Day Two

Jet-lag is probably my least favorite thing in the whole entire universe. Last night, I was in bed and asleep by 8:15...and was awake and ready to go for the day at 5 AM. Adjusting is hard on all of us...basically the whole team is struggling. Things at the schools, as great as they may be, are not what we expected them to be. Jet-lag is getting to all of us; we're all exhausted all the time. A lot of us are homesick and kind of discouraged....so prayer would be greatly appreciated.

On a brighter note, here's what I did today:

After I woke up with the sunrise (Actually it was BEFORE the sunrise), I left with the group of 11 that are at Valley View Academy with me to start our first day of school. We got to school around 6:50, and things got started right away. I'm in a 3rd grade classroom, and I absolutely adore my teacher. In this school, and in the Philippines in general, the students refer to their teacher as "Teacher _____." I'm Teacher Kristen. Actually, I'm more teacher Kristine, because with their accent Kristen is difficult for them to say. I figure I'll answer to pretty much anything! My teacher's name is Teacher Ruth, and she is absolutely wonderful. She has so much energy and so much passion for these kids, and you can tell that she loves her job and she loves God. The kids in my class are wonderful as well. There's 19 kids in my class, and I'm already picking up on their extremely distinct personalities. Almost everything in the school is taught in English, but my teacher will go back and forth between English and Tagalog, which is the language of the Philippines. That makes it a little difficult to follow, but the fact that she goes back and forth makes it easy to pick up on. After school today, I was waiting with some girls from my class for their rides. They were asking me all sorts of questions about where I was from and what I was doing here, and they asked me if I knew any Tagalog. I told them that the only thing I spoke was English, and they told me that they were going to teach me, starting tomorrow. I'll let you know what I learn as I learn it...this should be interesting! Tagalog is a very interesting language- it's almost Japanese/Chinese sounding but with some Spanish influence. I can't wait to learn some of it!

I got home from school around 1:30, and relaxed & did some skyping for about an hour. After that, a group of about 6 of us walked up to the Children's home and hung out there until about 3:45. I already know that I'm going to have a REALLY hard time leaving these kids in a couple weeks. The second we walked in, we had children hanging all over us. I carried a girl around (her name is Princess) for about half an hour...my arms are still sore! The kids all call us "Tita," (pronounced Teeta) which means "big sister." They'll all run around yelling "Tita! Tita!" and want absolutely all of your attention. It absolutely breaks my hear that these kids don't have families, but at the same time, they are all so happy and have so much joy. I didn't bring my camera today, but I'll bring it the next time I go and take a lot of pictures.


I can already tell that this is going to be a very testing experience for me, but I'm ready for the challenge. I'm trying to find joy wherever I can, because I know that if I don't I'll be miserable. I'm definitely annoyed by the fact that I'm tired all the time, but I'm hoping that within the next week or so I'll get used to our routine. Again, thank you so much for all your prayers!

Miss and love you all,

Kristen

"Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." (Psalm 90:12)