9 weeks down

So we meet once again. This is now our 9^th meeting, and the more and more that we have this opportunity together, the more and more comfortable I get with my role here in the Philippines. I am now officially at the point where I have fewer days/weeks left, then I have been here. Now that i'm at that point in this internship, I'm approaching the home stretch. 2 months to the day until I leave. As much as this makes me happy that I get to see everyone back home, it grieves me that I will have to say good bye to the kids here, and to the amazing staff here at New Beginnings Children's Ministry. As with every other mission trips I've been on, this has been life changing, and one that I will never ever forget.

This past week I watched Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring again for the first time. There's a line in there where one of the Elvish maidens tells Frodo, “Even the smallest person can change the world.” Now she was probably talking about physically small, but that can also be taken as feeling like the smallest person inside oneself. Before I began this adventure almost 2 years ago now, I felt like the smallest person. I didn't think my life would amount to anything special. I didn't even think I would leave the country. Now, I know who I am in God, I know that that feeling of feeling like the smallest is straight from the enemy, and now, I'm writing this blog entry from the Philippines changing the world for His gain!

The excitement for this week occurred on Wednesday. One of the boys “playfully” threw Bleach on another boy. As retaliation, the boy threw Bleach on the one who did it first. Only problem, the Bleach got in his eye. The boy didn't really do anything at first. He just complained about pain, and was rubbing his eye. Eventually he said that he got bleach in his eye. Immediately I told him to flush his eye out with water for a while. After about 15-20 minutes, he said that his eye still hurt a little bit. I told him to go to bed and told him i'd see how it was in the morning when he woke up. Thankfully, he said that his eye no longer hurt, and was fine.

School starts on Monday for the kids. From what I can understand, they have a ridiculous school day. Class starts at 7 in the morning, and then at 11 or 12 they have an hour lunch break, and the class until 4 or 5 in the evening. That's for elementary and High School, they don't have Junior High here. Kindergarten is for only 2 hours everyday. The kids are really really excited to start school, which is totally not like the States. Here, everyone has to wear a uniform to school, regardless if you go to public, semi-private, or private. Public school is the cheapest out of the three, then it's semi-private, and then private. The kids here attend public school, because that's the most affordable for the ministry. However, the ministry wants to open their own school for the kids. They wanted to have it opened before this school year, and were in the process of doing so, but a few medical emergencies came up, and they have to wait until next year to open the school. Since everyone has to wear uniforms to school, this past week the kids were taken out in two groups to get them. Which they were very excited to get to leave the house for only a few hours because it doesn't happen very often.

Also this past week, I had to renew my Visa to stay here for another two months. I ended up going with them when they took the second group of kids to the mall. They dropped me off at the Immigration office, and they continued on to the mall, which is HUUUGE by the way. It only took me about an hour and 15 minutes or so, so I took a taxi to the mall, and I can officially say now, that I have ridden in more taxis outside the United States, then I have in the United States. Anyway, I ended up staying at the mall after they left, I had some things I needed to get, and I stayed and had lunch, my weekly fix of American food, and I saw a movie. Kung Fu Panda 2 was amazing!! After that, I made my way back to the children's home, and I got the poor taxi driver lost. I had told him to make a wrong turn, which got me all turned around. Finally, after about an hour, we finally found it, and I was back safely.

A few other things happened this week. Two of the kids had to get glasses. One of which resisted as much as possible. He did NOT want to wear glasses, but finally gave in. The other was very happy about getting glasses. She had been suffering from a lot of headaches, so she was happy that the headaches would stop. One girl had to go to the dentist this past week. She ended up having 13 cavities, and 5 extractions, not sure if they're the same as pulling a tooth, but I don't think so. And on top of all that, another girl had to get her hearing checked, because she had said that she was having trouble hearing. It turns out that she has 50% hearing loss in one ear, and 60% in the other. She has to go back in about a week and a half for more tests to see what's causing the hearing loss.

Well that's all the excitement that happened this past week. Hope everyone is doing well!!

With the wind,

Mark