Thank-you, Jesus

It was our Christmas pre-school yesterday and we sang carols and read the story of the birth of Jesus. Then the kids dressed up and made a tableau of the story. After that we had a present exchange but we prefaced it with prayers to thank God for sending Jesus and to than Jesus for special things He has given us. Each of the children said thank-you to Jesus for something. One of them said thank-you Jesus for my daddy and we agreed that was a special gift that Jesus had given us. The next couple of children picked up on this so I thought we were going to end up with a run of thank-yous for daddies round the rest of the circle but when it got to Joshua he paused, then said, "Thank-you Jesus for my mummy."  

I was taken aback and blessed.

Thank-you Jesus for my family. They are precious gifts from You.

Saturday Football pictures

Saturday football

Today was the last day of Rose's football "season" - all 4 weeks of it!  We have been doing Advent dinners on Friday evenings with 3 other families and the kids have not been in bed till 8 p.m. (you'll see why this is relevant in a minute)  They usually go between 6:30 and 7. 

Plus we have had other evenings out to celebrate variuos groups' Christmas celebrations so they have had babysitters (more lenient on bedtimes) and they are really tired.

Saturday morning we have to leave by 8:15 a.m. as football starts at 8:30.  Joshua would not co-operate with getting dressed.  He insisted on an inappropriate pair of trousers (too hot and bad colour for getting dirty as they invariably do) and so was screaming and crying before we left while we forcibly dressed him in our choice of shorts as I was not keen to leave him with Lea (our helper) as I didn't think he was in a good frame of mind for her to have to deal with.

When we arrived Naomi and Joshua did not want to get out of the car so Steve took Rose on to the field as he "coaches" her team - the Cheetahs.  Eventually Naomi and Joshua did get out of the car and we went to find a spot to put our bags.

Rose's team was playing the first game - there are 3 teams at her level so they play 2 games each week.  Before half time - they play 10 minutes each way - Naomi and Joshua were pestering for food.  I told them they could wait till the game was over.  When Rose got off the pitch at half time she was moaning too.  She was tired, she wanted food, she didn't want to play etc.

In the end, Steve had enough and told me to take them home right then which I did as they were melting-down big time by now.  It continued at home for a bit but they were reasonably calm by the time Steve came home.  I thought it was a sad way to finish though.

Nativity Play-Taylor style

Our children love playing with the two nativity sets we have.  The characters are the same - baby Jesus, Mary, the Shepherds, the Wise Men, the sheep, the angel -and occasionally Joseph when he gets remembered.  Some elements of the story are also evident - the angel announcing good news, the wise men travelling from afar, Mary and Joseph using the donkey but the Taylor versions have some twists.  Like jet fuelled angels who whoosh across the sky and bad men who put the characters in the jail (the stable) and other strange things not in the original story.  I don't mind so much because the basic story is there but it can be quite interesting to listen in to the latest Taylor version of the Christmas story.

Culture at the Cantata

Last night I went to the Christmas Cantata at GCF East - a local Church that quite a few Faith families attend.  I have been going there to listen to their cantata about 6 years now so it is sort of a Christmas tradition to me. (Steve says - "you've seen/heard one, you've seen them all").  Rose's teacher, Betsy, came with me.  Because this year they were doing the cantatas at the times of their services I could only go to the 4 p.m. service, which I realised after we got there was obviously the Tagalog (ta-ga-log) service as we were the only non-Filipinos in there other than some members of the cantata and the guest speaker (who spoke fluent Tagalog).  We were, then , rather conspicuous especially as we had arrived on time and most of the congregation arrived in Filipino time so we had seats near the front.  So the Pastor got up to do the introduction and mentioned the "foreign friends" - several times, in fact!  And every so often he would translate a phrase into English for our benefit.  It was a little bit uncomfortable.

Anyway, the programme said that after the last song they would be "welcoming visitors" so we slipped out of our seats at the start of the last song, listened from the back and left so we wouldn't get completely embarrassed if they singled us out (highly likely in my mind).

 

Shopping with Rose

Rose got to spend her first money today.  Because we'd had a busy weekend she didn't have her full amount but she had 20 pesos to spend which isn't a huge amount but there are some"vente" (pronounced bent-eh and means twenty) shops and stalls around where everything is twenty pesos but, unfortunately, not in the mall we go to after Church.  So we spent quite some time trawling the shops and stalls for suitably priced items but I was really impressed with Rose because I thought she might just spend the money on whatever because she could but, oh no.  She knew what she wanted - something pretty! She would say "I have one of those", or "I don't want that".  I think it gives a glimpse of her personality and I was pleased with her control.  We did eventually find a ballpoint pen that fit the bill and she is very into writing her letters an things so it was a good buy.

Identity

Rose has become very interested in the colour of people's skin- as in she has just begun to notice we are all different - and their nationality.  TCKs (Third Culture Kids) are known for their identity crisis of where they belong but I didn't think it would start so soon!

Rose and I were in the kitchen and she asked me what colour Americans were.  I explained that they can be any colour - black, white, brown.  She announced that she wanted to be a white American as she is white.  I said, "But, Rose, you are not American."  Rose was rather taken aback and said,"Really? What am I then?"  

I said, "British."

"What's that?" she asked, sounding a little concerned, I think!

"It means you are from England."  I replied.  But then as I thought about it, I said "Well, it's where mummy and daddy are from and it's where Granny and Grandpa live."  

Because she was born in the Philippines and has spent 4 out of her 5 years here so how can she really feel a claim to England?  No wonder TCKs struggle with that idea!

A Making Day

Weds. is Rose's day off school and we ended up doing crafty things most of the day.  We have introduced a new reward system with Rose which involves earning money so she wanted to make a money box to keep her well earned dosh in! The only suitable receptacle I could find was a big yoghurt pot so we decorated it with strips of coloured paper and cut a hole in the lid to drop her money in.  

After lunch we embarked on project 2 - making a Diego Rescue Pack Kite (a lot simpler than it sounds!).  This was made from instructions in the excellent magazine we are sent called Friends.  We went up to the playground and tested it out on the little field as there was a fair breeze.  I have to admit I did not have high hopes - generally homemade kites are pretty rubbish but this was great.  Rose was so pleased with it and of course that meant we had to make one for Joshua when we got home!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

We put our Christmas decorations up yesterday and the kids were seriously hyped while waiting.  Our friend Wendy came over too because she loves Christmas - she's already had her decorations up for weeks!

Anyway, after putting the tree together we put the lights on it and then the kids took turns (sort of!) putting baubles on it.  Wendy helped Naomi stand on the table and put hers on and I supervised the other two.  The tree did look a little bottom heavy when we had finished despite encouragement to use branches higher up!

But, as Wendy commented, their joy was lovely to watch.

Steve put the garlands up when he got back from football and the lights and Rose is having a blast with it all.  She really loves it all.

Tonight we started our Jesse Tree Ornaments which trace Jesus from Genesis to Revelation.