustration of what it may have been like to be a Jew during the war. It was definitely an interesting thing to watch and be a part of. Some kids were kind and let them off easy and some kids got full into character and were cruel. Jews were carrying backpacks for other kids, fetching their lunch, and filling water bottles. Anyway, I do love the creativity of our teachers who will go the extra mile to help students think outside the box and be deep thinkers. I began the year helping with A4J (All For Jesus), which is similar to VBS and runs every Sunday morning for an hour and half. It runs all through the fall semester and is an outreach program to the squatter community around Faith. The very first day is a registration day, which simply means the kids are given a shirt for the program and that is there ticket in the campus gates every sunday. We had four hundred shirts and gave away all of them. We had to turn away another 20 or so kids. I have been helping with game time for this program since the beginning of the semester and had to step down for the final three weeks as rugby season is starting up and I was becoming overwhelmed. You can pray for these kids and their families. Pray that the gospel made it's way into each home and for them to attend the church that is on campus for the squatter community. End of First QuarterChristmas Break in Thailand!My roommate Hannah and I got to spend two weeks in Thailand visiting friends and sight seeing. Such a cool experience. We both love seeing other cultures. We got excited when we saw the Philippine embassy! Home! We sort of stalked monks because they are so cool. We are sort of obsessed now. And maybe we take funny pictures of them.... And find monk children! We finally found a free program called Monk Chat. These monks want to learn English and enlighten you about Buddism. Win win for us! We got to chat with these guys for a bit and discuss what life looks like for them. Such a cool experience! I got to have my second elephant experience. This time I got to take some pictures with them. So cute and one of them slobbered on me.....yuck... Tigers are a new one for me. They are so majestic..... and really really scary.... One of my favorite things about Thailand was meeting up with three different sets of friends. In college I met Sarah. She grew up in Bangkok since her Father is works for Chevron there. I thought I was going to be working at Grace International School in Chiang Mai and so we touched base and talked a lot. We became fast friends and so, even though I never moved there, we got to catch up when I visited. I'm actually not good at photos and didn't take many other photos of the people we visited. We got to spend half of our time in Chiang Mai with Darin and Staci Dunn and hang out with this little guy. He's so fun and we had a great time hanging out. The Dunns have been a huge support of mine as I moved to Asia and have been crucial in just about every move I have made thus far. They have been gracious to host me twice now (once in Phuket on their vacation last year and this time in their home in Chiang Mai). They are my Asia Wayside family. Since I was in Chiang Mai this time, I got to spend time with my other Wayside family, the Cliftons. They left for the field at the same time I did and we had a lot of meetings and things together. We have bonded over a shared experience and Hannah and I had a blast hanging out with them. They were so gracious to have us over during their Christmas festivities and made it feel so much like home. We even got to sight see a lot ith Shelby (on the motorcycle) including motor cycles, mountain climbing, night markets, and all types of Thai foods. What a fun way to connect with my Wayside community. I'm so very blessed by the community that is around me here in SE Asia. Ministry DayHIgh school has a tradition called Spiritual Emphasis Week or SEW. We have chapel everyday and then on Friday we take the day to do a ministry day instead of school. We connect with several local ministries and our kids split up all over the area cleaning, building, playing with kids, running VBS and anything else that needs to be done. Often times these ministries are the ministries of our missionary parents. I helped lead a team going to a small but growing Christian school for kids in squatter communities. They have Kinder and 1st grade and each year, they hope to add a new grade as the kids get older and older. This was their entire school building and we cleaned it topped to bottom. This couple has three kids, one is a Freshman at Liberty University and they have a junior and freshman at Faith. The other half of our team did a VBS up the street. This my co-worker Steve. He is an English teacher in high school and was hesitant to do VBS but found a quick bond with the kids over paper airplanes! One thing I love about Faith is that our students are from all over the world and they become such good friends. In this picture is a freshman from Kenya, a junior from the Philippines, and a junior from Korea. They were doing a lesson on Jesus washing the disciples feet and so they demonstrated it by washing all the kids feet. Such a cool experience! Touch RugbyWe had lots of fun this season with this varsity rugby squad. Last season the JV and Varsity sort of made one big squad for practices because of a lack of coaches. This year we were very much separate teams. While we sad to not spend as much time with JV, it made the bond on Varsity so much stronger and we learned at a very high level. What a team this is! Twin Day! I am so grateful for older teachers and coaches who bring us youngins under their wings and mentor them. I am so blessed to be able to work under this fantastic lady. She teaches me so much about grace and patience. About the only thing I bring to the program is dress up Fridays haha. This theme was rainbow colors and it actually