These are the words that came from mouth of a six-year old as she brought ManMan’s still body up to one of the adults at the Children’s Home. The group had gone swimming one afternoon, and ManMan, at two years old, had slipped under the water. The adults acted quickly and used their CPR skills to revive ManMan. This was two years ago, and it was a chilling incident that identified a major hole in the children’s education: swimming!
This week, in addition to the 26 World Racers staying here at K.I.M. with Jeff Long, there is a swim team from The Morrison Academy in Taiwan. We have many teenagers, several of their parents, and some younger siblings staying next door to us. They are an amazing group, and one of their tasks here is to hold swimming lessons for the kids at the Children’s Home and the young ones from Faith Academy (a sister school to Morrison Academy).
There are so many children who need one-on-one swimming lessons that the Morrison folks invited World Racers to help! Since I never pass up a chance to swim, of course, I was on board with this ministry right away!
I had a young child named Marion today. He was about five years old, and spoke no English. He spoke only Tagalog. But, as my good friend Nathaniel advised me when I announced I was teaching swimming lessons, “kick-kick-kick-kick-kick and blowing bubbles are a good start!” So that is what we did! We worked on learning to kick, and to blow bubbles in the water. Our ninety minutes in the water passed quickly, and Marion was more comfortable in the water by the time we left! Halfway through the lesson, I noticed a Faith Academy student speaking in Tagalog to some of the kids. She taught me to say good job in Tagalog. Galing-galing! Said like ring-ring, quickly. Galing-galing! That got Marion going! It was an awesome day, and I am adding about a word a day to my Tagalog vocabulary. Life is good in the Philippines.
