Counting Some Blessings...

As I sit here on this breezy, but hot afternoon I am thinking of all the good things God has done for us.  Often we want to focus on the bad or negative things and the things we don’t have.  I’m trying to instead focus on the blessings.  We recently returned from a wonderful vacation in Luzon filled with good visits with friends and tasty treats.  Within 24 hours of being home we had three pieces of bad news… 1. A twelve year old boy suddenly died from a rare blood disease that is quite contagious, 2. One of our godmothers passed away after a brief sickness,  and 3. One of our dogs is now blinded, most likely from a spitting cobra.

Now it is one week later and… 1. We have not hear of anyone else having symptoms yet, 2. We learned our godmother had a graceful exit not a sad one, and 3. We are all adjusting easily even though Jebol still has some fear upon first entering grassy areas and he seems healthy in every other way.  The blood disease could have become a local epidemic but it’s not.  Mama Beth could have suffered painfully over an extended time, but she is already with Jesus instead. Jebol could have been bitten and died or worse one of us could have been attacked by the snake.

In much more positive news our plans are continuing to move slowly forward. This afternoon someone is coming over to help Jun with some welding on both projects here at the house (well cover and side car for our motorcycle).  Maybe the cover can be finished this week then?  Yesterday we also were able to move lumber Jun had cut last year last year from its origin to our land.  The hope is to use it for framing the mold for the support posts on our shelter.  As long as Jun can find workers the first week of June work will begin.  I am praying that the 8 post can get poured before rainy season prevents it again!

This summer we are also going to try hosting a reading and games time under a temporary tent in the neighbor’s yard here in Juagdan.  It is not as central of a location so it will be a far walk for about 1/3 of our previous students so they aren't likely to come, but there maybe be some who join because it’s closer to them now!  Please pray for wisdom about what stories to share and safety in the games.  It’s been super quiet without kids around all the time.  It will also be nice for the kids to have something fun to look forward to on Saturdays anyway because from what I heard they will only have a 2 week summer vacation.

Catching up...

 I didn't realize how far behind I've gotten in updates!  It's been a fun six months.  Lots of great things going on to keep us going.

I honestly don't remember when power retuned regular but most of Juagdan has resumed service (last i checked a few areas never got reconnected and I'm not sure how that will work out).

We had a longer than usual term and took classes all the way to the end of June and beginning of July 😃.  Of 90 kids we had 60 who attended 75% or more classes and those kids all got to celebrate closing with us receiving prizes and a small hygiene/school pack.  We also did a movie night with the 12 youth kids.  Mabini was a smaller group but we still celebrated them too.

July and August was just as full even though we didn't have much class for the summer.  I hosted 3 students for crochet club and it was relaxing.  I also met with my teachers once a week setting our next term lesson plans.  The other days I gathered the songs, worksheets, and other activities needed for those plans.

We waited until the second week of September to restart because the last week of August the kids finally returned to face to face classes in their regular school.  So September 10 we started kids class with 40+ participants, two teachers, and two assistants.  That week they split into two groups (PreK-2nd and 3rd-6th) to do letter sounds and fact/fiction lessons.  They will continue to do that every other week through December.  The other weeks they will be all together to do an Old Testament Bible hero story... last week my teachers told me they had 54 kids!

They are also hosting a games and reading class on Sunday afternoon for mostly the same kids.  It's more of a just for fun time with a safe place to come and read and play.  At the same time they high school kids (sounds like only 6 this time around) are doing review of the parts of speech with a project designed for each part.  Example an acrostic of their name using adjectives and sentences describing themselves using adverbs.

In case my choice of words sounds like I'm not there with them that's because I'm not.  I was there the first weekend but then headed out to visit our sponsors.  As of September 16th I've been in the USA.  It's been a strange and yet fun experience.  I'll share some of those joys later...

For now please continue to pray for our participants and teachers as they work through the curriculum.  I think this week is Jonah... Or was it Abraham, I can't remember...

Update

 Back in Juagdan we are again in blackout mode.  Still don't have power except by generator and so just charging phones and using a little light to cook by.  Although we had phone and spotty internet for a while it is completely gone again.  We are visiting the Poblacion, or city center for Ubay so we can accomplish a few things like Jun's driver's license renewal online and US taxes submitted.

