We have much to be thankful for....sometimes we need reminders of that though.  Here in the Philippines we are dealing with the news that over 50 people were brutally killed just because they were supporting the "wrong" political party....just one story of thousands all over the world of the depravity of man. What have we done with this world that God created for us?   BUT.....Thanksgiving is a time to dwell on what we have to be thankful for. 

     I am thankful that I have a God who promises me eternal life and a God whom I know is even more saddened and angered at all the injustice and wrong in the world than I am.  I am also thankful that I have a place where I can experience the good that life has to offer.  God has blessed,  is blessing and will bless CSC  ( look back a couple of blogs to see why I know that! )  I try to be thankful  every day but Thanksgiving Day is a good time to consider all  the blessings that we have.  I am so thankful for my family back in the USA, I am thankful for good health and for a lifetime of wonderful memories and the confidence that there are many more good memories to come.  I am thankful that I have a job that I can share with 70 amazing kids.  Kids who needed a bit of help and God enabled us to be here for them.  It is a blessing to be in the right place at the right time.  I thank God for the ability to be here to experience what He has for me to experience.   Today was a wonderful reminder of that.  We all gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving mid afternoon at school. We had a program explaining to the kids just what Thanksgiving is and why we celebrate it.   We had actors and  silly games.  THe results of a turkey coloring contest were announced...the four winners of the contest were invited to join the American Staff at our Thanksgiving dinner.  It was so fun to share our Thanksgiving meal with them.   We had turkey, mashed potatos,  dressing, sweet potatos,  deviled eggs,  green bean hotdish,  homemade bread, pumpkin pie, cranberries and more.  Many of the things that the four kids tasted tonight were new taste sensations for them.  What fun to experience "firsts" with our kids!  Turkey, mashed potatos,  sweet potatos and deviled eggs were the most popular....olives were an overwhelming NO! and cranberries and pumpkin pie were just "okay".  The kids smiled the whole evening.  I am thankful for our kids and that they now have something to smile about - not just  a Thanksgiving meal - but they have a future and they know they have a God that cares about them.   Enjoy what God has given you.   Here are a few photos and smiles to add to your Thanksgiving!

 

 

 

 

      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!!!

 

Lots has happened in the last few days. On October 1st I had some friends from Minnesota come to visit - it was fun to show them around CSC and Cebu.  October 2nd the Oprah show that I was on FINALLY aired.  We filmed that show in April !  I am glad that it is over. I don't have to answer the question "when are you on Oprah ?" ever again!  HA.   It was a blessing to be able to have that experience though.  I hope and pray that the airing of the wonderful story about the Roach family will bring some extra blessings to them as well as to CSC.  We have had lots of people checking out our new website because of the show.  AND WHAT A WONDERFUL NEW WEBSITE IT IS!   It does not tell you that my Blog has been updated though...so don't rely on it to let you know if I have a new update or not..you will have to check it out on your own I guess...we are trying to figure out why it won't tell of updates - same thing is happening to Tammy and Joel.   On October 3rd we were entertained in style by our own CSC KIDS.  We really do have some talented kids.  I have to just sit there in awe when they are showing off their talents!  These darling kids who come from severe poverty and with stories and experiences that seem to be impossible to overcome, are actually sitting there at the piano, or standing there playing a violin, dressed in formal wear and making beautiful music!   Their smiles were something to behold.  They were proud of themselves ( not quite as proud as we were of them though).  October 6th (that would be October 5th for you slow people in the USA ) we celebrated with the VIKINGS with a win over those PACKERS...and with Favre on our team even!  October 7th (yeah October 6th for most of you) we actually got up at  5 AM to watch the TWINS pull off a 12th inning win.  Exciting days.  Not all is wonderful though....as I sit here in my office there is some pretty sad stuff happening right outside my window. All the beautiful trees that have been growing for 17 years in our playground are being cut down as I type.   These beautiful  trees were producing a tiny little berry that the birds and bats love.  The problem is that the birds and bats are rather messy eaters and have less than acceptable bathroom habits...the mess that they were making was staining the new Duterte home, our neighbors house and both the Cherne and Eicher home as well.  My solution was to paint everything purple so the stains did not show....but that was not well accepted and the trees are coming down.    I know...they are just trees.  But our good friend Ron Duterte  planted them!  

