Johnson

Johnson

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Funny Picture

This picture was taken on the boy's retreat during the dye war. My crazy husband...

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Girls and Boys Retreat

Thank you so much for all your prayers for our retreats this weekend. They both went really well. It's so funny to think about the activities of each and how different they are. At the girls retreat, we spent most of our time talking, crying, and doing a spa night. The boys went caving, and had dye wars (like paintballing but with waterguns filled with water with food coloring). Oh how different boys and girls are!
The girls retreat went really well. I have been praying about it a lot over the past two weeks. I knew that there were a lot of girls just suffering this year. So, on Friday night I shared my testimony with them and we watched the Rob Bell video "Rain." Then I gave the girls an opportunity to share "storms" in their lives. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it ended up being so good! Almost all of the girls shared something going on in their lives or something they struggled with. Needless to say, the kleenex came out and we all had a good cry. I think a lot of the girls just needed a night to be real and get it all out. After our 3 hour sharing time (we're girls... we like to talk!) we had a spa set up for them in one of the classrooms. We had the girls retreat here at school and one of our goals was to make it feel like a different place. So, we met in the library and transformed it into a living room with couches and lamps, we even covered up all the books! At the spa, we had candles everywhere and one of the other teachers and I gave massages and we had face masks and let them soak their feet. We also had a nail stations where they could do each other's nails. I think they really liked it! Our sharing time had gone so long, we ended up going to bed at 1 am. Saturady morning, we watched cartoons and had a morning devotional from one of the other teachers, then we had a question and answer time. The girls had written down questions for us the night before and put them in a basket. They got really into it! It was great! We answered questions for 2 hours and did not have time to go through the half of them. What was so neat is that we had 5 teachers there, all in a different season of life. We had a single woman, me: the young married without kids, another married woman with young kids, another married woman with older kids, and a woman with grandkids! How cool is that?! So, we had a great time answering questions! The retreat concluded with watching Enchanted. It was such a great retreat. I am so glad we did it. I LOVE when people get to the place where they can really be real with each other!
Boys retreat... umm I wasn't there, but it sounds like it went well. They had 3 sessions talking about sexual purity. One that the 3 seniors did, one where they watched the "Every Young Man's Battle" video, and one where Rob shared and had question time. They loved going caving and doing the dye war. My husband came home on Saturday night looking like this picture. It was quite the sight! Luckily, it all came off when he took a shower! I was a little worried that his face would be pink for a few days! Fortunately one of the male teachers that went took some pictures. So, here are some pics of both retreats (in the slideshow above)!

Sunday, April 20, 2008

This Week

We had a relaxing weekend, which was really nice. No major events to plan or attend, which is pretty rare. However, we do have a pretty busy week ahead. I am teaching the yearbook class here at MICA and it is due to the printers next Monday. So, this is our last week to work on it. There is still a lot of tweeking and editing to do. I am pretty anxious about it. I would appreciate your prayers if you think about it. I just want to make sure it turns out ok and on time. It's pretty different from every other class because all your work from the entire school year comes down to one due date! Ahh... I spend way too much time thinking and worrying about it. Hopefully it will all come together!
Also, this weekend we have a guys and girls retreat from Friday evening to Saturday afternoon, which Rob and I are helping to plan and speak at. Another thing we would apreciate your prayers for. Please just pray that as we prepare this week for our talks, the Lord would show us what He wants us to say. Please pray that both the boys and girls would be open and honest this weekend and that they would learn to love God more. We are pretty excited about this opportunity! We are thankful that the Lord gave us a relaxing weekend, because we have a busy week ahead! Thanks for your prayers!

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Masquerade...

On Friday night the high school had another banquet. This one was a Black and White Masquerade! We had it at a hotel, which was really nice. All the students looked great in their black and white and masks. Immediately after the banquet, the high school had the All Nighter. Rob and I got the 2am to 6am shift! So, needless to say, Saturday and Sunday we just rested!





The students voted and elected a King, Queen, Jester (Funniest), and Artisan (most creative). They each got a ring, and had to be refered to as "Your Majesty" for the rest of the night. If someone forgot and used their real name, they had to kiss the ring!

Here are all the students! Almost everyone came! Two of the students playing a game.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

From the Back of a Motorcycle

Monday was a Philippine holiday here and we did not have school. (There are so many national holidays here, it's amazing. I guess that's why our school year has to go from the beginning of August to the end of May) Rob and I have been wanting to go to this island called Samal which is just a short ferryboat's ride from Davao. Monday sounded like a good day to us. We borrowed a motorcycle and were on our way. The only stop we knew we wanted to make was at a waterfall on the island, other than that we just wanted to drive around. I thought it would be fun to take pictures as we went... So here are some of them... Don't tell my mom but I had to take off my helmet to take these pictures! Ha! (Just kidding mom, I know you read this... when in the Philippines, be like the Philippinos!)
The kid on the back of this bike had to ride backwards because he had to hold onto the bags!
This is a suri-suri store. They are EVERYWHERE here! They are just little stores that sell snacks and drinks.
This is not an uncommon sight here. We have seen up to 6 people ride on one motorcycle!
Here are some sweet girls on a tric! Philippinos are so nice. They always smile and wave at us!
The big town on the island.
This is a typical Philippine house.
Eventually we made it to the "waterfall." It was more like a river with rocks in it.

Friday, April 04, 2008

Chapel

So every Friday at MICA we have chapel. We usually have someone lead worship through singing and then have a speaker. The speaker is generally a teacher, parent, or local pastor. This morning, Rob was the speaker! Of course, I could not resist taking pictures of him when he spoke. He had the students split up into groups and play a game. Of course, the game comes with a lesson. The lesson?? Putting others before yourself. Although, he ran out of time (chapel started late due to techinical difficulties, and the game took longer than expected...) he did a great job! (This is for those of you in my family... I have really grown to LOVE taking pictures, especially of people... sometimes I feel like Uncle Jack at a family reunion!!! HAHA!)