Happy Happy Birthday Baby!

Mom’s BIRTHDAY !!!

Happy Birthday to you dear one. Hah! You never thought you’d live to be 91 and here you are, survivor of yet another surgery, and on the mend once again!!

Remember last year when all your kids gathered and most of your grands, and your cousins and your beloved nieces and nephews from near and far, and so many old and new friends, and folks from the Oak Hills Ward? It was a grand event, and as we sit here on our humid, hot, steamy island, it hardly even seems real that we were all together on that freezing, but lovely day a year ago.

The picture we took for you has the words, which I’m not sure are discernible,” Happy, Happy birthday baby”, like the song you always sing us for our birthdays. So, try to picture us singing it to you. But of course we can’t do it as cute as you do.

When we show your picture to people here, they think you look very lively for 90 years old. And we agree. Because when you think of it, even being alive is lively for a 90 year old. J

We ate mangos and bananas for breakfast, in your honor today. Well, we eat them most days, but today we toasted you as we ate them.

We are writing this in the evening on your birthday, but it is still before dawn in Utah. So, we can predict with certain, 100% accuracy what the weather will be like on your birthday, here in the province of Negros Oriental. It will be mostly sunny, with some overcast. High 28 degrees, low 26, slight showers in Dumaguete, heavy burst in Amlan in the evening. Bet you never got a weather forecast on your birthday that was certain to come about—even if it is in another hemisphere.

We sure love and miss you. We haven’t heard if you will get sprung from the rehab place today, but we hope wherever you are that you can feel our love for you and you can celebrate the amazing-ness of your life.

Anyone who reads this post, feel free to post a comment to send Tillie/Melvina/Mom/Grandma a birthday wish.

Update on School

Just a brief update:

We met with the principal of the Bio-os school today. We arrived at the tail end of a meeting he was having with the district superintendent and the director of schools for all of Negros Oriental. That is like the director of Ashland schools and the director for all of Oregon. They and all the staff were pretty happy to see us because the word was out that there might be some help coming.

The principal had a list of items that needed to be replaced or repaired. One item that we felt very strongly about is a stove and gas tank so the school can cook breakfast for the undernourished children. There are 39 children in this program. They are admitted into the breakfast program based on being under a mark that is set on combining age, weight, and height of the child. These are tiny undernourished children. The school district designates the kids, and then provides funds for the food, but there was no way to cook it. Two teachers at the school are assigned to do the cooking (along with their regular duties of course.) The people over this program were so excited about the stove and gas tank. The stove was about $22 and the gas and tank was about $38.

With your help, we have already purchased and delivered writing notebooks, pencils, pens, for the 500 students, and chalk, blackboard erasures and lesson plan notebooks for each class which will cover the students and teachers when the students come back. The first day of school was yesterday but there were only about 20 students who showed up.

The principal hopes that by next Monday they can begin having classes. We are shooting for a cleanup day on Saturday which will consist of community, our church members and the missionaries in this area. We are hoping to have at least 50 – 60 people in all. It’s time to roll up the sleeves and get to work.

The staff at the school wanted us to pass on their heart felt thanks to all those who have contributed. WE ALSO WANTS TO EXPRESS OUR THANKS TO ALL WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED SO FAR! We will be able to cover, with what already has been pledged, much of the immediate clean up and replacement needs

We will send another update after the PTA meeting this Thursday. We will also tell you then about the checks and balances that are in place for proper spending and accounting of the money that will be spent.