We will plant new ones and all well be well.  I will get over it!   How can I not when I have one of the best jobs in the world? The kids lives will go on and we will still

have beautiful grounds and beautiful homes.....hmmmm...sure hope the  beautiful play ground equipment survives...so far it has!  They are getting some pinpoint landings of the falling trees between swingsets and climbing structures   

 I will show you a before and after photo as soon as the deed is done.  The photo of one of our little girls watching the trees fall kind of sums up my feelings too!

 

 

      I am blessed to have friends here for a couple of days.   I have known these friends for a long time...a lifetime ago!  Before CSC!  It's hard to remember that I had a life before CSC actually.   These friends have supported CSC pretty much from the beginning,  so  it is especially fun to "SEE CSC"  through their eyes.  This afternoon we just hung out with the kids and  this evening we watched the last practice for the big recital tomorrow night ( they fly out before the recital. )   They loved just seeing the kids being kids, showing off their musical talents  and interacting with them.  On the way back to the guest house where they were staying for the night one of my friends commented that it was just so amazing and rewarding to see what they have been giving money to for almost 30 years.   It really hit me that CSC would not be CSC without the hundreds- if not thousands of people like my friends; people who have consistently given to CSC through the ups and downs of their own lives.  These friends did not  ever give big gifts...but they have given literally hundreds of relatively small gifts for nearly 30  years!   That really is more than some of our infrequent big givers!  I love that CSC means so much to so many people that  they choose to support us for 30 years  ( or 2 years or even once ! ) Most of these people are supporting something they have not even seen with their own eyes.  What a wonderful God we serve!  I am blessed to be here and blessed by my reminder today of what makes it possible for me to be here.  Friends.  My friends,  friends of the other staff members and new friends that have decided that CSC is worthy of their support!  We love friends!

Watch OPRAH on Friday, October 2!   That is the air date of the show that we filmed last April!   Oprah and crew flew me to Chicago to stage a reunion with one of the CSC KIDS that  I escorted to his wonderful and PERFECT family 14 years ago.  Tune in to see just why his family is so PERFECT for him!

 

I am going to attempt to add new photos to  my  new TODAY at CSC photo album a few times a week.    TODAY was not all the interesting to write about (3 meetings!) But we started out the day with a great presentation at School !   Level B starred in  "We're All in This Together" from High School Musical ! It was fun to see the kids enjoying themselves and showing off their dancing skills as well. They were pretty proud!  Then I went to the homes to get some work done in my office (before the meetings started ) I had to stop by to visit the toddler gang who were having a good time in our little bamboo hut!  Here are a few photo's to prove I did what I just said I did!

Our two Counselors and I attended a seminar today.   We were under the impression that it was a seminar for teaching us to teach the program True Love Waits. True Love Waits is a wonderful program for teens that encourages sexual purity until marraige.  Most of our older kids have gone through this program so we were just looking for some information to help us encourage and support the commitment that they had already made.   BUT,  when we arrived we discovered that we had not been given the complete story.   It was actually a seminar for True Love Waits - obviously directed at teens.   There we were....with about 500 young teens.  Of course there were a few adults with the groups of teens but we were the ONLY adults there who were not chaperones.  Yep - that would be me, 50ish, Victor,  who is 40ish and a very obviously pregnant Laarne.  At a program that will end with a committment to sexual purity until marraige.  Hmmmm...   Oh well, we did come away with some new info to share with our kids and I am sure that we gave all those there some good stories to tell -  I can just hear the talk....."did you see those old people that came to the seminar...and one was pregnant!", Glad we gave them something to talk about - we thought it was quite funny ourselves.