In more exciting news... Classes have started again!  We have two kids classes and one youth class in Juagdan already and this Friday we will resume in Mabini.

Also in February Jun and I celebrated our anniversary and both birthdays!  We fed a bunch of people at a party and then visited a bunch more with take home containers.  Then the next weekend we went to the city and splurged on a nice dinner and hotel with a pool!

Just a tidbit...

Please take a few minutes to take this survey for us.  It is mostly about how we are doing with communication to our support system, but some other information as well!

 https://forms.gle/vPZXNKeWuteHJAu59

Also, we have updated our Amazon wish list if you desire to help out with physical items.  Some are just samples of items we use often and you could find something less expensive if you like (example pens, pencils, medical supplies, ect.) The address connected will send things to my family and they will add to the next Balikbayan Boxes they send.

Use this email: davenport.christine@gmail.com

Thank you for your prayers and concerns!

Be blessed so you may continue to bless those near and far💖😃

Surviving, Odette Damage, and Early Clean-Up

Hanging out in our room with Jebol and Ollie.  We were on the foam, but our butts started to get wet.  We let the dogs stay but moved to plastic chairs until the flooding went away about 2am.

This is the kitchen with the roof still inside.  Unfortunately, many of my classroom supplies were there as it doubled as my office.

Our main room had a river running through it.  We couldn't keep the door closed anyway so a few lighter things (like floor mats and shoes) washed away and I found them around the neighbor's house in the following days.

This is the church.  Most of the roof and ceiling collapsed.  For now it has been tarped so services can resume.

Our bedroom in the morning light.  We had tried to stop the waterfall as the cabinet with clothes and pots.  Eventually we just sat and turned the pots to rest our feet and stay dry.  I think it was almost ankle deep at it's worst.  The dark of our bed foam is definitely wet. It took a week to dry that out!

This is the playground and pastor's home in the background.  They lost about half to two-thirds of their roof, but only about 1/3 of the ceiling.

Basketball court in the compound.  Not so messy, but all those trees down...

The day after we walked the 3 km to our land to check out the house.  I started the walk first to stop and see family along the way and made the dogs stay.  Half a km from home I heard noise behind me and turned to see Jebol running after me.  So he walked all the way there and back with us.  I think he was more exhausted than us!

This is a view from inside pastor's house looking at the open roof.

This is normally open grounds and the playground.  So many trees don it wasn't passable.  Off to the right you can see the church windows, but no roof.

Straight out our front door.  Normally a beautiful "I❤️Jesus" sign and pathway.

This is the mess of things we were sorting through from the kitchen after Jun got the roofing stuff out.

Restored Heritage: Our partner ministry in Mabini.  The third floor lost most of the roof.

Parts of their main kitchen roof were ripped up as well (the back side of the 3 story building)

The day extension of the kitchen, laundry area, and Cars entirely lost it's roof.  The main house their had lots of leaks.  So much water came through that the vinyl tiles were all loosened from their glued in spots.

It took about two weeks, but I finally made the mess workable.  I think it was 7 tables covered with things to be dried out and cleaned (not counting the book shelves that I waited to do later)

These two pictures are out of order...but you can see the coconut on the far wall.  Somehow it didn't hit the roof, but ended up under the cement eaves.  Based on direction of other trees near by that should have come down directly in the middle and into our room!

This is the debris brought in from the storm and some of our damaged things.  In the above picture we had finally cleared most of it out and I started resetting the kitchen with things that would not get ruined with rain.

I could only handle taking one picture of our house.  At least the septic looks like it held up.  We allowed the near neighbors to use the lumber and walking to rebuild their shelters.

From the front, the Mission House doesn't look so bad!  Even though it sounded like the whole roof came off, it was really our neighbor's house that lost their roof.  Jun just had to reseal the roof/firewall joint and re-flatten one piece of tin sheeting.

I hope to add pictures soon of the cleaned up areas now.  Grass is already starting to regrow and the playground is usable again!