Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are several thousand words to inform you of what we've been doing over the past two weeks.
By way of an explanation, the first several are from a camping trip we took with thirty-six 6th and 7th grade students to a coffee farm / camp area that is affiliated with the school.
On the Saturday after we returned from the camping trip, Christen's Bible study group held a party for a bunch of local street children who are affectionately referred to as "limpia botes" boys (boot cleaners / shoe shine). Most of them walk around town with a box with shoe polish and such materials to earn a little extra money from whoever needs a shine. First, they played in a yard at the house of one of the ladies in Christen's group - catch with a football, swinging on the tire swing, and the small zip line were all hits! After an hour or so, we fed them hotdogs, chips, refreshments and then their favorite, ice cream. They finished the night watching a movie and then we brought them all back to town. We are still getting huge smiles and waves every time we see them in town. (Pictures of this SOON - we forgot our camera that night)!
The second group of photos are from a 50km endurance race that Joe participated in the past weekend called the "Master de la Cordillera" (Master of the Mountains).
Camping Trip - Manabao
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| Hiking up to the campsite over the river |
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| Camp Spirit Discovery, our home for four days with 36 pre-adolescents! |
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| Can't beat the view! |
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| Joe was in charge of gathering firewood. I think they did okay! |
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| We did two service projects - the first was building a ramp into one of the shelters so that one of our students (who is in a wheelchair) could go up to the campsite the next week and this one, building benches around a new campfire pit |
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| Christen leading the digging effort for the new fire pit. |
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| A few of the 6th and 7th grade students |
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| On the last day, we swam in the river as we hiked out of camp. Some of the students thought it would be a good idea to gang up on Joe. Judging from this picture, I think he did okay in defending himself. |
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| The entire group in the river on our way out of camp - we had a great time, but were definitely ready to get home! |
Master de la Cordillera (1 Oct 2011)
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| The first "challenge' in the race - pass a bucket from a hoola hoop on one side to the hoola hoop on the other without the teeter-totter touching the ground (pretty difficult when you weigh 30lbs more than your partner)! |
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| Final challenge - blindfolded, listen to your partners voice of when to drop off of a zipline to land inside the target. All this after completing 48km on a bike, hiking, rafting, etc. |
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| We finished! (7hrs and 30min later). We were exhausted and hungry afterwards, but the sense of accomplishment after completing such a grueling race was incredible! |
Thanks for reading (or at least viewing)! Hope you are well - blessings to each of you.
SDG
