Hello all!
How are you? Fantastic I hope! Christmas is next week, and we are in high gear with the cows, haha. Hopefully, no one is frantic with last minute shopping or running around.
First off, thank you to everyone who was concerned and prayed for us here as we had a typhoon over the weekend. It was supposed to be a super typhoon with the island bacolod at its center. But God completely kept us safe. We worked all day Saturday. There was literally a hole in the clouds above us. Please continue to pray for the Philippines though. The Rosmarino's have friends who live at the bottom of Negros. They have a bible college. Half of it was destroyed and they have people missing. Please pray those that are missing will be found safe and all that is destroyed will be rebuilt quickly.
This week has been so busy! Everyone has been spread around so that we have enough people working outside for cow stuff. Last week, as you read, I worked with the little boys carrying sacks of pooh. This week, I have worked with the older boys helping build the barn. They have had to mix concrete for walls, dig trenches for posts, build a temporary shelter for the cows till the barn is done. Dig a walkway twice since the first one wasn’t wide enough. The boys work so hard. There aren’t electrical concrete mixes here, so they pour the sand, rocks and the concrete mix on the basketball court and manually mix it with shovels. Then transport it bucket by bucket to the barn site. You would think that on their lunch breaks they would all be relaxing and sitting down. Nope. They are playing basketball or running around on the playground playing. They amaze me with their endurance.
The past few days I have been helping out with the older girls. Man am I tired, sore and achy! The girls have been tasked with planting the back field with cow grass for so we have food for the cows in the summer. Doesn’t sound that difficult right. It isn’t really, but it is incredibly tiring. We have to go out front, dig up giant clumps of cow grass cut it up with a machete into the right size pieces. We then have to transport it to the back field, dig holes and plant it. We have done about four squares and have about 1 ½ squares to go. The girls are troopers too! When I am tired and exhausted and just want to lay down wherever I fall, they want to play outside or keep working. I think everyone’s favorite part is the planting. It is my least favorite. We are planting in what used to be a rice paddy. Meaning it is built to flood. It is goopy, swampy, muddy and smelly. For the most part it makes for easy planting, but I am grossed out by it. I keep praying the Lord will protect us from any gross things in the water or mud that could potentially hurt us or make us sick. Thus far he has been faithful and no one has gotten sick. When we are digging out the grass clumps, the girls try to find the most unusual things or bugs. Since the Filipinos dump their trash wherever they want, we have found clothes, shoes, lights, baskets, games and my personal favorite little girl high heels. As for critters, we have found gecko eggs, snakes eggs (we think), a fluorescent lady bug, ants of all shapes and sizes, termites and a snake. They love it. They run over to me with whatever new thing they have found, not the snake or ants. I, too, am amazed and impressed at how hard the girls work and how much they enjoy it. Sunday was our rest day, yet a few of girls wanted to go out and work. I told them, I needed a day to recoup as do their bodies. Its been fun for me to get to know the older girls on a deeper level since I am with the little ones most often. They keep me constantly laughing with their questions of my hometown and what I have seen and their assumptions of Americans.
Just like any women’s bible study, we had a Christmas party for the outside women’s bible study. Manang Teri, Manang Laura and myself watched all the little kids while the mom’s were at the party. Boy was that an experience. They were crazy loud, unruly, came and went as they pleased. We had to shout to be heard. I honestly thought no one was listening and they were only there for the little goodie bag we were going to give out. But when we sang songs, they all did the hand motions and sang along. At the end we asked questions about what they learned, surprisingly, most of them knew all the answers. Manang Teri told me later that they are so used to being on their own and being loud that they can be loud and unruly and still listen. Slightly crazy to me, but it works for them. Nanay said the women’s bible study went really well! She had about 100 ladies and it seemed that they were honestly listening instead of just being there for the goodies or to just go for the heck of it.
I want to share one of my favorite Christmas songs with you all. It isn’t a traditional one by any means. It is by Relient K called I Celebrate the Day. The chorus is “The first time you opened your eyes did you realize that you would be my savior. The first breath that left your lips, did you know that it would change this world forever. The first time you opened your eyes did you realize that you would be my savior. The first breath that left your lips, did you know that it would change this world forever.” The song ends with “I celebrate the day, that you were born to die, so that I could one day pray for you to save my life, pray to you to save my life.” I taught Sunday school yesterday. Instead of focusing on the birth, I focused on why He had been born a man. Yes his birth is important, for if he were not born, Christianity would be like any other baseless religion. But the reasons behind why He was born a man; what he would eventually do for humanity; that for me is why we should celebrate Christmas.
Merry Christmas everyone! “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” Luke 2:10b-11
God bless,
Kelsey
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