Jenn's Journalings

FIA Staff Retreat

We just returned from a few days away at Eden Nature Park and Resort for our FIA staff retreat. Eden is one of my favorite places to go here in Davao, for two reasons: 1) it’s beautiful, and 2) it’s cooler since it’s up on a mountain.

We had a Sunday morning devotional time at the amphitheater, and I enjoyed the opportunity to worship the Lord in His creation.

Thank you for praying for us as we start the school year this Wednesday, August 2.

Clouds & God’s Faithfulness

I went to Bukidnon for 4 days during this school break. I really enjoyed all of the scenery (mountains & clouds) while being out of the city.

As I looked at the clouds I was reminded of a song that I really like (“I Will Look Up” by Elevation Worship), and for the rest of the trip the clouds were reminding me of HIM.

The two lines that kept repeating in my mind were “I will look back and see that you are faithful / I look ahead believing you are able.” I hope you enjoy these pictures of God’s handiwork & can also be blessed by this small reminder of his faithfulness.

All the worries of this world
I will lay them at your feet
Surrender every anxious thought
For perfect peace
Your perfect peace

All the loved ones I hold dear
All my hopes and dreams and all my fears
I will choose to trust your name
In everything
With everything

I will look up for there is none above you
I will bow down to tell you that I need you
Jesus, Lord of all
Jesus, Lord of all

I will take you at your word
Jesus you have taken hold of me
All my life is in your hands
You’re my strength
You’re my strength

I will look up for there is none above you
I will bow down to tell you that I need you
Jesus, Lord of all
Jesus, Lord of all

I will look back and see that you are faithful
I look ahead believing you are able
Jesus, Lord of all
Jesus, Lord of All

Prince of Peace
Perfect Healer
All my life, all my cares on you
King of Kings
Mighty Savior
All my life, all my cares on you

Summer Vacation – Beach Trip

Summer break started a couple weeks ago; I went to the beach for a few days with friends. I relaxed and enjoyed taking some scenery pictures. I thought I would share some.

There was this pretty purple orchid (or some kind of flower).

I don’t remember seeing this type of flower until this trip.

I liked this view from our porch.

Here are some beach pictures:

And some sunset pictures:

OE 2015 – Monday

We had a great Outdoor Education (OE) trip to Subic earlier this month. I decided to share lots of pictures with you to “tell” you about our time there. All 43 middle school students from my school went, as well as 4 squad leaders (including me).

The pictures I’m sharing (and will be sharing in upcoming posts) are a mixture of my own plus those taken by others (mostly our other squad leaders).

Here’s a slideshow about Monday. This includes our travel from Davao to Manila and some of our activities once we arrived. Enjoy!

(Please be patient, as the slideshow may take a minute or so to load.)
(NOTE: There is some music in the background. It’s nothing special, so don’t worry about leaving your speakers turned off.)

This free picture slideshow created with Smilebox

Christmas in Manila – Part 2

After that we went to see the Ayala Lights Show. It was neat; the lights changed with the music. I hope you enjoy the video and pictures!

: with dear friends, Becky and her mom

Christmas in Manila – Part 1

I spent a few days in Manila with friends before going to Indonesia. We were able to go to a free concert by the UP (Univ. of Philippines) Chorale; it was in a hotel lobby. They compete around the world. It was amazing!

Carol of the Bells

Have Yourself a Merry, Little Christmas

(more…)

Korea 2014

In November I went to ICEC Asia 2014 in Korea.

I know this is a little late, but here is a Smilebox with some pictures from my trip.

Customize a free slideshow design

Below I included a few more pictures/videos.

: We could see this bridge from our hotel.

: My chicken salad. It was huge!

: Dr. Pepper…woohoo!!

: pretty Christmas tree in the hotel

: a type of plant picture

: I enjoy taking pictures of stuff like this.

OE- Thursday

On Thursday we returned to base camp, made lunch, and then left for the volcano. We took jeepneys to the wharf.

Then we were on a floating restaurant boat (that was empty) to get over to the volcano site. Some of the kids were pretty tired.

When we arrived we put our things in our tents.

Then we went on a short hike to a lava flow. After that we refilled our water bottles and returned to the floating restaurant.

: Picture of the lava flow.

: And another.

: We ate lunch on the floating restaurant on the way to start the long hike.

: Part way up we had this beautiful view of the crater lake in the volcano.

