Graduations and Transitions

I’ve been stalling on this entry for over a month and a half, at this point.  Easter College’s high school graduation happened back in mid-April, and at that point my work as a volunteer began to change over.  I’m not working as much with the school, though I still have four papers from my students in the Lay Institute that I need to finish grading before I will officially be done as a teacher in the Philippines. 

For the past month and a half, I’ve been working more with the diocese, and with the national church, visiting and attending conferences, working with a vacation Bible school, getting to be present at church events.  It’s been a bit of a transitional period for me, especially as it leads into the knowledge that I’m leaving soon. 

I’ve talked about the JCPC conference in Manila, and otherwise, the thing I’ve enjoyed most about working with the diocese has been the VBS work I did with the Cathedral.  I spent my time working with Sister Remy with the 7-10 year old group.  Which really meant that I did a lot of playing games with small children, then reading Bible stories and explaining the value for that day.  Again, bubble solution breaks down most barriers, and was also quite helpful at distracting random crying fits from a few of the younger students. 

I’ll close with pictures of both the high school and VBS graduation ceremonies:  

 Sir Jordan, still teaching till the end, even if it's only how to tie a tie. 

 The entire graduating class, wearing traditional tapis/traditional cloth for the ties as opposed to graduation robes.  That really was the main difference between this graduation and all the other high school graduations I've been to. 

 The VBS students singing in church before their graduation ceremony.

 Putting on a dance for the parents.

 More dancing!  The girl in the pink dress latched on to me and was dragging me around by my arm up until the ceremony began. 

 This little boy was the absolute cutest trying to dance along.