I want you all to be reminded that prayers work.  Thanks again for  your prayers for our safety and protection here.   God's protection was evident tonignt.  A ceiling fan in the Nursery of one of our homes malfunctioned;  there were only sparks and a bit of smoke but we had some scared workers and kids for awhile.  Everyone handled it well -  they got all the kids safely outside and turned off the electricity.  All is well now,  everyone is back inside and going to bed for the night.  THANK YOU JESUS and thank you prayer partners. 

Pray that the babies and toddlers who were in the nursery when this happened will continue to feel safe and secure and not  have any lasting issues with the "excitement" that went on tonight.  Keep us in your prayers!

Today was one of the "last minute" vacation days that the President declared a couple days ago.   We never know when we will have a vacation because the President can wake up one morning and decide that she wants to declare a nationwide vacation day!  And she does.  SO, this was one of those...as we have been telling people this vacation is "because some guy died".  Hmmm.  I spent the day with the kids;  vacation days are always especially hectic for the houseparents because they are often last minute and none of the extra people show up - just the people on the daily schedule and any staff member that may wander in.  Being I was a houseparent for the first 15 years of CSC I know the feeling...so I usually try to hang out with the kids.  Today we did lots of table games and just had a good time sitting in the HOT HUMID air playing games and sweating!  It was fun.  I enjoyed it!   Then we had a wonderful salad supper with all the Staff to celebrate Labor Day.  It was a good day.  Another vacation day on wednesday - but this is a planned one! 

This week at school it was WIKANG FILIPINO -  lots of stories, games, dances and information about the Philippines - most of it in the Tagalog language. I understand about 15 words in Tagalog...so I did miss lots of the information!   Today was the culmination of Wikang Filipino but it was also the end of our 5 week long READING CHALLENGE.  What an exciting afternoon it was!  Uncle Paul, Uncle Andrew and Uncle Joel made some amazing deals with the kids for the reading challenge....if the kids won the challenge Uncle Paul and Uncle Andrew had to wrestle some really tough guys.....and Uncle Joel would lose his hair AND his beard.   For five weeks the three Uncles have been telling the kids that "Reading is boring".....to which the kids would respond "Reading is fun" .   The kids each had individual goals to reach in reading in order to get enough points to win the challenge.  There has been lots of banter back and forth during these five weeks!    I will let the photos tell you the rest of the story!   It was a fun afternoon in Cebu!

The  kids have an unexpected holiday from school.  Today is the funeral of one of the ex presidents of the Philippines (Cory Aquino ).  So the kids are making the most of it...as are the teachers who are nowhere to be seen!   The yard is full of activity.  One obvious missing element is that there is no one playing basketball though!  Joel and Andrew have all the big boys playing basketball at a nearby basketball court.  The wagons each are jam packed full of 4 or 5 kids with others pulling and pushing - good to see that cooperation!   A few of the kids have brought out their coloring books and crayons to the picnic table.   A few more kids are sitting around outside reading - more are doing that inside I have heard ( read about the kids reading program on the CSC web site)  Joemar is here in my office with me sharing a Coke.   We have a few of the little girls busily working on some very complicated recipe - they fill up their pots and pans only to discover that the recipe was all wrong....because they dump everything out and start all over.  Likely too much dirt and not enough leaves would be my educated guess. Some kids are making beautiful art with sidewalk chalk on the driveway!  We often have a very colorful driveway!   A couple of the kids are helping Uncle Patrick make a "Happy Birthday Uncle Paul"  sign.  One of the Aunties is playing "train" with the kids...she has about 8 kids in a line behind her as they navigate the playground!  A few of the preschoolers seem abnormally attracted to the water faucet today,  every time an auntie is not in the immediate vicinity one of them runs over and turns on the faucet!  Barto and Christian are racing around the yard...can't believe all that energy!    Hmmmm....have to stop here because one of our darling 9 year olds just grabbed a baby and was running away from the aunties...thinking it a great joke.   She will very soon learn that it was not funny.  Ahhhh...I love my job, everyday is different and I always know that something exciting  will happen! 

