Help in homeschool

Ryan on his first day of Kindergarten

I haven't been posting because I'm finally trying to get on a schedule for teaching Ryan Kindergarten this year. We got held up when his books came late, and then trying to figure out how to get it done in our already busy schedule! But we're doing it. Ryan enjoys learning and is a blast to teach. I love being able to teach my own children. There are times and days I think I can't do it, but then I remember, "I can do all thing through CHRIST who strengthens me!"

Looking at the beginning of this school year was very overwhelming for me. I wondered how I would teach Ryan Kinder with the already demanding schedule and a 2-year old running around. Over the summer, it kept me busy in the mornings just to get everyone fed, dressed, and around, family devotions, laundry done before the electric or water went off (usually afternoon) and trying to prepare our main meal for noon. We have adapted this Dominican custom.

I have been amazed at how the Lord has been helping. I do believe He helped me by allowing Ryan's books to come late. It gave me 3 weeks to get Brandon & Regina in their routine without Ryan pesting to do his school. Some days He has helped me by allowing the electric to go off - it keeps me from worrying about laundry while I'm doing school! :-) You have to learn to take everything as a blessing!

Some days we have changed our main meal back to the evening and then I just fix something quick and simple (usually sandwiches) for lunch. I have also learned to start my meal before school and then let it cook while I'm doing school. It hasn't always been easy but God is helping. Some days it seems every time I go to start my schooltime with Ryan, Jonathan is getting into something.

These days are challenging, but they are definitely worth it! I love the fulfillment of teaching my own children and having them at home with me. I pray that these "sowing" years will be worthwhile and I will reap a bountiful harvest in due season.

Another praise

The electric has been on ALL night for the past 4 or 5 nights which has been WONDERFUL!!! Thank the Lord! We're actually getting 6 - 8 hours of sleep at one shot! That makes the difficulties of the day easier to handle. It has been going out at 6:00 a.m., but that's okay because the room is already cooled down and it's starting to get light anyway.

Praise

I should have known the Lord was up to something with all the trials coming at us! When the devil is working his hardest, you can be sure the Lord is working more!!

The Lord has really been blessing our ladies' meetings. We have them weekly and each week we do something different. One week we gather for a Bible study, other weeks we have a service in the house of one of our neighbors, another week we do something fun etc.

Last week we had a house service in the home of Lucrecia - neighbor to Mercedes who faithfully attends our church. We were elated when the invitation was given to accept Christ, Lucrecia said she wanted to. The ladies were very excited. One of them said to me, "It's not in vain, is it?" I said, "No, it's not."

This neighbor lady was a bother to Mercedes to the point that Mercedes prayed, "Lord, either change her heart or help her to move." Mercedes was thrilled when God answered her prayer by changing Lucrecia's heart!

Sorry I do not have a picture. I hope to get one of Lucrecia when she comes to church. Pray that she will be able to come. She has obstacles hindering her from coming to church, but she needs the support of the brothers and sisters in her early Christian walk.

God is faithful!

We're also praising the Lord for a spiritual refreshment He has poured on us this past week and a new faith to pray and believe for revival in the darkness of the community where our church is - called Sabana Perdida.

Chillin' out

Thank the Lord, the guy finally showed up this morning to check out our fridge. "Tomorrow" actually came! :-) He took out a small part and left to find a new one to replace it. He came back this afternoon, put in the new part, and the refrigerator ran! So now we will have to set out to the store to get some things to put in it.

Our Dominican neighbors across the street from us have to be among the best neighbors in the world. This morning Doug went over to get a pack of meat out of their freezer and they offered for us to bring over a jug of water to put in their refrigerator and cool. We delightedly accepted the offer since we were dying for cold drinks! By noon it was cold and we enjoyed cold water. They have been so sweet and helpful to us. Thank God for good neighbors!

Doug reminded me that the people in Texas hit by hurricane Ike went for several weeks without electricity! This trial was minimum compared to theirs - many lost their homes. Even in our little trying times of life, God is good. Yet I am very thankful to have our refrigerator cooling again. The luxuries of life are wonderful!

