Highlight Video

Note for Parents and Carers

Listen, listen, and listen some more.
Students will have many emotionally laden stories to tell. The most loving response family and friends can have, is to listen until all the stories have been told (and re-told). This will not just happen in a busy family without planning or a changing of priorities for a period of time. Giving up TV viewing or computer time to talk over a coffee/tea or a ‘walk-n-talk’ can provide rich times of relationship with your child.

Expect the student to be a different person. 
Global experiences change a person. Encounters with poverty, a new culture, inability to communicate in an unknown language and being an ethnic minority, possibly for the first time, will alter the way your child views and interacts with the world, including you and your family. Seek to discover the changes in the student and help him/her to make adjustments to living back in Australia. Your child may be experiencing grief at saying goodbye to people with whom they have connected. If you need to more fully understand and help your child with grief please visit the following web site: http://www.grief.org.au review the section on ‘Understanding Grief’

Help the student find places to share his/her story. 
Encourage the returning student to speak at gatherings and help them to make contact with Youth Groups, schools or any other groups that would be interested in hearing about their experience. If a student does not like to speak in public, encourage him/her to invite family and friends over for small gatherings where stories and pictures from the trip can be shared. Encourage the student to revisit the blog site and review the trip with you to help process the events they experienced.

Re-Entry Stress

Re-entry stress can also be called "reverse culture shock". It is closely related to the intensity of the experience away, indicated by the following:
*How much they enjoyed living overseas;
 *Whether they feel ready to leave or return;
 *How much they integrated into society whilst overseas;
 *Whether they experienced /witnessed any traumas whilst overseas.

Re-entry stress (RES) is described like this: "After an initial couple of days of euphoria, many returned aid workers experience feelings grouped around a number of major themes. These are mainly feelings of loss, bereavement and isolation. You can feel that no one really understands what you have been through and, what's more, most people aren't that interested. You may feel frustrated that you just can't seem to communicate the magnitude of the experience you have undergone - or the sense of loss that you now have." ---- Aid Workers Network

In different people this can lead to:

*Withdrawal and unwillingness to talk or socialise;

*An increased potential in substance abuse;

*Severe mood swings or bouts of depression;

*Over, or under, eating;

*Disinterest in work or home life and/or low motivation;
 *Lower standards of personal hygiene;

*Overt cynicism or negativity; and

*Increase in risk-taking. 


 Many of these symptoms are also the same as general depression and of grief, and it is important to recognise people experiencing re-entry stress are actually grieving for the lost of their previous experience. They may even be grieving for people and friends left behind. This grief is often compounded by having gone from a strong social network of a team, back to a place where perhaps no friends or family know the people or places for which the individual grieves.

Ways to help a person re-adjust:
 Don't be too pushy, a person experiencing re-entry stress may like to be on their own quite a bit to reflect on their experiences, it is important to give them space to do that.
At the same time;
*Encourage people to talk about their experiences and to describe what life was like when away
*Find ways to ‘replay’ their experience such as scrap-booking and photo collages: giving memories a 
firm place in their home life can help ease the sense of loss;
*Suggest cooking local dishes from the country they visited;
*Suggest going out simply to walk around towns or shops:
*Be prepared to suffer the occasional mood swings with good humour, people may be a bit snappy or irritable – try not to take it personally;

 If symptoms persist or start to become destructive, encourage the person to talk to a professional. Contact the school to arrange a time to meet with Miss Smoker (msmoker@rehoboth.wa.edu.au) or another staff member if needed.

Day Eleven: Goodbyes :(

It was a good morning as we anticipated the arrival of Typhoon Ruby, which was due to hit Manila sometime today. However there was little rain and our electives were unaffected. The yellow team and half of the red team went to a feeding at Tent City. A South African team, who arrived at K.I.M. last night joined us. At the feeding, many children and parents turned up and they seemed so joyous. When some of Reho team told them that we were leaving tomorrow, they seemed heart broken but they were all really grateful for us being able to visit their community. On the other hand the other half group stayed in Cuatro to work on the team’s final construction, which involved a whole tonne of cement and a mud fight.

We had lunch and headed to a rather nice condo where we had our debrief session. It was such an awesome opportunity to share the experience with our team members and celebrate the achievement of so many goals. Many laughs were had as we reminisced on our highlights and challenges of the trip.

