February 6, Day 4: Two Traditional Activities

There are two activities that our teams do every year at Holy Cross: touching base with the Holy Cross graduates we've supported through high school, and adding new team members' names to our wall in the cafeteria. Walking around the school, it's easy to spot 25 or 30 of these murals noting mission trips to Holy Cross from congregations in many states and countries.

Our current St. Luke's student Leticia - a freshman at San Pedro High School - came by Holy Cross to drop off her report card and to see our team. The report card is outstanding: a legitimate GPA of 3.78, with no Honors, AP, etc. classes to contribute numbers greater than 4. Leticia herself has grown and matured so much in the 12 months since we last saw her: in height alone (based on our height and weight data from last year) she has grown more than 2 inches. St. Luke's will be supporting Leticia for three more years in high school.

We have also made arrangements to visit with our previous St. Luke's student Kevin. After four years of support from St. Luke's, Kevin graduated from San Pedro High School last June. We heard that he is working a fulltime job during the day, while also taking night classes as the high school working towards something roughly equivalent to a junior college degree.

Our other activity is adding new names to our wall display. Since other congregations send members to Holy Cross as part of our teams, our display shows St. Luke's in the center and the other congregations alongside it. 

Janet added her name to the list for Trinity Episcopal Church in Mt. Airy, doubling the length of the list. This is the third year that WendyT has joined us from Mt. Airy.

While Doug had been to Holy Cross on an earlier St. Luke's trip, it was before we started recording team members' names on the wall. So he added his name this year.

As a true first-timer, Mary added her name to the wall as well.

February 5, Day 3: More Activities

Most of these activities started yesterday, but we're just catching up with the photos.

Peggy is taking advantage of the space on the porch at the House of Grace to work on a new mural she's painting for the preschool. Between Monday morning and Wednesday, the mural is almost finished.

On Wednesday, Mary joined WendyT and Janet in the literacy center.

Also on Wednesday, it was Nancy's turn to teach the math lesson, this one on simple interest.

Peggy and Wendy continued working with one Standard 6 class on their music.

Janet and WendyT presented a gift from their church - Trinity Episcopal in Mt. Airy - to a Standard 2 class at Holy Cross. The gift is enough copies of the book Charlotte's Web for the entire class to read together. The presentation was just yesterday, and the class is already reading the book!

February 4, Day 2: LOTS of Different Things to Work On

We got an early start on several activities on Monday, but Tuesday was our day to fan out across the school and get to work. Among the 12 of us, we covered a surprising number of jobs.

Doug started on a big project in the new priest's house on the campus, the House of Grace. Doug had to call on his construction skill and stamina, but the shower looks great even now. It will be fabulous by the end of the week.

Doug wasn't the only one working on the House of Grace. Here's Wendy, sanding a door out on the porch.

Don and Jeannine took the lead with heights and weights this year. The St. Luke's team has recorded these for all students in the school for about 10 years. The data is useful for tracking the growth of individual students, as well as for capturing trends across the entire population.

Peggy played and sang for the preschoolers. She has also been working with the oldest kids, Standard 6, on some songs that they will sing at their graduation in June.

Bob made a presentation to Ms. Tasher, the principal, of handmade crosses created by St. Luker Mark Karengin. A cross will be presented to each Holy Cross graduate as a part of their graduation ceremony.

Dr. Jim opened his usual "office" for students (and teachers) requesting an appointment. Wendy played the vital role of walking students to and from their classrooms. Mary has played this role through the week as well.

Bob (photo above) and Nancy (photo below) worked with the Standard 6 students as they prepared for the math portion of their PSE exam. These photos show a lesson involving business math: cost, selling price, profit, percent profit, etc.

"Total selling price equals total cost plus profit, so profit equals total selling price minus cost."

WendyT (photo above) and Janet (photo below) worked in the literacy center, helping students one-on-one with a structured program to improve their reading.

Where's Jan? She was the one behind the camera taking all of these photos illustrating what the rest of us were doing.

February 3: Day 1, Part 1, Delivering our Donations

After getting down to Belize and over to Ambergris Caye, we spent the weekend boating, snorkeling, swimming, eating, and watching the Super Bowl. Then it was Monday morning, time to start our work at Holy Cross.