worked. What a fun group this is! We hosted the fist ever Faith Invitational. We held Varsity and JV women's and men's division. We entered a thrown together men's varsity squad (Faith only has tackle men's rugby) and they ended up winning their division. Both JV and Varsity girls also won their division. What fun it was to win in front of our own crowds. We were so proud of our varsity girls who beat the best team in the league 7-5, which they've never done before. Even though we won, there were tears shed as it was our final game together. We will miss the seniors but look forward to next year. We are building something and see greatness coming our way. PE ClassSometimes in the boys PE class, they kill rats..... Sometimes in PE, we have to get creative with the resources we have. Carpet squares serve as a pretty good putting surface! Sometime in PE, we take a special day to work on our swing dance moves before a swing dance themed Sadie Hawkins. Sometimes we shoot stuff! Thank you Katniss Everdeen and Legolas for making archery cool to my students! Sometimes my personal bow is as tall as my students. Sometimes, because of lack of space, my weights class has to flip tires across the circle:) Faith LifeWe had a fundraiser night and it was the Varsity boys basketball team vs an alumni and staff team. The alumni team went retro and had some old throwback jerseys. What a fun way to raise money! Our kids know how to celebrate each other. Birthdays are celebrated well during school and sometimes kids get their lockers bombarded by their friends. One of my good friends here works with a 19 year old girl with mental and some physical disabilities. I have not had a ton of experience with people with special needs but having her here has been an eye opener for me. We've grown to be friends and we laugh and play silly kids games. She has opened not only my eyes, but the eyes of the kids to loving people who are different than you. Such a good experience for us all. There are many families from Texas that work at Faith and we have begun a tradition of celebrating Texas Independence day together. We made these fun shirts this year. It is fun to have someone understand your home culture more than other Americans do. In my Tagalog language class, we learned how to make Turon. It is deep friend banana with brown sugar and a thin tortilla like breading on the outside. You can't go wrong with that! So yummy! This semester my language class has turned a corner and I feel like I am really learning a lot. I am starting to use my Tagalog a little more with Filipinos and it's so fun to actually know what people are saying, even if it's only every 10th word! I have learned so so much about Filipino culture and food in this class. I'm so grateful for this opportunity! My friend Crystal and I had a fun time dressing up for the Sadie Hawkins as chaperons! So fun! Filipinos love a good photo opp, so when I went to take a picture of the guys at the fabric market pulling my fabric out, they posed for me. This is how one shops for fabric. It's an all afternoon event and often requires multiple men to dig out the fabric you want. I am having dresses made for weddings that I am soon. It is wonderfully cheap to have clothes made here! Praise the Lord because I cannot wear a Filipino XL because it's tiny. Every year, the dorms all take a long weekend and go to Corregidor Island. I didn't take a ton of pictures of the historical artifacts because this was my second time there. We had a fun time exploring and I spent a bit of time helping this little guy through all of the tunnels and batteries (read, very big guns). This is actually less stable than it appears. I may or may not be muttering under my breath for my friend to take the picture faster. One thing about the Philippines is that there are tons of crazy bugs and insects. This was a new one for me. It is called a lot of things but the name that stood out to me was Demon Spider. I felt that was appropriate because it's the size of my hand. This is called Demon Spider cave. We went in and they are harmless (apparently) and I went about 15 feet in and said, "Ok, I've seen them. I'm done. There are a few on the ceiling and if one fell on me, my life would be over right then and there. Goodbye." Spring Break: Boracay IslandSome very generous Filipino friends let us stay at their condo in Boracay. This is a pretty popular tourist destination and can be kind of expensive to visit. We had a free place to stay and found an overnight boat to get us there for less than $40. The way the Lord provides even for Sabbath blows me away. If you like mangos, you need to visit the Philippines. This is my favorite picture from our trip. It reminds me of misconceptions and how they can twist a scenario. This is simply a case of protecting their skin. However, they dudes look scary. They basically help people load into boats. You don't necessarily ever envision yourself grabbing this guys hand to help you get into a boat. This is definitely a kind culture. The last night of our trip, we sat in the water and enjoyed watching God paint the sky. He works in marvelous ways and He reveals Himself in big and gentle moments. Thank You!Thank you so much for reading my updates and keeping up with me. I'm hoping to get a little more consistent with them next year. It's a learning curve for me. It's been quite a year and I'm excited to wrap up this year and be in Texas for the summer. I do plan on being back next year. I will be home for a wedding and to raise support. If you know of someone or a group that would like to hear about what God is doing here in person, I'd love to come tell about it in person when I'm back. I am at about 88% monthly funding and am hoping to work towards 100% this summer. Thank you for being involved on many levels with what is going on at Faith Academy. We couldn't do it without those who support us!