: It is a sulfur lake that we swam in a bit later.

: Here is my squad and the guys squad from my school. We traveled together during the week.

: After hiking a bit more we reached the edge of the lake and swam across.

: There were lots of hot rocks, which melted the glue in some people’s shoes.

: The neon colors were pretty neat.

: We hiked to this fumarole.

: There’s a video one of my students took below also.

: There was steam coming from some of the rocks.

: In some areas the water was boiling since it was so hot.

: I’ve never seen some of these colors in nature.

: God is so amazing!

OE- Wednesday

Wednesday was reef day. We took bancas from the base camp to the reef. (Here’s a picture of a banca, although it’s from Google and not a picture of one we actually were on.)

My squad had a banca just for us (and our stuff and the water to took to the reef site). Our banca had some motor problems, so although we were one of the first to leave we were one of the last to arrive. We had fun singing on the way there. We sang quite a few songs; the following list tells some of them: God’s Not Dead, How He Loves Us, I Will Follow, Our God, Who’s the King of the Jungle?, Let It Go, Do You Want to Build a Snowman?, and some of the Tagalog songs we sang the day before too. (I included links, so if you want to hear some of these songs on Youtube just click on the title.)

Here’s my girls on the banca on the way over.

When we arrived we had a bit of scuba diving orientation, site orientation, and an entertaining demo for putting on sun screen.

The squads were split into 4 groups to rotate through the activities. We started with squad time, so we had a merienda (snack) of watermelon and had squad devotions. A few of my girls went on a short hike with another squad. Here’s a few of the pictures they took.

The next activity was either scuba diving or a craft. 3 of my girls went diving and the rest of us painted a rock. It was fun.

Next we went snorkeling. The water was a bit cold, but then it was fun. We didn’t get many pictures since we were swimming.

: First the kids had to practice snorkeling in the pool.

: Some of them got cold quickly and went to the sun to warm up.

Our last activity was the squid dissection. It was pretty cool!

We had free time, dinner, a speaker, and then squad time. We had great squad devotions this evening.

: I was so glad my girls all got along.

: Here’s my 8th graders on their last OE.

We sang on our banca ride back to base camp the next morning too. We didn’t sing as much, but we sang lots of praise songs. The banca driver talked to me afterward. He was encouraged by our songs and said he was Brother ____. It was neat that we were able to minister to our banca driver on our way between sites.

OE – Tuesday

On Tuesday my traveling group stayed at base camp. In the morning we built sand castles.

Then we had ministry time at a local Filipino elementary school. We took lunch to the students and played games with them. My squad had 3rd grade; there were 78 kids in one room. It was really full! After everyone had food we gathered together for a Vacation Bible School type lesson. We sang songs with the kids – in Tagalog and English. There was a Bible lesson on Joseph, and our kids helped act out portions of the story. The last couple pictures are a few of my girls eating lunch on the way back to base camp.

The special event at base camp was the chicken kill. We had to kill our chickens for dinner. It was actually kinda cool. (Please note: These pictures might not be appropriate for small children or squeamish people.)

: First you swing the chicken around in a wind mill motion.

: This disorients the chicken.

: My girls named our chickens Freddy and Alice.

: We were then known as the squad who named their chickens. Thankfully this didn’t result in any psychological problems when it came time to eat them for dinner.

: There were 2 kill options. One was to place the chicken on the sand with a bar over its neck. You yank on the feet and its head comes off.

: Be sure to have the bucket ready so the chicken doesn’t drip blood everywhere.

: The second option was to put it in this funnel-shaped container and slit its throat. I personally considered this less humane since the kids struggled to actually cut the jugular.

: Then the adults held the chickens in boiling water to loosen the feathers.

: Next it was plucking time.

: Chickens have a lot more feathers than I realized. There’s lots of little tiny ones, and they’re important to get off since we didn’t want to eat them.

: Before the gutting someone came to cut the feet off.

: I was proud of my girls who were willing to pull the guts out.

: After we cleaned them out and got them approved our chickens went to the kitchen to be boiled.

Then we had free time for a couple hours before preparing the rest of our dinner. The kitchen crew boiled our chickens and then my squad chose to use the rotisserie to BBQ them. We also cut up potatoes and carrots and cooked them in foil in the fire. Our dessert was muffins poured into orange peels, wrapped in foil, and baked in the fire. They were amazing!!