Pictures

After many requests, here are some pictures from our trip.  I will be posting pictures that summarize our trip so far, but there will be time when we return in a week to see a lot more picture.  These are just a few.    

Our first project while in Calunasan Sur was to paint the exterior of the Learning Center.  Although we finished the project in about one day, there were details that took another day to finish.  There were words painted on the outside of the building that we had to paint around and it proved to be very tedious and detailed work.  Sandi, Cienna and Liz did a great job finishing all the details on all the words.   

Over the past two days, we painted the inside and outside of the Day Care (of which there is no picture).

This picture shows the blue letters that we painted around.  The letters give credit to the person who helped build the building, which was finished earlier this year.  The teachers, Marli and Agnus, were very happy to have us paint the outside of their building.  Each day they provided snacks and Coke for all of us as a gesture of thanks.  However, in reality, they sacrificed a lot financially and with their time to provide us with snacks and Coke.  We will be painting the interior of Marli and Angus’ rooms on Thursday and Friday.  

This picture also tells another story.  As Americans we kind of stick out in the barrio and we also seem to attract a lot of attention, specifically from the kids in the barrio.  As we work everyday we are greeted by children.  We are beginning to develop relationships with many of them as we see them everyday.  They remember our names and it is very warming to hear them yell and chant our names.  I think they have all of our names down, but we are still trying to remember all of their names.  

Last Saturday and Sunday our team was fortunate to be part of a youth retreat that took place in the barrio.  There were approximately 50 youth at the retreat and the students had a great time getting to know Filipinos their own age.  I was asked to lead a devotional at the retreat, so recruited the help of the team to act out the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abendego.  The picture above is us acting out that story.   

One of the highlights of the trip was an invitation to play an exhibition basketball game against the basketball team of the barrio.  We had the privilege to watch two games of the tournament that took place over the weekend.  This is a picture of the basketball court.  As you read in another post, we tied our exhibition game, which was very fun and I am sure the Filipino people got quite the laugh watching us play.

It’s almost dinner time.  Contrary to everything else in the Philippines, dinner is always on time.  Marita cooks our dinner every night and it is always great with lots of rice!