This update is a little longer but it's worth the read! See all that is happening at Faith! I celebrated my birthday with some friends at a local "Tex-Mex" place called Army Navy. What a great group of people who are willing to go out on a weeknight and make my birthday special. I'm thankful for these people! The best birthday present ever arrived just a little before my birthday in the form of a visit from one of my closest friends, Kat. She came for our fall break and stayed for five days. What fun we had! We went to a beach called Puerto Gallera and enjoyed the palm trees, beaches, and waves Oh and we rented a moped to do it all on! One of my favorite things was having Kat meet some of my friends and students that were at the same beach as us. On the way back from the beach, we climbed a volcano called Taal. We got to the top and found other missionaries. We were curious what their religion was but were too chicken to ask. Some hot (temperature wise) get up though! The volcano Taal is an island in lake in a volcano, in a lake, on an island on the ocean. It's a brain teaser for sure! We met this couple before we got the boat to get to the volcano. We got to talking and got to share the gospel with them and then spent the whole day with them. Please be praying that the Lord is working in their lives and for their salvation. One of my favorite things at school is to be involved in the dorm. I dorm sit once every three weeks and also do a Bible study once a week. It's been so good to know these girls and to get to know them more. Pray for interactions with them as they grow in their faith. My weights class is as crazy and fun as ever. Once a week we warm up by playing a fun game or sport. We played four square one day and brought out their inner elementary kid. Annnnnnd this helps explain some of the crazy that happens in weights class. One thing that sets Faith PE apart from other schools is our swimming program. We have an amazing aquatics facility that the Lord has blessed us with and we take full advantage of it. Students spend several weeks in the pool every single year from Kinder all the way through their sophomore year. I get to teach and do what I love everyday! We do have the occasional helicopter landing on our soccer field to pick up their kids. While we do have about 80% missionary kids who are support based (and couldn't afford a helicopter), we do have a small percentage of kids who are business kids and have money. When the Pope came to Manila last year, they picked up their kids in their white helicopter to avoid traffic. This year, we had a major meeting of government heads (including Obama) and that caused some serious traffic because of road closures. This family decided not to fight the traffic and pick up their kids in their other helicopter. What a fun sight for the rest of us to see. The end of October brings our singles costume party. My friend Crystal and I dressed as Nerds:) I taught my girls American football and they had a blast. This picture made me laugh because the center looks like a unicorn with her hair. Now I am teaching the freshman boys American football while their teacher teaches my girls about floor hockey (because she's Canadian). We had a blue and gold game to prep us for our first touch rugby game. The boys came to join and we had a lot of fun. I ended up with some selfies on my phone, as always. Community festival is a big event for us to raise funds as a class. We had a great time and I didn't have dengue fever like last year, so it was a success. We raised a lot of money for the class and got to show off our new class shirts with cool nicknames on the back. Mine says "Putt Putt" In the middle of the crazy semester, my roommate Hannah found a tiny kitten and adopted it. We named her Periwinkle and then a few months later found out that she was a he and now we have Perry. He's an adorable menace who has slowly stopped biting and scraping me as much. My weights class occasionally does some rough workouts and this was one of them. You have to spell your entire name. They finished it though and had a good time doing it! These kids work so hard! Elementary celebrates a Filipino cultural week and they set up this cool sign as you enter the campus. I experienced my first three way skype this semester. It didn't work too well but we got to talk for a bit. It is amazing what technology can do. It did sort of feel like college again when we hung out so much. The first play of the year was a comedic twist on Julius Ceaser called Julia Ceaser