We then headed up to the JAZ Home, as the girls had requested we join them for some more fun and laughs. We spent time with the girls and this made saying goodbye even harder as most of us have built good relationships with many of the girls. They all seemed like sisters to us.

We left at around 6 pm for YMC, where we had a delicious dinner and later headed straight to the Children’s home where Josh and Jesse P did a devotion on David and Goliath. Once again, it was gut wrenching saying goodbye to these incredible children. We came back to YMC and spent some of the time cleaning and in preparation for departure. Meanwhile Miss Smoker went to the shops and when she arrived she had surprises for the team. (Just like any mother who cares for her children). We then had the ‘delightful pleasure’ of trying certain street foods - chicken intestines, pigs ears, belut (which is a unborn bird foetus with shell, beak, bones and all) and chicken feet. We also tried different flavours of Filipino ice cream including Ube, a purple icecream made from the root of a sweet potato and the very interesting combination of cheese and corn.

Day Ten: Shopping and Singing

Church today! What an awesome way to start our day with amazing worship, an encouraging testimony from one of the members of the Korean mission trip team and a fantastic message from pastor Dewey about taming the tongue. After church we waited to collect our money from the safe and in the meantime, spent some time with the JAZ Girls at the YMC.

Once we had collected all that we needed we jumped in the vehicles and headed for Greenhills Markets. Before we were let loose in the markets we got our money changed and had lunch at Yellow Cab Pizza, that’s when the fun began. We split off into groups of three or more and began shopping. Bargaining was a new experience for many people and some of us felt sorry for the people behind the counter (sellers), as we felt like we were lowering the prices too much. After an hour and a half we all met back for a quick chat about what we had bought so far. Exchanges of bargains and where we all bought cool items were made and we were then sent back out for another hour.

Then we headed home for dinner with devotions to follow. Ben lead us in worship and Tyler read a book to all the kids. As we headed to the YMC, not sure about the night activity, we were told to grab a towel and a plastic cup. Once we arrived at our destination, we discovered that our towels were never needed and instead our vocal cords. Karaoke was an epic way to end the night with some outstanding performances by some (Enoch Kim) and some less outstanding performances. After we had all laughed and been pretty embarrassed, we headed home for debrief and bed and getting ready for our last day.

Typhoon Update

Hi Family and Friend

Here in Manila it is overcast but not raining yet. The rain is expected late tonight and through tomorrow, although on the outskirts of the Typhoon. The local school is cancelled till Wednesday with the expectation of local flooding and strong winds. Here at KIM, we are on higher ground and safe. There is a possibility of our flights being cancelled, but we will not know until the time gets closer. We will not be catching an earlier flight as we have been told it is better to see what will happen and wait it out.

The team is in high spirits and all doing well. Tomorrow we will try to spend some time in the Children's Home, as they will not have school.

For more information, check out http://www.weather.com​ or google Typhoon Hagupit Update, as this is where we are getting out information from.

Please give to the relief effort: https://www.classy.org/events/philippine-typhoon-relief/e28674


Regards
Marilyn Smoker

Day Nine: Working in the Cuatro Community

Today we spent our time carrying bags of gravel and sand, mixing cement and pouring floors. The three teams rotated between construction and spending time at the Children’s home. The Blue and Red team spent the morning doing building together and then Red and Yellow switched, which left the Blue team spending the afternoon at the children’s home. Some teams even spent time in the nursery with the adorable babies and toddlers.

In the afternoon we all headed across to Cuatro Christian School next door to the ministry centre. We rounded up a mixed team among our students who were supposed to play against the Cuatro basketball team, however when the school team didn’t show up we competed against the local street kids.  Our students and Mr Ryall managed to keep it a close game with the Filipino kids winning it in the end. After the game we blew up balloons and handed them out to the kids. It is amazing how something as simple as a balloon can bring so much joy and fascination among the children. The smile that fills their faces then in result brings so much joy to us.

After dinner when we were updated about the current typhoon affecting the south of the Philippines, we spent some time in prayer, for the lives that are being affected and thanking the Lord for our safety (hint: Don’t worry we are all fine!). We then headed to the JAZ (Josie’s Angel’s Zone) home where we spent time with these teenage girls singing praise and worship and getting to know each other. Emily then had the opportunity to share a devotion with the girls about how God has a purpose and calling for all our lives.

