Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - Been Busy

Rollarcoasters, sushi lessons, book launching, more home visits, and English lessons.
Sorry for the long pause in entries. Life has been full here, and in trying to live every moment to it's fullest, we have unfortunately been unable to find many moments to get online.

I have now started to teach some of the other volunteers, youth of the Focolare movement, english. Both girls come from Indonesia, and are very good students, eager to learn and patient while I sometimes struggle to express in simple words our English language.

With more home visits and pre-school lessons in the afternoons, combined with the excitement of our first arrival starting to wear off, and the ability to look at just how desolate the situations is for some of these families is sometimes very overwhelming. My only consolation is knowing that God loves them more than I could ever comprehend. The Philippinos always continue to smile, and at first it was preventing me from really understanding what many live with, but now I am starting to realize there is a far deeper meaning to there beautiful smiles.

Last week was tough with news of a gen 2 (member of the focolare youth group) girl passing away, along with 2 of her friends while walking on the side of the road near their school. It has truly had an effect on the everyone here, and it is hard to know the sadness of her family that loved her so much. Michael also had the opportunity to visit some homes that were destroyed in a fire the same week. This was overwhelming for him to see just how much each family truly lost.

Wednesday I learned how to make sushi, and couldn't be more excited to share this new talent with all of you. Vicki, from China and her husband Anthony had us over for dinner, and we ate very well. They have also moved in with us for the rest of their stay here (they leave March 24) because of the arrival of more people and the limited rooms available.

On Saturday was a book launching for "Essential Writings" by Chiara Lubich, the founder of the Focolare Movement. It was hosted in Manila at the University of Saint Thomas, where she also received her honorary doctorate. It was a great chance to hear want people had to say on the book and the impact the movement continues to have here in the Philippines.

Sunday we spent a day with Eugene and Anne a newly married couple (last May) and our Chinese couple (also newly married, Sept. 1). We got up at 5:30am and didn't end the day until 12:30am. Very full, but so much fun. We went to a small amusement park, called Enchanted Kingdom and had fun being kids again on roller coasters, watching fireworks, and eating mango smoothies.

I hope to write soon, more on my impressions of our stay here, but wanted to just give you all a quick update!