staring a female lead set in a high school in Rome, Georgia. This was the epic last fight scene (I know very little about the actual play so forgive me if that's not accurate). The way that elementary ends their Filipino cultural week is with a greased pig chase. This is a cultural game and didn't go quite as planned. The pig was quite traumatized and stopped running (only after I had to catch him when he got out of his pen of course). I made a good friend and she was only assigned to stay at school until November. She surprised me a week or two before she left by saying that she is going home to raise support and come back in January. Pray for my friend Erin as she raises support and comes back to work for our HR department. What a blessing she is to me. Sometimes our seniors are too tired to sit up in the hall on Monday morning at 7am. This was a cute picture that I got yelled at for taking haha. Pray for our kids as they entire finals week next week and are stressed out about it. My PE classes got a visit from two MLB players. This is Chase Adams and he plays for the Arizona Diamond Backs. This is Steven Souza Jr and he plays for the Tampa Bay Rays. This is my sophomore class president (I am their class adviser) and he is a huge baseball fan. He asked for a picture with Adams and Souza. They left quickly, so I didn't get a picture with them, but we had a great time with the kids and pitching to each other between classes. What a cool experience and definitely a first for me. These guys are believers that were doing baseball clinics for Filipino teams here in Manila. Touch rugby continued our tradition of themed practices on Friday. This time it was PINK OUT! It took us a few attempts, but we finally won our first game and we couldn't be more excited. What a great way to end the semester and get ready for our first home games next semester. Our Drama 2 class put on my FAVORITE movie, Steele Magnolias and I laughed and laughed and laughed. What a fantastic group of actors we have. I love seeing their plays and will miss this group of seniors. This is one of our touch rugby team managers and she often is stuck in the front seat with the head coach and I. This last weekend I gave her a country music education while she was stuck there. She enjoyed it but said she didn't plan on becoming a huge country music fan. Thanksgiving is often a hard holiday here as we don't have time off and really miss our families. Friendsgiving becomes our thanksgiving as we gather with friends to celebrate and give thanks. Our Student Council puts on a fall banquet and my friend Crystal and I got to be chaperons. We had a fun time dressing up and taking pictures with the kids. What a beautiful group of kids we have! These are four of my dorm girls (all juniors). They are stunning! My my sophomore class officers. They have worked so hard and done so much for our class this year. What a fantastic group I get to advise. Twice a week after school I am in a class to learn Tagalog (the local language). This week we played a game similar to Heads Up or twenty questions and we had to guess who we were. Of course I got Mother Theresa. My lovely officers (mentioned above) put together a class party and I loved watching the sophomores bond over games like Spot It, Bunny Bunny (Korean version of Viking), musical chairs, honey if you love me, and dodgeball. These kids sure know how to have fun! One of the cool things about technology is not missing out entirely on cool times in my friends lives, like when they are engaged and planning their weddings. Kat and Mitch will be married in April and are flying me home to be a part. I will be gone about 6 days, so it will be a quick trip but I am so incredibly honored to be able to be there. Pray for their upcoming wedding and marriage. Speaking of not missing things.....My best friend Michaela got engaged and I got to skype and hear the whole story from both of them. Poor Michael was bored by our giggles and inside jokes. Michaela and Michael get married in June and since it's after school gets out, I'll be able to be there and be a part of it as well. The Lord is gracious to me. My friend Erin (the one who is raising support to come back with HR) has been working on some videos and pictures to work on support raising for me. She took this picture during a shoot with my girls in the pool. Please be praying for my support levels. Right now it is just above 80% and I would like it to be at least at 90% before I can confirm that I am coming back to Faith next year.