When we returned home, we had a debrief about the days activities including things that challenged us and highlights we had and then spent more time in prayer after receiving an update on the typhoon from missionaries working with K.I.M (Kids International Ministries) in Tacloban.

Tonight’s blog was brought to you by the Smurfs (Blue Team).

Day Eight: From Trash to Treasures

Today we started by splitting into two activities, feedings and construction. The people doing construction dug a septic tank and used the dirt to level a floor ready to concrete. This will help the people living in the house dispose of their waste properly instead of having it flow above ground through their street. The people on feeding went to Angona, which is a small community next to a rubbish dump and handed out food, balloons and pipe cleaners.

After lunch the whole team jumped into vehicles and headed to San Mateo but stopped at a school along the way called Bagong Nayon II Antipolo Christian School where we were greeted by signs and a multitude of screaming, smiling children.  One team did a devotion for the children and some of the students did a cheering leading presentation for us, which they had spent hours practising since being invited to go there three days ago.  Then a group of us played basketball against them. Although our team was slaughtered, we all had lots of fun, with Sharon scoring an incredible 3-pointer. 

After that we continued onto San Mateo where we were greeted by a smiling community. This part of the day was definitely the highlight as we gave out care packages to the families. We went in pairs to a home where we prayed a blessing over the family and the care package. It was emotionally challenging to see their living conditions as most of the houses were smaller than our standard bedroom size in Australia.  The families were so welcoming and the whole team felt privileged to be able to bless the families with the packages and see the joy on their faces. After we handed out the packages we made balloon animals for the children. It was great to see how they appreciated such a small gift. It made many of us feel guilty with how privileged we are in our own lives. It was then that difficult time when we had to leave and say goodbye.

For our night activity, we went to Blue Water Spa, where we indulged in a relaxing massage and were able to sweat in the saunas. With that we enjoyed some scrumptious donuts and coffee!

Later that evening, during debrief time you could sense the heavy-hearted atmosphere and how emotional the whole group was. It really impacted us how unfair and unjust the world truly is.

Day Seven: Sharing our Journey

We’re officially into the second half of the trip and what an amazing time it has been! Today was a bit of a combination day in that in the morning we headed off to Tent City for feeding while in the afternoon we went to Daranak Falls.

We left for Tent City around 9am and arrived around 10. We immediately began ladling out hot lagaw (a rice-based soy protein meal) into bowls, jugs, cups and whatever containers they handed to us. It was outstanding to see some of the older kids helping out their younger siblings get food. After the food ran out we folded balloon animals and pipe-cleaners and gave them out to the kids, which was quite hectic and hot as we had kids climbing all over us! We were also privileged to see the young girl with a harelip be taken back, with her mother, to the YMC for further discussions about her health and wellbeing. As the mother has six kids, she was forced to return to Tent City but will come back to the YMC on Sunday for a meeting with doctors on Monday to hopefully confirm surgery for Tuesday.

After Tent City we drove for around an hour and a half to Daranak Falls.  After a beautiful lunch prepared by Marilou we safely and extremely patiently waited for half an hour for our food to digest so that we could swim. The water was cool and refreshing and while some sat in the cascade nearby others climbed up and jumped off the waterfall. After a few hours at Daranak we headed back to the YMC where we ate and continued on to Journey for Hope.

At Journey for Hope we carried in the 50 Christmas care packages we made up and were given the opportunity to hand them out to the kids, which was an awesome experience. One child arrived late and after being given a bag, sat for a few minutes, stunned, without opening the bag. After eventually opening the bag he beamed and promptly burst into tears. Those reactions were frequent and amazing for us as a team to witness, as although we almost thought of the packages as ‘unexciting’ and ‘boring,’ for children as they contained cooking supplies and hygiene items, nevertheless they brought a contagious joy that was awesome to see. A few members of the team got quite emotional as they really connected with the kids and were surprised to see how much of an impact we had made.

We also gave a devotion about the power of the tongue and Ben lead praise and worship. After spending some time with the kids and getting to know them we headed back to the YMC before going to Jollibee (Filipino version of McDonalds, with rice instead of chips) on tricycles (motorbikes with side carriages attached). While eating at Jollibee several street kids appeared at the windows asking for food and a few girls from the team gave part of their meal to them. Although it seemed like little and perhaps ‘scraps’ to us, it was quite significant to them. After an hour we again headed back to the YMC and will soon head off to bed. Good day had by all.