We celebrate every CSC KIDS birthday at CSC.  That is a lot of birthdays; sometimes we have 2 or 3 birthdays a week!  Our kids don't have much that is THEIRS.   They have their names ( so I try to remember to use their names when I talk to them ) and they have their birthdays.  The big event is always in the evening of their birthday. The older kids get to pick the menu at their party.   All the American staff members show up.   The birthday kid gets to invite two kids from the other house and many times a teacher gets invited too.  We sing Happy Birthday songs accompanied by the House fathers on their guitars...usually at least a couple different birthday songs ( I will mention here that we did not hire our house fathers because of their musical talent......).  We have a special prayer for the birthday child (usually one of us Staff members gets that honor ). Then we all eat together -  always quite a busy and loud time!  The kids get to go up to the  birthday banquet table and get their own food...(vegetables don't usually go too fast on birthday nights.....!)  Then we unveil the special birthday cake with THEIR OWN NAME on it !   It is always fun to watch the one-year olds mess up their birthday cake ( we figure that their adoptive parents will appreciate the photos some day ). The kids get to choose the ice cream flavor they want - Ube is a favorite - purple ice cream made from Ube, it's like a sweet potato.  It is good ice cream!  After that comes the kids most favorite time - opening their gift.  Our kids are appreciative of whatever they get it seems.  After opening their gifts they usually want to go up to their room and find a special place to keep each thing and to share their "bounty" with their friends. 

       Recently we celebrated Ginda's 23rd birthday.   Ginda came to live with us when she was only 10 days old.  We have celebrated 23 birthdays with Ginda!  Ginda has cerebral palsy, she is wheelchair bound and cannot speak, but she can express joy...and she does that well.   Ginda knew it was HER day, she even got to wear the ear rings that she had chosen on a recent shopping trip.  What a blessing it is to celebrate birthdays with our kids!   It is THEIR day and they know it.

 

I was sitting here in my office thinking that I really needed to do a Blog update and wondering what to write about.  The kids are of course  "blog worthy subjects" and  there were a few of them right outside my window; playing basketball, ping pong, picking up the  greenboard that blew over twice in a little gusts of wind and trying not to get too wet  ( a few trying to get wet ) in the little sprinkles of rain that blew in every once in awhile.  But, I was also thinking about our financial situation;  knowing that we need some big money to come in to meet our budget and to keep going with our plans for growth. We just opened our beautiful new Duterte home and hope to have  all 3  of our Homes up and running early in 2010.  But...finances are tight right now.  Is this a time that we should be looking at growth?  Should we be satisfied with our status quo? The needs we could meet are certainly evident all around us.  I know in my heart that God will provide - simply because he always has.  But...as I was thinking about that and wondering why I  would  ever doubt God about our finances I heard the kids start yelling outside.   I thought maybe the greenboard blew over again and hurt someone.  But as I looked outside the kids were excitedly pointing over to the newly opened  Duterte home.  When I moved so that i could see what they were looking at I was both amazed and chastised at the same time.   There was a beautiful rainbow....and one end of it ended right on the Duterte Home roof from my vantage point.  I came to some immediate conclusions in my mind.   I will let each of you come to your own.

If you look closely you can see that it was actually  a double rainbow....the other rainbow ending on the roof of our new infirmary building! God is good. This beautiful display lasted only a couple of minutes and ( I think ) was only seen by me and the few kids that were outside.  I am happy to share it though!

    We have a special time every weekday for the toddlers.   We have it in the morning right after the older kids go school, the toddler's get to take over the compound.   It is a fun time!   We do things like nature walks, finger painting, water play or coloring most days, but today we tried something new.  TODDLER BOWLING!  We learned that there is only one rule to Toddler Bowling - and that is that the bowling pin is used to hit the bowling ball !  (To be honest it resembles golfing...but we don't think our toddlers are ready for golf.)  Toddler Bowling is a very popular game for us now...I am sure it will be played often.  We may have to get a patent on the game I think.  The toddlers were still going strong when the game was "over" so we brought out our basins for water play.  We knew we were asking for trouble because these are the same basins that we use for water play when we have the toddlers in their swim suits!   But it was a great time - check out the photos!  We'll be working on that patent.

Okay....it was not really Jacob's wedding.    It was Bong and Lings wedding.   We have been calling it "Jacob's wedding" as we have been preparing Jacob for it.  Bong had been Jacob's Physical Therapist for two years before Bong moved to Australia a couple of years ago.  Jacob loved Bong and had a hard time saying goodbye to him.    We were amazed and overjoyed when Bong asked Jacob to serve as his Best Man at his wedding here in Cebu today!  What an honor and priveledge for Jacob - and our appreciation of Bong was doubled as well. THANKS BONG - you too LING!! !    Jacob got to get all dressed up and go to a beautiful beach resort.   He got to hang out with all of the Staff and Teachers.  He got to be the BEST MAN in a beautiful wedding!   Jacob  even "gave" a little speech at the dinner - it was precious.  Thanks to Julie for getting his computer fixed to be able to do that and thanks to Jinky for putting the perfectly right words in "Jacob's mouth".  We were all in tears - including Bong.  Jacob will never forget this day.   What a special day it was!   Jacob,  our own BEST MAN!!!