It's been a long time since I updated y'all, so here's a quarter all summed up. I tried to put a lot in here but make it a quick skim through:) This is my first time being BACK in Manila and I am loving not being new. This year has a more comfortable feel already and I am so so grateful for that. So here we go. I'm going to type fast, so try and keep up;) I said goodbye to my babies and it was so hard. It was better than last time because I know how life works, but they are the hardest to keep up with. You can have a conversation with an adult on facebook or skype, but kids don't do well even on skype. It's definitely one of the hardest parts of being gone; you miss out on their lives. It was ironic that I was having trouble leaving the littles when the first thing that happened when I got back was I was asked to babysit this little one. She's so sweet and so easy to babysit. It was just a reminder that there are littles to love in every place I find myself. I also managed to get sick from babysitting her.....which was great fun. I was so excited to come back to a newly refinished and painted floor in our gym:) Go Vanguards! One of my Korean students brought me back some great socks because they know how much I love Korean socks:) Our high school staff is so fun. I love these people and am honored to work with them. This was a fun day when several people all wore pink on the same day. The male guidance counselor was a little embarrassed to be in the group:) We started off the year with a game at our rivals and it did not go well. This is their mascot, the bear. This is my face when all of our teams lose. Sadly, our athletic season has not gone well at all. Here's to hoping we do well in closing out! MY TWO WORLDS COLLIDE I got to have dinner with one my best friend's dad while he was passing through Manila. Steve Armstrong has a teaching ministry and was speaking on another island. He treated my roommate, another missionary couple in the area, and I to dinner and we had a great time learning about each other and catching up. What a special blessing the Church is to me. Car accidents are quite prevalent here but this was a crazy surprise one day on the way to church. This car must have spun out of control and gone up into this sign backwards. It was the talk of the area for a few days:) While we are talking about cars, I have to introduce my very first car that I own:) This is my girl Bounty. She's been amazing so far and is going to get her first washing as my car this week and go on her second road trip with me next week on break. I am so thankful that the Lord provided extra funds last year to provide a car when it was not planned. One of my goals for this year was to take steps towards learning the language. What a blessing it was to discover that our Tagalog teacher decided to offer free classes to staff and so twice a week, you can find us in this room stumbling over our words. Oh the fun we have with the language and when we don't know what to say, we bust out some Spanish:) I have been blessed with a great house and a huge group of young singles that love to spend time together. Our house has become somewhat of a hub for birthday parties and hang out. This is only half the room one of the more full birthday parties we've had. The Lord blesses us in mysterious ways yeah? FLASHBACK TO HOMEMy youngest brother, Cody became a freshman at Sul Ross University and became 6 of 6 to attend a university. My sister, Summer made this collage and I thought it showed us all well:) My older sister, Whitney got published about two weeks ago in the Washington Post about her malignant brain tumor. Check out the article here if you want. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-have-cancer-but-i-sometimes-forget/2015/09/17/244dec30-5bca-11e5-9757-e49273f05f65_story.html Meet my sophomore class (I am there class adviser). We kicked butt on the competitions at high school retreat and had a blast. What a unifying experience it was. My students needed it and they came away feeling much better about the year as a whole. This was a much needed answer to prayer as the class very not unified last year. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Some of my favorite people after our color war. The color didn't show up crazy well, but I sure had a lot of fun getting each of these ladies really well:) There is a term in Tagalog that means something like, close friend group, and the term is barkada. This is a term that I have come to love and this would be my barkada right now. These three have been an anchor for me and been great friends. I am so thankful for who the Lord brings along each year and the friendships you can forge in such a short amount of time. This is Crystal on the left, Micah in the middle, and Courtney on the right. Courtney and Micah are married. Our speaker from high school retreat did an amazing job of encouraging us and spurring us on to lose in order to find. He spent several days at school before the retreat and then a few days after. Thanks for being an encouragement to us Zad! Zad was the youth pastor of a guy who teaches here that is about my age. So cool to hear about him growin up We see a lot of weird animals here in the neighborhood I live in. We are just outside of Manila and it is somewhat jungley. This was a new animal to see in the middle of the day hanging on our library sign. So great. WEIGHT LIFTING CLASS (JUNIORS/SENIORS)Meet my weights class for this semester. 8 boys and one feisty girl. We have a lot of fun:) True friends make us better......or make our leg presses harder at least. We don't have traditional equipment but we make do in fun ways:) SPIRIT WEEK |
SUPERHERO VS SUPERVILLAIN DAY |
My good friend Crystal (see Barkada picture way above this one) works with special needs students and this student is actually her full time job. She came all the way from Canada with Crystal and lives here with her. She graduated from high school last year and is exploring life outside of her hometown. She keeps me laughing and I make her do tire flips because she's not a fan of workouts:) She's strong though! Meet my friend Maddie.
