Jr. High OE

Well, we survived a whole week with Jr. highers! We really did have a good time. The kids on our squad were really great students. We had 3 6th graders,2 7th graders,and 4 8th graders. Here's how the trip went:
Sunday, Feb. 3- Fly to Manila, go to a cemetary with a WWII memorial, a mall, and to Faith Academy Manila to sleep.
Monday, Feb 4- Load into buses and head to the National Philippine High School of the Arts to hear a concert, and then on to Taal. All 150 students and teachers stayed at a camp together on Monday night. One of our girls got pink eye, yeah, I thought we were all going to have pink eye by the end of the trip, but we took care of it, and it got a lot better. No one else got it!!! Monday night we had a session with a speaker and them performed squad cheers!
Tuesday, Feb 5- Get up early and head to the volcano. We had to travel by boat to an island that had quite a few volcanos on it. We went hiking out to this huge sulfur lake. It was amazing, the trail we took is one that is only really used every 3 years when Faith Academy hires Philippinos to clear the path for OE. Talk about a hidden treasure. On the way to the volcano, there was a part of the trail where everyone had to swim in the sulfur lake for about 50-60 yards! (Putting our shoes in big garbage bags to keep them dry). On the other side of our swim was amazing. There were all these hot spots where steam was coming up from the ground. There were spots where water was boiling and even a huge hole where there was mud boiling. It was so amazing! After our hike, we went back to the camp, hung out and slept in these tents, well more like lean toos. Our whole squad was in one tent together. It was quite the bonding experience.
Wednesday Feb 6- We packed up and left the camp by the volcano and took a boat and jeepney back to base camp. Once we got there, we had to make our own chicken lunch, from beginning to end. And I mean from the VERY BEGINING. Yeah, from having a live chicken to roasting it on a fire. Our squad had 2 chickens so 2 of the boys killed the chickens, we plucked the feathers and took out the insides, cleaned them and roasted them! We made potatoes, bisquits, and even cupcakes on the fire as well as roasted the chicken! Then we ate our yummy lunch! It really was very good. the kids did a great job. In the afternoon, we played a game with the kids and then we went to do our ministry. We walked to a local village, and played basketball, gave out wordless braclets, shared the gospel, and sang songs in Tagalog. It really was a great time. After our ministry came dinner, an evening session and squad time. Then off to bed.
Thursday Feb 7- We packed-up and headed off to the reef! This was the most relaxing day of the whole trip. We went to marine biology class, where the kids learned about sea creatures and dissected a squid, we went snorkeling, and we even got to do scuba diving!!!! Rob and I have wanted to try to do scuba diving since we got here and we finally got the chance. Although it was only for a ver short time (there were a lot of students that needed their turn), we dove down about 5-10 feet and got to feed fish! So cool! After all our reef adventures, we ate dinner and went to the evening session. Although I really liked the day we went hiking to the volcano, I think this was one of my favorite days. There was a lot of down time, so we really got to spend some quality time with the kids, playing cards, talking, and just having fun! On Thursday night, the boys got to sleep out on the beach on coral under the stars (good thing it didn't rain) and the girls got to sleep in an open building.
Friday- Feb 8- Traveling home. We all met up back at base camp and loaded buses. We headed to the mall of Asia (the biggest mall in southeast Asia), which the kids loved (they all bought about 3 boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts) and then headed to the airport for our flight home.
We really had an amazing trip. I am so glad to have had the opportunity to get to know some of the jr. high kids. I mostly work over at the high school, so I really didnot know the jr. highers very well. It was also really neat to see how great my husband is with jr. highers. They really love him. I love to see how my husband flurishes in this environment!