Fun times with pollution

Hello all,

            First off, THANK you for your prayers! I am doing much better. I was having a pretty rough time of missing home, friends and family. Completely discontent, I was frustrated with everything. My focus switched from the kids and loving them to myself. Thankfully, God got my attention and put my focus back on the kids. I have started a thankful journal. I know it sounds a bit corney, but it is so helpful in keeping my eyes and heart on the here and now. Daily I write down what I’m thankful for; different things that the Lord has given me. Some are silly, like popcorn with our dinner, others are more serious like thanking Jesus He is the perfect example of love. It’s been pretty awesome, I find I never have enough time to write down what I’m thankful for.

            This past week we had a fire drill and earthquake talk from our local fire station. We were all told that we were going to have a fire drill. So when the siren went off, my class lined up. Then the firefighter came over to me and told me that we needed to evacuate and held the door open for my whole class. He was so gentlemanly for a fire drill, the oddity put a smile on my face.

            After the whole family had all made it safely to the “safe zone”, they gave us a demonstration on how to use a fire extinguisher properly. Lightly a box on fire with gasoline, several of the older kids were able to try and put it out. At this point, smoke is billowing into the air, when one of the second grade boys yells, “You’re polluting the environment!!!”. I gave him the biggest smile I could make. I totally had a teacher moment of ‘He’s getting it!!’.  For the past few weeks, second grade has been learning about our environment, ecology, pollution, and how to have a healthy environment. They have been a bit confused. In the Philippines, they throw trash anywhere or they burn it making an unhealthy environment. Yet that is all they know. So when he yelled at the firefighter, I had a very proud teacher moment J

            At meals times, I sit next to the little buddy girls in special ed, ages from 5-10. One of them is still learning English, so during meals, I have been teaching her the basics like eyes, nose, ears, mouth, hands and feet. We have so much fun. She eagerly points to everything, watching how I form my mouth then copies. She is the cutest little thing.

            In my forex box, was a bag of banana chips. They taste just like our bananas here, which do not like taste American bananas. So I started looking at the packaging. They are a product of the Philippines J These bananas grew and were processed here in the Philippines, shipped to the states only to be shipped back to the Philippines. A few of the manangs and I had a pretty good laugh at that.

            This past week, a few of us had the opportunity to have a fun day to just goof off in town. We went down to central market to get slippers (flip-flop for Americans) for the family. It took four of us to carry the giant bundle. Manang Laura and I bought materials so we could quilts. This will be my first quilt ever! It was a nice day of walking around, window shopping, eating and hanging out with the manangs and nanay.

We celebrated Manang Laura’s birthday on Sunday. Yay!! We had thanksgiving dinner, her favorite, ice-cream and molasses cookies, yum!! Some of us, celebrated her birthday by watching “War Horse” in the theaters. It was fun to go to the movies, eat popcorn and talk loudly like we do at home with all 170+ of us J hehe           

            Dr. Seuss also had his birthday this past week, same day as manang Laura. To celebrate, I read my kids “The Cat in the Hat” and “There’s a Wocket in my Pocket”. They absolutely loved it!! eyes wide, leaning forward, they drank in the rhymes and silliness of his books. After reading “There’s a Wocket in my Pocket” They had all kids of questions. I had to explain that he made of words to rhyme with real words. They couldn’t understand why anyone would make up words. But, first thing they asked today is if I could read them more Dr. Seuss stories. Yes, course. Today, “Green Eggs and Ham”!

Well each day is hotter than the last and storms are becoming fewer as we are getting into our dry, hot season.

God bless and love,

                        Kels