Staff Blog

I have a paper snowflake under the plastic blotter on my desk.  It doesn't mean anything to anyone else except me and one other person.  That other person made the snowflake and many others for me just for fun.  I keep the snowflake there as a reminder.  A reminder of a special young lady who is thoughtful (hence, the snowflake), sensitive, eager, positive, hard-working, and loving.  She is also a bit shy and unsure of herself.  She needs reassurance at times.  And she's twin and so am I, so she is cool because twins are cool.  The snowflake is also a reminder of God's power and hope. 

This young lady came to the shelter a number of years ago scared, broken and naive.  She needed a lot of love.  During her years at CSC, she felt more safe and loved.  She soaked up learning at school even though some things were very difficult.  She learned English faster than most other children who live at the shelter.  And she gradually became more confident in herself, eventually being able to get up in front of her peers and teachers to sing and perform.  We thought it was nothing short of miraculous. 

This lovely young lady left the shelter with her new, loving family awhile ago.  I hadn't seen her since until last night at the annual banquet.  We talked for a few minutes before the banquet started.  Then during a light-hearted part of the program when some of the adopted kids got up and did a little dance routine to a song, there she was dancing along with her siblings and the other kids.  In front of 650+ people!  Of course, nobody noticed anything unusual about that girl at the end of the line.  But, I knew.  Here was that scared, little girl transformed into a beautiful, blossoming young woman in front of a crowd of many people.  Now, that was even more miraculous.  God's hand at work among us. 

During the summer months two retiring teachers and one charter school donated a BUNCH of books to the shelter and school. What a windfall! About 850 books (500 lbs!) were boxed and sent to Cebu in early August. All five boxes arrived intact at Children of Hope School in late September. We had a lot of excited kids and teachers when they saw all of the new (to us) books.  

About half of the books went into the house mini-libraries at the shelter so the kids have new books to read at home. One fourth were added to the mini-libraries in each of the classrooms at school for the kids to read during the school day. And one fourth were catalogued into the school library so the kids can check them out from the library.

We are so thankful to the individuals and school who thought of CSC and CCHS for their donations of all the great books. There are a lot of happy readers!

Hibiscus are blooming outside the school library windows.  Gold, yellow, red, pink, and white.  These vibrant tropical plants flourish in this hot, humid climate.  In colder environs like Minnesota where I live most of the year, some people buy potted hibiscus plants in the summer and nurture them along outside before maybe trying to keep them alive during the winter months inside.  But here in Cebu they grow like weeds into lush large plants that bloom almost constantly. 

I guess that is sort of like what we do with a lot of things in life.  We nurture some things along that need more attention and we leave other things alone.  And that changes over time.  People, projects, jobs.  

Sometimes it’s a bit tricky to know exactly how to tend to or nurture a person or situation.  It takes prayer, teamwork and wisdom.  Lately some kids have needed more attention during school hours as they wrestle with making choices in positive ways.  I guess that’s s bit like Uncle Al (in the green hat) tending to the hibiscus plants.  A little pruning here, a little pruning there.  Something we all need every now and then. 

Well, we are fully operational!  Up and running, full steam ahead as last week started a new school year at Cebu Children of Hope School.  Fifty-one eager students showed up in the parking lot on Monday raring to go and we have had a very good start.  The kids are excited about a lot of things:  new school shoes, moving to a new class and teacher, reading new stories, new folders and notebooks.  The teachers spent two weeks preparing for the new year before the kids even arrived.  But the hottest news around school is all the new curriculum materials we have. 

This doesn’t sound very glamorous, but it really is a big deal and a little bit miraculous.  We, the school staff and kids, have affectionately dubbed the three people who made the purchase of new science, civics, Filipino and Bible materials possible, The Three Grandmas.  Three wonderful ladies heard about our need for a bunch of new curricula and they graciously provided all of the funds for the materials!  Wow! 

For the first time in school history (18 years) we have a full formal elementary science curriculum.  We are in seventh heaven. 

The Philippine Department of Education issued new Filipino and civics curricula in the last couple of years which we had been hoping to purchase and now we have it all!

We also added a few more Bible materials to update and beef up our resources for Bible classes. 

What a wonderful, unexpected blessing to get all of this new material in one fell swoop.  We can’t thank The Three Grandmas enough.  Each day when the kids use the new books and experiment equipment, we’ll be reminded of these three ladies' generosity and God’s provision through them. 

They can do pretty much anything!  It's amazing!  OK, they're not your regular surgeons.  They are CSC's construction surgeons and they can create or reconfigure almost anything to make it better or different. 

So we (Principal Cris and I) had this idea to rearrange the principal's office during the summer break to open up the space and make it useable for a resource room when kids needed behavioral or academic help away from their peers.  The trouble is that the office is tiny and has built-in cabinets across the middle of it, dividing the space into two little rooms.   We asked Jerry, the head surgeon (aka CSC Facilities Director), if he could reconfigure the office to make it one space, taking out the cabinets and mounting them on a different wall so they could still be used.  Another idea was to have sliding doors made to still have the option of closing off the office when more privacy is needed.

School ended last week, so Jerry and his team of surgeons got going right away.  Cio (CSC construction and maintenance) is the main surgeon when it comes to these kinds of projects, so he started to carefully extract the shelves without wreaking them.  Verhilio (CSC maintenance and plumbling) was support surgeon and Bobong (school maintenance) helped with moving the shelves once they were cut out. 

And so before our very eyes, we can now envision a new function for the principal's office.  These guys are great.  They tackle projects without hesitation and think anything is possible.  I guess it is!