It was a good day today.   I am not sure why because I only got about half of the stuff done that I wanted to get done.  Actually I am sure why...I had a series of meetings today with different staff members.   There is so much going on with our kids,  sometimes just sitting around and talking things out is the best way to make plans and set goals.  We have kids who want to confront their abusers, kids who want the past to be the past, kids who need to acknowledge their past so that they can make steps towards the future.   We have kids who are just learning what trust is, kids who are contemplating a different future than they were last week, kids who just need us to be there, kids who seem to need many more reminders than others, kids who are almost "too perfect".....each of these kids needs their needs met in different ways.  We do have a group of people here that do care about the individual kids.  That was brought home to me in each of the four meetings that I participated in today.   It was a good day...because God  showed me once again that he has brought a group of people together to meet the needs of these darling kids that HE has sent our way.  Now, I just hope that tomorrow is a good paperwork day!

I always ask people to pray for our safety here.....we have had a huge reminder of why that is so important!   In the early afternoon friday we were getting lots of rain, not a typhoon, just rain and some small gusts of wind.  I was sitting in my office with my wonderful view of the whole compound when there was a large CRACKING sound - when I looked out all I saw was a tree just landing in the driveway right by the Eicher house.   Two of our workers were standing right where the tree fell! They both have some lumps on their heads, but ER doctors tell us that they are fine.   The tree fell over our wall from the empty lot next door.  The very scary thing is that the tree fell onto the main electrical lines for our whole compound.  The lines where pulled as far as they could be without breaking...the tree was resting on the top of a wall with the electrical lines pulled  taunt under the tree.  If the lines would have been pulled even another inch or two it looked as if they would break.  We would have had live wires in a rain storm and two workers right in the mix.  The tree fell right next to the Eicher Home nursery....that leaves images that are just to horrid to think about.    So....keep praying for our safety here!  The prayers work.   God is protecting us.

Just wanted you to see how Christian and DuAn are doing.....they are beginning to lose that NEW KID LOOK!   DuAn is the one on the left of the two girls.

One of the things that I love about my job is seeing kids change.   Kids usually come to us sickly, fearful and with an inate inability to trust.  These three things are easily observable in their eyes and in their actions. I call it the NEW KID LOOK.  CSC is good at changing that LOOK.  We have recently added two kids to our family.  Christian - age 4 and DuAn who is almost 3 joined their baby sister Phoebe in our Cherne Home.   The first night that they moved into the house was a birthday party night,  they were excited to see all  the food, toys and other kids to play with,  BUT....they had the NEW KID LOOK.    It won't take long for this LOOK to be gone...because that is what we are good at at CSC!  More photos to follow!

I am amazed that so many of you keep reading my Blog (all of our Blogs actually)...none of us have been very diligent at writing our Blogs.  The weird thing is that there is almost too much to say.   Making the decision of what to write about is what keeps me from writing - what to write? .    Should I tell you about Kirk's visit back here to CSC?   Should I tell you about our newest arrival - 7 week old Hilton ? Or should I tell you about some of the darling conversations that I have had with the kids lately? Maybe I should ask you to pray for dear Jeremie who has waited way too long for his adoptive family to be able to come here. Should I do another "out my window" story?   Hmmmmm.......  Maybe I should tell you about the summer fun classes that the kids are busy going to.  I could tell you how I single handedly caught three of our kids that were knocking each other over on the up escalator - YIKES.   Or I could tell you about the tiny kitten that I rescued on the road...and has now moved in.   Maybe I should get serious and tell you how it feels to be here for almost 30 years.  I could make it simple and just show you some of the underwater photos that I took when I went snorkeling ( I saw a sea turtle...and no I didn't get a photo).   Hmmmmmm....just can't decide what to write.   I'll have to think on it....keep checking in!