As some of you may have gathered from the photos we did get to the beach on saturday! It was a really great day - the girls were pretty excited about going and nearly all the staff and girls came. The beach was nice and the sea was incredible - you could stay in all day and not get cold, in fact it was probably warmer than the air. Some people did stay in pretty much all day.

The sun didn't feel that strong but within 2 hours Judy and I were throughly sunburnt! Even some of the Filippinos were burnt by the time we left! So it ain't surprising that Judy and I were left a bit sore for the next couple of days.

The drive back was beautiful - the road goes through the mountains so we saw a lot of rural life, but we were driving at sunset time so we got to watch the sunset over the mountains. There's a few pictures of that which give an idea of what it was like. The day was worth it just for that!

On sunday we had the scholars again. I designed a collage to make with them which goes with the verse from Luke 4 which RENEW uses on its leaflets.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that the captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord's favour has come."

I'll try and put a photo up of it when its finished. Its about half done right now. Its going to go on the wall in the shelter. They're thinking of making one of the rooms into a counselling/quiet room so it might go in there.

On monday there was the award ceremony for the women who've completed the cosmetology, massage and computing class. We were the 'guests' and had to help award the certificates!

I've spent most of this week so far sorting out survey stuff and doing some more livelihood stuff. They asked me to design a Christmas card so i've been doing that. Also made some more earrings and things. The basket making has really got underway in the last two weeks. A guy from pampang who makes bastkets has come in every day for a week to help and he's given the girls some new techniques and designs which has made it easier and quicker to make them.

We only have today and tomorrow to sort out the survey - its been a bit chaotic but i think we'll be able to get some useful results from it. We've found that half of the families in one community have one or more people with TB in the family which is awful. So something needs to be done about that. Saturday we get the scholars again and then we're going to a conference thing. It runs for 2 days and its about networking between NGOs in the area. The girls are going too and we'll be selling baskets etc and talking about RENEW's work. We're obviously only able to go for the afternoon of the Saturday as we're leaving on Sunday but it'll be good to see what's going on.

Friday will be our organising everything day - we need to pack and take photos and do all the little things we never got round to doing!

It feels really odd that we're leaving so soon... but I'm looking forward to seeing people again too.

lots of love xxx