Our first task was unpacking and sorting the nine suitcases we had collected for the school. First, we packed them at St. Luke's, ...

then we got them down to Belize with us (including the last hop on a small plane flown by Tropic Air),  ...

then we unpacked them in the school's computer lab.

Bob, Mary, Peggy, Jan, Nancy, Janet, WendyC, and two others carried an extra suitcase filled with donations down from RDU. The donations came from many sources: St. Lukers, parents at Peggy's school in Raleigh, Trinity Episcopal Church in Mt. Airy (home church for Janet and WendyT), and some individual donors. Thanks to all, with an extra thanks to Southwest Airlines and their Bags Fly Free policy, which makes the whole thing possible.

There's lots more to come related to our work at the school - but that's another post.

Last Day in San Pedro

I realized as I posted to this site, that St. Luker's my not recognize the names Miriam, Norine and Wendy when you are reading about our team here.  These wonderful ladies have joined us from other congregations.  Miriam is the Vicar at St. Andrew's in Haw River, where Norine is a parishioner.  Wendy is from Trinity Church in Mt. Airy.  How lucky we have been to share this experience with them.

As we reflect upon our time here, we all agree that we are sad to have one less day at the school ( due to cost of flights).  Dr. Jim is staying through tomorrow, but we are certain he will have plenty to catch up on.

The medical "team" ( Martha, Norine and Arianie) saw a lot of children and family members as well as people in the San Mateo community.  He has become well known enough that when he walked down the road, people came out of their homes and called to him to come " look at" some sort of medical issue!  They dealt with everything from runny noses, to dog bites to severely infected cuts. It was amazing to hear the stories of all of the folks they helped during their day. 

Peggy rehearsed the school song with the Standard 6 class ( seen in the photos below) taught and worked on a song that pre-schoolers will sing in a presentation in March and had the chance to work with some talented drummers.

Wendy stayed busy in the library and Jan and Miriam finished up weighing an measuring all the students!

All of the students attended Chapel today which was officiated Miriam and several teachers and music was led by Peggy.

We have had some wonderful meals while here and are going back to Elvie's Kitchen tonight, since our meal earlier this week was enjoyed by all.

Many thanks to all who have helped us be here this week!

 Standard 6 class.  Almost 40 children in here and no teaching assistant!  I am in awe of Mr. Ayoni, the teacher!

 The medical team meets to talk about their day.

 Wendy worked hard organizing books as well as delivering book to teachers who made "requests"

Peggy took some drumsticks down and was going to teach a few things...but these kids already had been practicing with pencils and chopsticks and were quite amazing!  

To see more photos and videos of our trip, ( and other awesome things about St. Luke's)  check out the St. Luke's Facebook page.

Week 2

After spending 2 days wrestling with how to get a post on the blog...Here we are!
Team two has had an exciting week.
We were so excited to bring down 6 donation suitcases from Peggy's school and 1 from Wendy's church.  Jan and Miriam have been kept busy doing height and weight checks on the more than 400 students. Jim, Martha, Norine  and former Holy Cross student, Arianie ( who is now in college) have been doing medical checks on site with students as well as in the homes of San Mateo residents.  Wendy has been busy in the library filling book requests from teachers, and reading to classes as well as individuals.  Peggy has been teaching songs and singing to multiple classes, including working with the oldest students on the school song ( which they sing for graduation).  A drumming group was formed on Tuesday afternoon with Standard 6 boys, and some drumsticks Peggy brought from Raleigh.  A video is posted on the St. Luke's Facebook page.
Pictures will help tell some of our stories!

Reading in the Preschool Classroom

On Thursday, Bob read the book Walking through the Jungle (by Debbie Harter) to the afternoon preschool class. Because it's a different set of students, Dan was able to read the same book on Friday morning. On both occasions the students were very interested in the book (which they had obviously heard many times before) and eager to identify the different animals appearing on the enormous pages.

For Bob, the six afternoon preschoolers stayed in their seats for as long as they could stand it; then they came up and crowded around the book.

Bob with preschoolers in their seats

Bob surrounded by preschoolers

Dan reading in the morning.

Dan had a much larger group in the morning class, so staying in their chairs was the only option.