Our very culturally diverse community celebrated Papau New Guinea's 40th anniversary of being a country:) I saw many of these flags around school from random kids who had no ties to the country. These kids know world events.
EARTHQUAKE DRILL
Faith Academy is located just miles from a fault line and so we have to prepare for earthquakes. This was my first time participating in a school wide drill. We duck and cover and then thirty seconds after the shaking stops, we all head down to our soccer field to count heads and decide if anyone is stuck somewhere. This lovely piece of equipment serves as a sort of redneck gong.
My friend Harold and I ducking and covering
We were told to cover our heads to protect from falling debris
A coworker snapped this one of me going down with the number 8 on the back.
We got the all clear to make our way to the top of the hill! It's too hot for this.......
I took a quick motorbike lesson from a friend and had a great time zipping and yippeeing around our main circle.
Communication with friends
Praise the Lord for technology. I get to keep as normal as possible a relationship with my close friends and family. Here's one with two of the littles. The youngest is almost always asleep when I call. Sweet Zeke almost makes me cry when he asks if I'm coming home.
Sometimes I get to see regular everyday life, like my friend Maria, who is learning all about being a wife and making her husband fat with her amazing cooking:)
I get to spend time with friends loved ones.....even if they take a cat form.....
Sometimes day to day life on skype means my little brother showing me his new Glock that he is using to prep for the police academy. Some of the funny things I experience on skype would crack you up:)
I thought I'd end on a picture that I see OH SO OFTEN on my phone. Student selfies. I sort through hundreds of these each semester and pick out the good ones to keep. So fun.
Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom and I hope it was enjoyable. There will probably be a much shorter one to follow because we have our fall break coming up and I'll tell you all about it:)
I am here in the great state of Texas and loving it. My heart is slowly beginning to miss my life in the Philippines and my job that I love so much. I am soaking in the break and the best part is that I get to go back ready to go. Part of what I'm doing in the states this summer is raising support. Our entire staff at Faith Academy is support based. This makes a top notch education an option for support based missionaries in and around Manila. This video is a fun way that my roommate chose to explain why we do what we do. We are very passionate about our students and their walks with the Lord, but there is a bigger reason for why we do what we do. Check out the video and if you are interested in being a part of keeping me at Faith Academy, click on the "support" tab on the top of this page. I am currently at about 75-80% of my monthly funding and really need about $600 more in monthly pledges to be at 100%. Please pray about supporting what God is doing in the Philippines and being a big reason why we can stay. If you are interested in hearing more about it in person, email me at [email protected] and we can meet and talk.
Side note: This is my roommates video, so the information at the end is not accurate. Refer to my website or my email address to join up with me.
Side note: This is my roommates video, so the information at the end is not accurate. Refer to my website or my email address to join up with me.
Check out the pictures from the end of our school year and where I'm at now:)
My girls ended the year in the pool doing water sports. This is water soccer and they needed another player, so I joined in. Talk about a workout.
My girls ended the year in the pool doing water sports. This is water soccer and they needed another player, so I joined in. Talk about a workout.
Chillin in the pool between classes.
Having a little fun with the inner tubes.
One of my roles at Faith is a boarding home sitter, so once a month I house/student sit for the boarding home parents. I ended the year with a fun evening with my girls. We had Vietnamese wraps (or see through tacos as I call them) and it was the perfect representation of how I am always trying new foods at the dorms.
A faith student favorite is Tim Tams and especially Tim Tam Slams. Basically you bite a corner off the Tim Tam and bite the opposite corner. You then sip a hot drink (coffee in the picture below) until it is soft and eat the whole thing. I have to say that I might be addicted. So so good and I highly recommend it. A fun way to end the year with my sweet dormies.
