Concert Pictures

The concert was a success--praise the Lord! Order of show:
Beginning Band (Much improved from the first note!)--directed by Mr. Becker
Middle School Choir--directed by Mr. Becker, accompanied by Mrs. Becker
High School Vocal Ensemble--directed by Mrs. Becker
Intermediate Band--directed by Mr. Becker

Our students were so nervous and excited, but we kept it a secret that we were too!

I was so proud of Nate as he directed the students and presented the performance to all the photo-crazy-video-crazy parents!

I was also proud of my high school ensemble (11 of them) for their first four-part harmony concert! Can you believe most of them have never performed in a singing group before! We are here to see that they do (by God's grace)!

We were thankful that all went as planned. The concert was only about an hour, so people were able to say, "Oh, it's over already?" instead of "When is this over?"

After the show we congratulated all our students. We were so proud of them all as if they were our own! One of the Korean students gave both Nate and I our own boquet of roses--how sweet! And of course after the show we had our traditional dinner date, since we didn't have time to eat before. Thank you for praying for us! God is faithful.

School Concert

The School Band and Choir concert was a success! Praise the Lord! More details later (by my wife!).

Staff Serving Students

Saturday night was the "Staff Serving Students" (SSS) banquet at the high school. Nate and I had fun playing some jazz music as students gathered for a lawn party outside. Then we all went inside for a fun progressive dinner. I took the idea from one of my mom's parties where there wasn't enough room for everyone in one room--so we just used all the rooms.

It was quite a success! My room was the Jazz room, in red and black, and Nate was the server. I read some mysteries and they had to solve them. Victoria's room was the Cafe, and there was also a Chinese Wok room where students sat on the floor eating with chopsticks. Finally there was a Polynesian room with a luau! Each room had its own staff host and server and each room had a different dish with activity. It was a great way to mix up the students and give them a rotation so they had a "progressive dinner" inside the decorated classrooms.

My favorite part was the surprise dance we presented to the students. I had arranged a special visit with a local Filipino high school to come and dance for us some ethnic Filipino dances. It was a smash hit! The students were impressed and had a blast. The dances were beautiful and expressive.

Nate and I were both inspired to learn more about Filipino dance. There are unbelievable things to learn about it, with all the traditions, costumes and meanings for each one. It was impressive to see the two high schools share such an experience!

Later we got the dance party going with the Kadang. The girls got to try the coconut shells with strings. You are supposed to dance with them kind of like tap shoes, but even harder. How fun!

Then Nate got to try the Karang with his balance. I was so proud of him! It is harder than it looks, folks. You should try!

Of course they all cheered for "Mrs. Becker!" when I was in the spotlight, but fortunately I did not fall flat on my face in front of everyone! Wow, we had a great time and truly had some fun praising the Lord with dance!

Mangosteen

It's finally mangosteen season! The mangosteen is one of my favorite fruits in the Philippines. It is unlike any I have ever known or tasted, especially since I am from a place that only sells apples, oranges and bananas (just to simplify a bit). The availibility of tropical fruit must be better here on our island than almost anywhere. In fact our island has one huge festival in August that people all over the Philippines come to just to buy fruit!

The mangosteen is about the size of a mandarin orange. It has a hard purple-black shell and a soft red inner shell. The part you eat is the white part in the middle. It is tender, sweet, juicy, and it melts on your tongue! It is like candy to me. I sat here and cracked open a whole bundle of them for my after-school snack. They are very healthy and fight cancer.

One of the only problems is that they are one of the more expensive fruits relatively speaking. They are also not always in season, whereas the mango is always available. Here are some interesting facts I found on the internet about mangosteen.

--Ultra-tropical
--Cannot tolerate temps below 40º F (4.44º C), nor above 100º F (37.78º C)
--Attempts to establish it north of 200 latitude have all failed
--Ordinarily requires high atmospheric humidity and an annual rainfall of at least 50 in (127 cm), and no long periods of drought.
--mangosteen trees can take 10-40 years before they start regularly producing plenty of fruit.

Praise God for the mangosteen! Yum! You will have to come try it for yourself!

Students Take the Stage

This week in 9th-10th grade New Testament I taught the seven signs in John through drama. Lots of our students enjoy drama, so they really had a fun time getting into it! We had some great laughs!

One of my favorite parts was when Chris played the part of the blind man's parents. He pulled out a scarf and put it on his head to talk like the mom, and then he put his arm around her invisible shoulders to be the man. It was pretty funny. I love seeing the creativity of my students!

One of my prayer requests is that they will grow in their relationships with God. Many of them have shared that they want to grow spiritually, and I want to invite you to pray with me for them. Pray that God will give me wisdom in how to teach them effectively and to lead them in their spiritual growth. Praise the Lord for His Word!

Our Weekend

This was a great week of teaching. In my NT class I taught on prayer and fasting using Jesus as an example. It was wonderful to have a concert of prayer and a day of fasting broken with sharing communion. Nate and I enjoyed leading the students in worship for chapel, and everything else just went great.

I was really excited about the weekend, though, because we had lots of fun things plannned. First we had game night with the high school students. We really got to have some laughs with them, which is great relationship building outside the classroom. Our favorite game is "telephone charades" where a person acts out a scene for another person, and they have to pass that message on until the fourth person interprets it. We had a blast with them!

Then, Saturday Nate and I celebrated with our friends, Micah and Rachel, who are flying to the U.S. this week to get married! Nate and the guys went out with Micah and ate by the ocean doing guy things (and not one picture was taken), while the girls and I went out with Rachel and took over 150 pictures! That is the difference between males and females!

That is not the only difference, of course, like we all got dressed up and wore boas on the town. We had some fun with Filipinos, and did some crazy things together as females. The funniest thing we experienced was when we went to the mall and were taking Rachel's picture with her fake tierra on. We told her she had to get a picture with her and 20 Filipinos together, so we saw a huge line of them standing outside the European bread store. After we took that picture we started to leave, but the people in the front of the line were calling her over to them. They thought she was actually a famous person and they wanted to meet her! That is the fun of being white--they thought she was a princess! The owner of the store even said we could take a picture of the place showing it was a European store in the Philippines. We had so many laughs as Rachel got a pose with all her fans!

All of this made me thankful for the memories of what a great wedding week Nate and I had 14 months ago today. We were surrounded by such great friends and family and made so many great memories! We're glad we were able to pass on the love to our friends as they prepare for their marriage! Praise the Lord for friends and fun!

Spirit Week

Last week was spirit week at the K-8 school we teach at. Every morning we gathered at the covered court to watch everyone walk around in their costumes. We had fun days like "Hair and face day" or "Hero day" or "team color day" or "look-alike day". Here are some of our crazy students, and even our principal!
Us on twin day with our twins!Our bold and crazy principal! (He's Nebraskan too!)Gloria got a pie in the face--this wasn't just any pie, it was FRESH DURIAN PIE. You can smell it for kilometers!