Last Friday, I left Cebu for Minnesota. For weeks the kids have been saying, “Please Teacher Tam, don’t go!”   They reminded me that I would miss their birthdays, graduation, summer, etc.  It is good to know that I will be missed, but that makes it all the more difficult to leave!  Many of the kids wrote me cute letters that I read on the airplane on the way home.  I loved reading their letters, but they made me cry!  They are so sweet!

But as hard as it was to leave, it is also so good to be home!  I’ve been able to see lots of my family already.  My nieces are figuring out what it’s like to see me in person rather than on a computer screen.  It’s a little more fun in person, I think!  And I’ve already been able to see 11 of my former CSC students!!  They stopped by for a surprise visit my first night here. So fun!!  I’m looking forward to the rest of my time here catching up with family, friends, and supporters!

Our events this year were the frisbee toss, limbo, hula hoop, hurdles, jump rope, running long jump, three-legged race, sack race, water balloon toss, egg toss, and tug-o-war.  My personal favorites to watch are the limbo and the hula hoop contests.   It is incredible how low the kids can go.  There was some tough competition out there.  Maricirs, Sheena, and Rowena were the limbo champions.

Our hula hoopers are also amazing!  We’ve had to change the rules to our hula hoop contest over the years because our kids are too good.  A few years ago the hula hoop contest went on for 15 minutes and the kids were still going strong.  We had to call it a tie between everyone left.  Now after a minute or so of regular hula hooping, the kids have to walk with the hula hoops.  Then they have to walk backwards, run with the hula hoop, or even drop the hoop down to their knees.  Even with those challenges, the kids are really good.  Maricris, Janice, Epifanio, and Rowena were the champions of the hula hoop contests, but those are just a few of our excellent hula hoopers.

After lots of competition, laughter, and fun, we totaled up all of the points and handed out ribbons to all of our winners.  The grand winners were the Green team!

They left for camp on Thursday and spent 4 days playing games, going to chapel, swimming, and just having a lot of fun!  On Sunday, the kids all arrived back from camp !  I think they were a little worn out from their time at camp, but it was so fun to hear all of their stories in class this morning!  Here are a few videos in which the kids share their favorite part about camp!

Visitors are a normal part of life at CSC.   It is always fun for them to be able to get to know our kids and experience a little of life at CSC.  During the past few weeks, we have had many visitors.  Starting in the first week of January, a group of 9 arrived from my hometown of Cambridge, MN.  It was cool to see how many connections we had- two of the couples had daughters that graduated with me.  One of the men was my high school principal and his wife was one of the teachers at my college.  She helped teach a few of my science classes while she was here and the kids had a blast engineering spinning tops and puff mobiles.

We have had many other fun activities at school as well.  Both Level A and Level B have presented their morning meetings.  The kids performed songs and dances for the audience, and we all played a few games.  The Level B performed a shadow play to the story “Esther” from the Bible.  It was the first time any of our classes had done that and it was really neat to see how it all came together!

My reading class, Level C2, just began a reading unit entitled, “Going West”.  In it we learn about cowboys, Indians, and what life was like in the western United States in the 1800s.  It is a fascinating unit and the kids always enjoy it!  Two weeks ago we read about the buffalo.  Our culminating activity for that every year is to “hunt” buffalo ourselves.  We have a styrofoam cut out of a buffalo and some bows and arrows.  The kids had a blast trying to aim and hit the buffalo.  Admittedly, none of us were very good.  Jonjon was probably our best hunter, but I think overall we would need a lot more practice if we truly wanted to survive on buffalo meat.

So far in January five of our kids have celebrated their birthdays.  At one of the birthday parties, I sat near two of our newest kids.  These sisters both agree that they do NOT like vegetables.  After some convincing, both of them went up and got a small amount of vegetables on their plates.  Here is a picture of the first bite.  Notice the plugged nose. :-)

Amazingly enough, she ended up going back to get 3 more helpings of vegetables.  I guess they aren’t so bad after all!!  

Thirty of our current kids were admitted to CSC during 2011.  Thirty precious kids that I never knew before this year.  Andrea with her beautiful smile, Venus with her laugh, Marty with his hugs, baby Nicole with her beautiful curly hair, Pretchy, Trixine, Jerald, and all of the rest.  My life is better because of them.