Had the pleasure of seeing several of our students get baptized after school one afternoon. It's so cool to see what God is doing in the community. Continue to pray for the spiritual growth of our students.
After we did our end of the year academic awards, we had a time to pray over all the staff that were leaving. My dear friend Whitley who is also my co-adviser for the freshman class was in this group. The freshman all circled around her and it was a teary eyed moment and the first of many tears shed over friends leaving.
This guy randomly decided to join weights class. He is a Tokay which is a type of very large gecko. Gorgeous.
Our high school end of the year party featured some fun events including this water ball called Water Zorbing. I thought it looked like fun and learned that its quite hard. I spent more time falling down than standing up once I got onto top of the water.
One of the other events was the mechanical bull. My pride got the best of me as I assumed I could do well since I was from Texas. Let's just say I had a headache for awhile after that.
Some friends got to visit Buffalo Wild Wings for my friend Drew's birthday. It was a nice taste of home and a fun night out as we had such a small amount of time left together.
My final class day with my girls was a water fight of sorts. Each student got shaving cream on their head and the opposite team was supposed to try and knock the water off their heads with their water cup. This turned into an all out war and somehow....I became the final target. I am not sure how that worked out but I should have guessed:)
I'm going to miss this class of sophomores since they are now done with PE. What a great class.
There are some days when I feel like eating lunch outside or my colleagues abandon me for prep or meetings and I eat lunch with this crowd in this spot. What a fun year it was and many good conversations were had. Everything from silly inside jokes to how God's grace meets with hard times.
Our good friend and colleague Becca is leaving faith after graduating from faith and working there for a number of years. She has been a sweet friend to me and a big sister in a time when I really needed one. We threw her a surprise going away party and wished her no luck (in hopes that she would return). This transient community is amazing but very hard.
The next goodbye dinner was for Whitley (second to the left). What a sweet friend she has been and someone I clicked with immediately. Ask anyone and they would know that we have been inseparable this year and she was my high school department friend. So thankful for her and sad to see her go.
Graduation came and it was a teary eyed ceremony for many as our beloved seniors finished up and left us. What an incredible group this is. All I could think of was how in a few short years, my freshman will be here. Amazing.
Speaking of my freshman.....what an incredible group they are and they have grown so much as a class in the last year. Pray for continued unity and direction as a class.
The singles all went out and did Jeepney karaoke as our final night together. This was the last day of school and my last day in country. Let's just say it was a whirlwind of a day. We wrapped up school and then went on this whirlwind trip of loud music and lots of singing. I am so thankful for these people and the family they have become to me. Several faces won't be back next year but many will be and for that I am grateful.
I got off that jeepney, went to bed, and then got up early in the morning and flew to the states. These lovely ladies (and Sarah behind the camera) greeted me......
And then tackled me.....
What an encouragement these girls have been to me. They have helped make the transition of living overseas much easier. What a blessing the Church can be. Thank You Lord. Continue to pray for me as I transition to life overseas while figuring out relationships from afar.
What an encouragement these girls have been to me. They have helped make the transition of living overseas much easier. What a blessing the Church can be. Thank You Lord. Continue to pray for me as I transition to life overseas while figuring out relationships from afar.
Part of the reason for hurrying home was to be in the wedding of my sweet sweet friend Maria. She married my long time friend Tim and what a beautiful wedding it was. We posed for fun pictures, cried through the ceremony, and danced the night away. It is so special to be home for these moments when I normally miss so many. Pray for Maria and Tim as they begin their life together as husband and wife.
The next week, my baby brother Cody graduated from high school at Churchill. We got the bottom four siblings in town for the graduation. We are all adults now! So fun and so proud of him for graduating Magna Cum Laude.
Came in the door and noticed right away that my dad hung my newly acquired longhorns. My grandparents downsized and since I was set to inherit them, I ended up with them early. They would be pretty hard to ship to the Philippines, so my parents are going to showcase them for me for now. They look pretty good huh?
