Welcome to Mindanao Island where your new life includes trying to fill in a giant 22 hour-a-day babysitting schedule for predominantly infants and toddlers. 6am to 10am. 10am to 2pm. 2pm to 4pm. 4pm to 8pm. 2 hour break for team meetings. 10pm to 6am. Pick a shift and GO.
This schedule may seem a little daunting especially when you include the shifts where we are supposed to help the older kids get ready for school from 5am to 8am and helping them after school from 4pm to 8pm, but it’s really not as overwhelming as it seems. When you have 14 people to share the load you really have a lot more down time than one would think.
There are other projects to help with but helping at the children’s home is definitely the one project that is always in style. We really are in the middle of nowhere here, but it’s kind of like one of those retreat centers where you go to disconnect from everything. No cable (obviously), no internet, cold showers, but we do have electricity.
This past Sunday we went to the BIG event in The Philippines. We went to see Manny, the famous Filipino boxer, fight in some boxing championship that was being shown at the city park. The fight was taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada so we got to hear the American anthem sang from the middle of Malaybalay City, and this is The World Race. So I have to tell you what happened when we went to see this fight … we were told we would be going to this covered court at a park in town and they would be projecting the big fight for all to see. Good plan. Let’s make an afternoon of it. Well we arrive and the big screen we were expecting is definitely four regular size-ish television screens hooked up to the speaker system with some bleacher seats set up, some area roped off for sitting on the ground, and cotton candy and popcorn vendors and random other vendors. Not exactly the big screen event we were expecting, but interesting. So when we arrived we didn’t know how long until the big fight so a few of the girls from my team went to the supermarket to get us a picnic lunch. Peanut butter and Jelly of course, that we definitely made by spreading the peanut butter and jelly with our fingers … the things we do on The World Race still make me laugh.
I can’t believe it’s almost Thanksgiving. We wouldn’t know it from the temperature here, but the more I think about it and the more I remind myself that it is almost that time of year, the more I get a little homesick for the Holidays. This will be a different Holiday season this year but I know God has me where I need to be.
