Faith Academy

This fall, the kids made a huge transition; we stopped home-schooling, and they started attending "real" school in Manila.  It has been so much fun to watch them settle in to life at Faith Academy, especially since it is the school where I (Jen) graduated.

 All 3 of the kids have transitioned amazingly well into this new world, and we are so proud of them.  They have adjusted very well, are doing great in academics, and are loving the opportunity to get involved in many activities on this sprawling campus in the hills outside of Manila.

 Mikayla made the varsity soccer team (as a freshman!), and it was great to watch her grow in her skills and enjoy connecting with some wonderful young ladies.

 Their team had the opportunity to travel to Thailand to compete in a tournament with other Christian schools, and they won first place!  Mikayla scored a key goal in the championship game.

 This has been a semester of firsts for Mikayla as she also attended her first banquet.  The young man (also a soccer player) who asked her to go with him was a perfect gentleman, and she had a great time with a group of friends bowling after the banquet.

 A highlight of the last couple months has been a visit from Grandpa Hagen!  He was here for almost 4 weeks, and while he traveled with Steve for a lot of that time, he was able to see the kids compete in their sports and spend some good time together over the weekends.

 Zach has jumped right in to life at Faith, and he has been involved in swim club, robotics, youth group, a basketball team, and a soccer league.  His soccer team has done very well, and he is anchoring their defense.  I love this shot of him that a friend took during the game last week.

 Ben has also been enjoying the many opportunities at a school this size.  A few of his favorite activities so far have been puppets club, swim club, soccer team, and playing percussion in the band.

 After soccer season ended, Mikayla decided to try out for touch rugby.  She had absolutely no idea how to play on the 1st day of tryouts (had never even watch the sport!), but she went for it anyway; and she ended up making the varsity team! (I think the fact that she was in excellent shape from soccer was a big factor in this.)

 She has had a great time learning this new sport, and she has even been a starter for several of the games.

 It's a fun group of young ladies, and they have a blast at practice.  This pic was from practice on "Neon Friday".

 We are so thankful for how well this transition has gone for the kids (thanks for praying!).

As we head into this Christmas season, I hope that each of you will cherish the moments with family - even the crazy ones. :)

Over the river and through the cave...

Ok, so maybe going through the cave wasn't absolutely necessary, but they sure seemed to enjoy it!  Steve's dad came for a visit this month, and last week the two of them had quite the adventure up in the mountains.  They trekked up to a couple villages where some small churches have been asking us to come.  

 It was several hours of hiking, first through the river bed...

 ...then you headed up into the mountains.

 After a couple hours of hiking, they arrived at the village, but since they had some extra daylight, they decided to go with a few of the villagers to visit a waterfall and cave.

 Beautiful!

 But of course, where is the fun in observing the waterfall from the bottom?  So they rock climbed their way up to the top and enjoyed the view through the falls as well.

 But why stop there?  There was a cave at the top of the falls, so they climbed through the cave (at times crawling on their bellies in order to fit!)...

...and were rewarded with this spectacular view when they came out the other side!

 Ok, back to business and the REAL reason they hiked to this village in the middle of the Sierra Madre mountain range.  In September, Steve taught several seminars about how to teach effectively by using the stories in God's Word. (See this post for more info.)  One of his goals during those seminars was to train this man so that he could lead future seminars.  

 Felipe has continued on and taught several seminars since that time, and it was such an encouragement to see him doing so well with the material in this new church.

In addition, another young man went with the group so that he could be trained how to lead the seminars.  It is such a joy to be able to pass off training to these men and watch them train others!

 We are also so thankful that Steve's dad gets to be with us for almost a month.  He and Steve will take 3 trips together during this time; 1 down, and they are on their 2nd one now!