thanks and changes.

the other day was thanksgiving, and as expected, i was pretty much the only one excited about it (thanksgiving is not celebrated here in the philippines!). but that was totally fine! :) so to celebrate thanksgiving, i thought i would incorporate this american holiday into our activity at the jail. after doing some fun group activities like the human knot, the count off game, 7-up, different team building activities, it was time to take out the art supplies and the blank sheets of paper.

on one side, draw/write something you are thankful for. on the other side, draw/write something that you would like to change/improve about yourself. i called this, "thanks and changes." and so they went...

"i'm thankful for my family."

"the first thing i want to give thanks for is for the blessings God gives me everyday, and that we are not abandoned."

"the thing i want to take out of my life is drinking"

take a look.

chapel time.

preparation for christmas decorations! the orders keep comin!

storage area for the parols!

LOVE the colors!

they're really cool up close.

these themes are changed every week.

the themes are chosen based on that sunday's scripture readings.

light in the darkness.

parols on session road! yay!

amazing race - jail style.

one of the super fun programs we did with the inmates, was put together a little "amazing race" course for them. no, unfortunately they were not able to really go anywhere, but we gave them little obstacles - split them into two teams, and see which team would come out as the winner! the order of events were as follows:

1) puzzle time - put together the missing pieces to form a puzzle. to make it harder though, i combined ALL the pieces of the two puzzles together, so it was pretty funny to watch the teams fight over pieces. haha, and then, their competitive nature came out, and they started hiding some of the pieces from the other team, under their slippers. haha - oops.

2) pick a question - on individual slips of paper, they were given questions they needed to answer: // what activities did we do last week and what was the point of each activity? // what are 8 positive values to carry with you through life? // what are the 10 commandments? // who is on the 5 peso? ...it was fun cause we stuffed the questions in plastic easter eggs. haha!

3) word scramble - annie, the other social worker with me, choose different words, wrote one letter of each word on its own piece of paper, scrambled up the letters, and the teams were instructed to construct the word! one team got theirs SO fast! the other, not so much. :)

4) mummy time - after the word scramble, they had to wrap one of their teammates up like a mummy. it was pretty awesome. at first we were thinking this would not be good because this would be a waste of TP, BUT! of course, they were able to use it afterwards, for other purposes. this was VERY entertaining to watch!

5) sing to me - and then, their last part of the relay race, was to sing a song - BUT - their WHOLE team had to sing the song. one group sang, "hawak kamay" - haha, like, music to my ears. :) the second group sang, "bahay kubo." hahaha, pretty funny. :)

then came the process time. why did we do this? what meaning did this have for you? this is what they came up with:

group 1: for the puzzle we learned how to fixed our life to be a good model someday and also how to hear instructions. for the mummy we learned how to fulfill the damage or the vacant time or space that we had never done before and to give importance and lessons about the past. and for the song, it inspires and relate into our situation for now and it helps us how unite and how to love each one of us.

group 2: (translated from tagalog) for us, the activities showed us...the mummy because we are also wrapped here in the jail. we sang so that we would be able to express ourselves and our hearts, the puzzle so that we can have a chance at putting something together, and putting together the words so that we would each have a chance to see how we can help others.

it's great doing activities with the CICL, but one of my favorite parts is definitely the "process time" - what did you learn? why did we do this? it's also nice to see the boys smile.

stepping stones

it has been about 3 weeks since i was last able to visit the jail, so i was really excited to visit the inmates this past friday. it was really nice to have them all ask me how my time in manila was, and i got to catch up with them on some of the happenings in the past 3 weeks (the things i missed).

they recently celebrated NACOCOW week, which stands for (National Correctional Consciousness Week), where they had a mr. and mrs. nacocow competition, they raised money by selling raffle tickets (i made a rule that i would only buy one from each cell - for fairness reasons, of course!), and they had different events during the week - well, since i was in manila, i missed the celebration, so i was so sad! haha, some tried to bribe me to stay by saying that i could be the emcee, but alas, maybe the next celebration i will be there! one of the communities in the jail even had this awesome dance number. it was pretty high speed and required a lot of movement. haha! they were very talented.

on friday, we played a couple of team building games with them. the first, something called "stepping stones," having to cross people from one side to the other side, while only stepping on the minimal number of small newspaper cutouts...the second variation we did, was with a competition between two teams in getting from one side to the other, using only 3 "stones." the last, we had a competition to see who could build the highest tower...however, to get the materials you would use, newspaper, tape, cups, you would need to donate different things...i think my favorite part was that, for tape, you would need to donate hair, and each strand would determine how long of a piece of tape you could get.

however, while all of the CICL we work with are male, some have long hair because of their choice of lifestyle, and so, they were more than happy to donate. :) haha, except when some of the other boys tried to pick their strands without them knowing. haha, it was pretty funny actually! hilarious!

here is a recap of some of the things they came out with from friday's activity...

...something that was needed to get the task completed.

 

 

yay! he enjoyed the activity! LOVE when that happens! :)

 

he is usually more creative than this. haha, but true - team work was needed. :)

some of the things that didn't work // on top : no faith to own self/ability

that means: "no trust in own self," "no trust in others," "does not know how to be with others"

they live together. team work is uber important in community.

team work, lots of participation, haha, but very talkative kids and sometimes no team work too!

looking forward to more activities with them, and more processing times with them too. i think we might be playing basketball next...we will see about that. the basketball court is pretty much in the courtyard, and well, this might prove to be VERY interesting. eeps!

more to come! * please pray for transitions that are ongoing in the lives of the inmates, for safety, strength, perseverance, and hope. lots of prayers are needed, and greatly appreciated. thank you! peace :)