Another day, another island...

What a privilege it is to be used by God in the lives of this children. I feel like he takes what I am already good at and expands it. The children were absolutely amazing in Bacolod. We had to take a boat ride to get there (a little over an hour) but it was so worth it. I really felt a connection with these kids. This may be because I was not really involved in the last camp because of my ankle. So for this camp I did not want to take one moment for granted. During all of the freetimes I just craved spending time with these kids.

There were mixed audiences in Bacolod. There were many missionary’s kids there, adopted kids into a missionary families, street kids and children from an orphanage. I just love getting to know these children since a lot of them could speak more English than the children in the other camps. This kids blessed me so much.

There were three kids that I really grew close to from the orphanage. Marvy and I had the same birthday so we became best friends! Jacqulyn was cuter than ever and loved to jump rope and to take pictures. Benjamin is Marvy's brother. You can really tell that he takes a leadership role in the family even though he is younger. He was always looking out for Marvy and the other kids from the orphanage. They were the sweetest kids ever.

I had a little following of kids that always wanted to dance with me. We would all get into a line and one person would be across from us. They would call each person to come show their dance moves and then pick out the best one. The last day two of the girls, Sheenlee and Jenelyn came up to be bawling because they were leaving. We just sat there and hugged each other.
It was very hard to say goodbye to them.

That is Jenelyn to my left and Sheenlee to my right.
Rodrimar also hung out with those girls and he is the one sitting in my lap.

I got a text from Jenelyn that night it said
"Happy Thrf Thank U for Bast Frest for me super very much mesu ate anna"
Translation: Happy ? thank you for being best friends with me super very much,
I miss you Aunt Anna

And then another one that said
"I.ma carayign 2 ningt becoh u back 2 iloilo"
Translation: I'm crying tonight because you are back in Iloilo


I still had so much fun leading assemblies (singing and dancing) and being crazy with the kids. You may notice that my ankle is nice and wrapped up. It held up well, still not 100% but it is doing alot better. Thank you so much for all of the thoughts, concerns and prayers!


We also had a dance off to pup the kids up! They had some skills, Filipinos are great dancers!


One of the nights we were in Bacolod, the team got to go to Starbucks (it is the only one around)! Now, if you know me, you know I do not even like Starbucks, but I cannot describe how amazing that toffee brownie and decaf soy mocha latte was.


The last day we took the kids to the pool. It was so much fun, but very tiring. There were about 30 kids in the "baby" pool which was at least 5 feet deep. I felt like I was on permanent life guard duty. Most of the time I played with Mark and Jacqulyn. Mark showed off his English skills to me and I threw him water...over and over and over again.


The last day we pray for the kids. It is always a very powerful time. I just feel so blessed to be able to pray over this generation that God will rise them up to change their nation.

Camp #6, Bacolod: SUCCESS!