Cheesy Mango's: The Adventures of 5 Cheese Heads on a Mango Loving Island!: School is in full swing!

Our school books arrived!! I cannot remember a time where all 5 of us were more excited about school starting. We have been here for 4 weeks this week and were getting a little antsy to get started on school. As you know, I am homeschooling this year and we shipped our books here in July. I'll be honest, I was starting to wonder if the books would really arrive or if they were lost in the Pacific somewhere. The children and I were diligent about praying for our box to arrive every single morning for the last few weeks and on Sunday October 3rd they finally arrived. I seriously thought Jesus himself delivered them :) I didn't know that it is not uncommon here for packages to get delivered on Sundays. I am still going with the theory that Jesus himself delivered them though!

We are 3 days into our homeschooling adventures and so far so good. Here are some quotes from the children. "This is so fun! I love homeschool"-Carter, "Can I do some more work while I wait" -Mady "Can I use a calculator" -Isaac. These quotes reflect the kiddos personalities so well lol. Isaac did also say that homeschooling is fun and that he loves that we can make it fun. We are all looking forward to a fun-filled year of learning. You can pray for us as we begin this new phase of school. I have never taught in a school setting before but I am looking forward to the challenge. We do plan to start "specials" (art, music, library, physical education, and bible class) at The Children of Hope school (CSC's school) as well. Not sure when that will start officially, maybe this week. We are continuing to love our time with the children at CSC. We try to go and play during their free time as much as possible. (see some school pictures below)

Not school related but a real life stuff-- With most things, change is hard. Here it is no exception. We see it mostly with Mady. She is missing her friends back home a lot and is having a little more of a difficult time getting too far away from me. I think she is uncomfortable because of all of the attention she gets and the lack of being able to communicate verbally. She doesn't want to tell someone she doesn't understand with the thick accent. My first mission here is to be supportive of my husband and children. Once everyone is feeling comfortable, I am excited to see where I fit in in a volunteer role at the shelter as well. That may take some time yet, we shall see. Jake is loving what he is doing here. He sees purpose and feels like he can and is adding value to this beautiful organization. He is in full swing with his duties and loves learning more and more about CSC and the Philippines everyday.

We hope you are all well. We pray everyday for our friends and family. If you have any prayer requests, we would love to pray for you too. You can email us at jakepamschulz@gmail.com or post below or find us on Facebook. We would love to know how you are all doing as well. We miss you all! Thank you for your continued support both prayerfully and financially (we still have a little ways to go financially, more about that in a later post). We love you all!! God bless!! *Pam

Prayer Requests:

Patience with school for all of us.
Continued transition- Mady is still sticking pretty close to me. I am hoping that she will be brave enough to venture a little way and make some friends. The language barrier is harder for her to overcome then it is for the boys. I know this will come with time for her too.
Church- We know that we will never be able to find a home church like we have in Sturgeon Bay but would like to find something where we can Worship, Know, and Proclaim God here, too :)
Jake as he continues to add value at CSC in the office and as a whole family as we continue to minister to the "fatherless" here in Cebu. (when I find the words I will talk about what we see just outside our comfortable gated community, the homeless crisis is real).
Adoptive Families- Past, Present, and Future.