I’m looking forward to what 2012 will bring!  Happy New Year!

¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.

Merry Christmas to all!  Life at CSC is always full and busy, but I think December wins the prize for being the busiest month of the year.  December is always full of Christmas activities!  Here is a little bit about some of the activities that have been going on lately!

On Thursday, December 15th, our school presented their Christmas program, “The Greatest Gift”.  It included a speech choir telling the Christmas story, piano solos by Bernardo and Maricris, some dances, and more.  I always love watching our kids perform!  My favorite performance this year was the girls dance group, “Heaven’s Wings”.  Their dance was choreographed by Teacher Jinkee, and they did a beautiful job!  Below is a video of the girls dance during rehearsal.

Monday evening, December 19th, we had our annual progressive dinner.  We split all of the kids into 4 groups and they travel to the staff’s houses.  At each house, they receive a section of the meal as well as part of the Christmas story.  My house was in charge of sharing about the angels and appetizers.  Pastor Marcel was our speaker, and Lindsay and Teacher Cris and her sons were the angels.  After hearing the story, the kids enjoyed crackers with various toppings (chocolate, peanut butter, cheese whiz, and mango jam).  The chocolate was probably the biggest hit, but Sheena told me her favorite was the “butter”.   Everyone ended the night up at the shelter for our traditional dessert of cinnamon rolls in the shape of a Christmas tree!  Yum!

In addition to our Christmas activities, we also had two birthdays this weekend.  One on Christmas Eve and one on Christmas day.

 A lot of work went into our Christmas Eve activity.  There were MANY presents to be bought, and many people spent Friday evening wrapping all the gifts.  Uncle Paul prepared a fun Santa Claus story line that included a firetruck and firemen.  Even though most of the gifts were stolen and burned, in the end, the thief was caught and all of the kids’ presents were returned!  And they definitely enjoyed their gifts!  For many of our kids, this was their first Christmas at CSC.  It was so fun to watch their faces as they took it all in!

On Christmas day, we had a fancy sit-down dinner with all of the kids.  We set up tables out in the driveway and enjoyed a beautiful evening together!  The new kids weren’t so sure about the green bean casserole or mashed potatoes, but the kids who have been with us for a while enjoyed it immensely.  Adelyn had been telling me for days about how excited she was for the green beans.  Angelica put a bowl of them right in front of her and told me that she didn’t like them at first, but now she does!  I sat near Venus and Sarah, two of our new girls.  Despite all of the other kids persuading, they maintained that they do NOT like vegetables.  Oh well, maybe by next year they will enjoy them!

After dinner, the staff put on their annual live nativity.

As I was headed out of the shelter this evening, there was some Christmas music on in the yard.  Somehow the macarena got started…enjoy the video!

Tomorrow is a great day for our six, for CSC, and for their new family, but tomorrow will also be a hard day because tomorrow we all have to say goodbye!  They are loved and will be greatly missed!

Here are some pictures of our six from the past few years.  They are the only family group left that have been at CSC longer than I have.  See how much they have grown and changed over the years!

This week one of our board members was visiting from the States.  Uncle Chuck volunteered to teach one of my science classes about SAGEglass.  He showed them how it changes from clear to tinted.  The kids put on a labcoat and pretended to be physicists and chemists.  They proposed a hypothesis about which materials and process were used to create the glass.  Although there were 16 options available, the kids managed to guess the correct combination on their second try.

On Friday morning, the preschool kids presented their morning meeting.  Several of our older kids have been taking puppet class for the past few months.  They put on a performance and then the preschool kids joined in on one song.  The video below shows a little of their dance!

My job was to help choreograph a dance to “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing”.  Now, I’m not the greatest choreographer, so last Saturday I spent a LONG time trying to figure it out on my own.  I finally headed down to the shelter and found a few kids (Christian, Analiza, Jenive, and James) who said they would help me out.  Together, we had a lot of fun figuring out the dance moves.

The morning meeting also included our girls dancing to the Filipino Christmas song, “Star ng Pasko.”  Our boys performed, “Roo Roo the Red Nosed Kanga”…they all wore kangaroo masks and held canes.  All of our kids joined together in a choir at the end.  They were very cute in their performances!  I have added a few pictures from it in the slideshow below, and in the next few days I’ll try to add a video clip of the “Hark! The Herald Angels” dance.