Thursday, October 30, 2008

Our little school's missions celebration

Here in IGSL we also have what we call our little school. The school is called Achievers International School. This is where our students' children go to school and it is inside IGSL. To give you a background I got these from Ate Theresa Huculak's blog

For many years we have been aware children's education is one big struggle faced by IGSL parents who come from other countries. Schools are expensive, kids struggle with learning in both Tagalog and English, parents worry about their kids' safety, and local teachers cannot be expected to cope with kids struggling with cross-cultural adjustment. The parents made a proposal to put up a cooperative school run by them for their kids. We use the Alpha and Omega home schooling curriculum and done in a group home-schooling environment.Everyone is so much happier with this new situation. The kids learn English quickly, the teachers understand their unique struggles, the school is right on campus, and we are able to keep expenses down. (We charge P18,000 per child per year.) Most subjects are taught in the classroom, but the parents teach two subjects at home to their own kids -- Bible and National Language. In past years we discovered that IGSL children are often weak in their own language when they return home. So now they have to keep up with their studies in their national language -- that's an AIS requirement.

To give you an idea how much happier they are now studying together here are some of the pictures that I took yesterday culminating their missions month. The kids were grouped into three countries with their corresponding missionaries.

Group I: Country(Myanmar)  Missionary (Adoniram Judson)
Teacher Becki with some of the kids from group I.

Passport to enter Myanmar

Ate Theresa with our tour guide.

This is Lovi though he is wearing a Burmese costume, he is from India.

Group II: Country(China)  Missionary (James Hudson Taylor)
Esther from Vietnam is explaining to us the 11 journeys of Hudson Taylor to China

Bethel from the Philippines wearing her cute Chinese hat.


Group III: Country (India)  Missionary (William Carey)


PR from Zamboanga, Philippines as our tour guide
William Carey loves insects

Young William Carey repairing shoes for a living

The tempo is their mode of transportation in India

Skits

Ate Gerri Miller gave a message about Carrying Jesus' light and us being the light of the world



Sunday, October 12, 2008

World Wide Day of Prayer and Missions Fair

One of the perks of working at the International Graduate School of Leadership (IGSL) is that you can experience different cultures in 1 day. Last October 7, 2008 we had our World Wide Day of Prayer and Missions Fair. We had a whole day to pray for people around the world who need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Aside from praying we also had our missions fair where in we had the opportunity to get to know more about the countries of our students. We have booths, performances and of course fooooood from the 19 countries represented.

Philippine Booth
Food from around the world


Kyrgyzstan booth


Vietnamese Dance

From India

Korea




 

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

A home theater gift

My husband and I have a prayer notebook to list down the things that we need to buy and the things that we want to have. That list is like our guide to be good stewards of God's blessings and avoid compulsive buying. We also want to make sure that we pray over the decisions we make. If ever we have an extra money from our salary, we check our ‘to buy’ list. But if we'll receive something as a gift (love gift, general support, etc.) we will go to the ‘wants’ list. "wants list" is also for those things and dreams that we cannot buy or I may say impossible to have at this moment.  I always look forward for the opportunity that God would allow us to go through the "wants list" because it means that we received a special gift from Him. As for the ‘needs’ list God has been very faithful in providing them.

 

One of the things that are on the want list is a DVD component because my husband and I love to watch movies, tv series, and listen to music.  But I added from the criteria dapat may FM and AM band. Sabi ni Carlo ibibili na lang daw niya ako ng radio sa divisoria na may AM and FM kasi wala na raw ganon ngayon. Pero yun ang gusto ko eh. Dahil wala naman kaming pera, lagi na lang kaming nag wi-window shopping sa mall o kahit saan kami mapuntang lugar na may appliance center. Sabi namin para pag may pambili na kami, alam na namin ang bibilhin namin.

 

Last month we received an extra gift dagdag sa money namin to buy the dvd component pero we found out na di pala enough yung money namin. So after three weeks of going to Trinoma nakakita kami ng, hindi lang DVD component, but a home theater, 5.1 channel speakers, subwoofer, kumpleto sa kaboom! On sale at sakto sa money namin tapos ang bonus pa don may AM/FM. We decided not to buy it right away kasi baka di naman will ni God. So we prayed about it while always checking on it everytime nasa Trinoma kami, kilalala na nga kami nung salesman don. We really want to be good stewards of God's blessings kaya ayaw namin na gastos lang ng gastos. But we remembered what Kuya Jeff Miller our mentor sa couples discipleship group namin na sin daw yung gastos ng gastos at sin din daw yung ipon ng ipon. I can't remember the verse that he used when we were discussing the topic about money pero yun ang sabi niya.

 

So we ended up buying the home theater and came home happy. I can't believe na kahit wants talaga pag-ginusto ng God binibigay niya.