Jenn's Journalings

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.

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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 – 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!!

: We started at the table with all of our supplies.

: A few girls took the vegetables and chickens to the fire.

: The boys were cooking one of their chickens this way too.

: They turned out great!

: Here are the orange peels ready for batter.

: Now they’re done (and super hot), so it was time to get them out of the coals.

: And finally there was a table decorating contest.

: We didn’t win the contest…

: …but our food tasted great!

OE – Monday

OE this year was Victory on the Volcano. We flew out of Davao VERY early in the morning; I think we met at the airport around 3:45 or 4 am.

Here’s our group~4 adults & 42 students.

We had a 3-4 hour bus ride to base camp after arriving in Manila.

Here’s some of the traffic.

There’s always something interesting to see out the window ~ like unique water towers.

We arrived at the base camp early, but that turned out ok. I was thankful for some down-time after the travel. Our kids did great…despite the many “are we there yet?” questions. 🙂

Base camp had a dorm, swimming pool, kitchen, chapel, basketball court, and was on the beach. My kids took some beautiful shots at the beach.

The first day of OE consists of travel and some orientation. Each group does their squad intro and we have a speaker in the evening. You may have seen clips of the squad intros if you watched the videos in my previous post.

Summer Fun!! – Part 1

I’m enjoying the break during summer vacation so far. My friend Becky came to visit for a few days and we had a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy these pictures. Rest and friends are such a blessing!!

On Wednesday night we went to Outback Grille, which is a restaurant that opened shortly after I arrived here in Davao. I haven’t gone yet…it was great!

We played games on the placemats while we waited for our food.

This was Becky’s burger; mine is in the background.

Here we are ~ Carol (the librarian), me, & Becky.

We each had fried ice cream for dessert. It was ok but not my favorite.

Eden Nature Park – Part 1

On our second Monday off, August 27, Ruth drove a group of us to Eden Nature Park. We borrowed the school vehicle. I went with Ruth, Joy (the 4^th grade teacher), Priscilla (Joy’s housemate who is studying here in Davao; she is helping me get to know more of the singles at church), and Haley (short term teacher filling in as MS Computer, HS Librarian, and HS PE for the semester) on this trip. I go to church with Joy and Priscilla each week.

Eden is 95% man-made, which you wouldn’t guess by looking at it. The area had been used for logging so the goal has been to add more nature. The 5% that is natural are the large bamboo and fern plants that are growing. Sadly I wasn’t able to get pictures of those two things.

We went to the butterfly house first; there was a building with various insects gathered in the Davao area and also areas where we could see flowers and butterflies.