I am back in the states for another month or so and am support raising and spending time with family and friends. What a blessing this time has been and the hugs have been amazing and missed. Thank you so much for your prayers and support. The end of the year was such a whirlwind and all the sudden I was home and had said a ton of goodbyes (to way more than I talked about in this blog as well). There is work to be done over break, but also rest and recouping for next school year. Hello Texas!
We have four and half weeks left of teaching and one week of finals before the school year is over. I cannot believe it is so soon. It has flown by, that's for sure. Here are some pictures that recap this quarter thus far:) Enjoy.
We have a new field thanks to two business men in the community who donated money for us to purchase and make the field on the property next to us. I was on the field dedication committee and got to help plan and run our field dedication day. It was quite the day! We had a ribbon cutting ceremony at 7am to kick off the day. The whole school showed up to thank the Lord for our new field. We had an assortment of competitions after school that show case the field and it's uses. I helped organize this and got to play and ref parts of it. Such a fun day!
The ribbon cutting ceremony. The chair of the board is the one with the scissors (A fantastic woman who is such a blessing to me) To the right of her is our AD and to the left is our head of school. The field coaches are standing behind them and the youngest student at Faith is holding one end of the ribbon while the oldest holds the other end.
The ribbons have prayers of thanksgiving written on them.
One of the events was a soccer match with all of our varsity kids. Love these girls!
For Easter break, I helped take the dorm kids to Corregidor Island. It was a military stronghold for the Philippines for a long time and was heavily bombed during WW2. General MacArthur came out of this end of the tunnel and got into a boat opposite of this picture and said his famous words, "I shall return" in 1942. We got to tour the island and explore all the cool tunnels that housed people, offices, and the hospital. We did some fun exploring in caves and bombed out buildings too. Probably one of my favorite places to have visited thus far.
This is the map of the tunnels that we got to go through. The main tunnel is open to the main public to walk through and they do a lights show to explain went on (it wasn't on for us because of the holiday). I actually got to explore through all the tunnels with the students pictured above. What an adventurous group they are. They keep me on my toes and challenge me to face my fears.
We got to check out all the big batteries on the island and climb all over them.
This is the above ground hospital that got bombed and forced them to move the hospital underground. The amount of times I thought to myself, "Man, if this were in the states, we wouldn't be allowed on any of this stuff" baffled me. We got to climb all up in the building and explore.
A very cool memorial that explained all of the Philippine history in wars. Such a cool place
My PE 2 (sophomores) got to have an archery unit, which they quickly discovered is more fun than it sounds. These are my warriors.
Sometimes they take my phone and take selfies. The reason why I have hundreds of selfies stored up from the year. That's after deleting all the duplicates!
Sometimes I snarl when they take my picture.
The PE 1 students (Freshman mostly) got to have a softball unit Let's just say I was in heaven for three weeks:)
We had our first ever class party for the freshman! I am their adviser and it's been so fun getting to know this class outside of class time.
Koreans sure love their noodles!
Kool-aid experiment group
We had a big relay race that culminated in a dizzy bat race and then having to chuck a 16oz Coke. Their may or may not be a video on my facebook of me chugging one in competition against my class VP. I may or may not have won:)
Weights class is more fun than ever. We have done all kinds of fun games on our Thursday funday including introducing them to Zumba:) One of my students is a hoping to be a body builder one day and is well on his way. This is his regular calf raise amount (about 600lbs).
My PE 1 kids have now moved on to CPR and first aid. They enjoyed time with the mannequins. Here are some fun quotes from this particular class period.
"We named them Cecilia and Roberto."
"This is my first kiss."
"I named mine Manny Kin and Mandy Kin"
"What if we get mixed up on actual our first kiss and blow out on accident!?"
"We named them Cecilia and Roberto."
"This is my first kiss."
"I named mine Manny Kin and Mandy Kin"
"What if we get mixed up on actual our first kiss and blow out on accident!?"
We are working hard and learning how to save lives!
I got to attend our Junior/Senior banquet and what a fun night it was. Everyone looked amazing.
Freshman class advisers and two of the senior class advisers and our good friends:)
Author
I am a Texas girl living in Manila Philippines. I work at Faith Academy and teach physical education to third culture kids (mostly missionary kids). I work for Helps Ministries and Wayside Chapel EFC in San Antonio.
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