Jonathan's latest accomplishment

I've never seen a 2-year old ride a scooter before! Our little Jonathan has accomplished it pretty well. I guess he's had the other children to watch and learn from.

The "birdie" family

Since that birdie landed in those neighbors' yard (see post from Sept. 16) , we have struck up a friendship with them. Brandon has gone to their house several days to play with the boy and last night we invited him to go to the park with us. His name is Emmanuel. He is bilingual as are his Mom & Dad. The sad thing is that they stay inside almost all of the time and Emmanuel knows little more than playing video games and watching TV.

He went with us to the park and took a cel phone so he could stay in touch with his parents. We played a game similar to horseshoes and Emmanuel loved it! We were touched as he called his parents in the middle of the game and said, "Dad, I'm having a good time!" He also told them "I'm sitting on the grass. It's soft." We figured since he is inside almost all of the time, he may have never even sat on grass!

Tonight he and Brandon were riding bikes together. He's not real steady on a bike, but again, probably because he is inside almost all of the time. Tonight he was intrigued by the beauty of the clouds. We are trying to teach him that there are lots of things to do outside of the house! We pray that Emmanuel and his parents will find the Lord.

Trials and blessing

For an update on our electric situation, the electric is still going out for 3 - 5 hours at night, BUT for the past 3 nights it has rained in the evening which cooled it down and made it comfortable during the blackout time. We haven't woke up as much. Thank the Lord!

On Sunday morning we noticed our refrigerator was not staying cool. The light was on, the fan kicked on, but Doug thought the compressor was not turning on. It indeed proved that the compressor was not kicking on as the food grew warmer and warmer. Monday morning we salvaged what was still okay and asked a few of our neighbors to store it for us, and pitched the rest.

Doug called a guy to come fix it and he said he couldn't get here till this morning at 10:00 or 11:00. Doug had made plans to work at the mission and cancelled them so he could be here when the guy came to fix the fridge, but the guy still hasn't come!! Doug has tried his cel phone numerous times today but can't get through.

We are hesitant to call someone else because this guy fixed our AC and he was very detailed and good. We feel he would do a good job. Some seem to beat and bang things and we're afraid that they may do more damage than repair. :-)

So....another day in the Dominican Republic.....waiting for tomorrow. You never know which day "tomorrow" will be. :-) In the meantime we're surviving without cold water or cold anything, cooking nonperishables such as box macaroni and cheese and pancakes etc., and counting the other blessings we have.

If the guy never comes, we'll have to go to plan B. I'm not sure what that is yet.

In the midst of these trials, we had a wonderful service on Sunday evening with much of the Lord's presence. After we sang "The Love of God", the church was noisy. Almost everyone was vocally praising God. It was a beautiful time and a reminder that God is still in business - even when everything seems to be going wrong! He deserves praise just because He is God - whether everything around is falling apart or staying together.

The verse keeps coming to my mind: "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 38,39) And I add nor refrigerators, nor electric! :-)

Also II Corinthians 4: 7 - 18 has greatly encouraged me.

7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
8 ¶ We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
10 Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
11 For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
12 So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
13 We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;
14 Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.
15 For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.
16 For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Sweating it out

I have not been blogging much recently. The past few weeks have been incredible. Just to survive has been a challenge. We have had multiple electric and water outages (thank the Lord for that 500 gallon tank of water on the roof - it has already been used!), and one day we had our phone lines out. That has kept me bouncing between striving to get the household chores done and keeping up with the rest of the schedule.

Now that the storms have passed, we have had extreme heat the past few weeks. We are still seeing temperatures of 86 outside when we got to bed at night and it is 90 degrees inside. It makes it a little tough to sleep since they are now turning the electric off in the middle of the night, too. Last night it was off for 6 hours. We had the children in our room so they could enjoy the AC, and then when it shut off, we were all tossing and turning and the children were fussing because they were hot. Nights like that carry into the day and make the daily duties like school etc. a challenge. Life is never boring here! :-)

I know it sounds very simple to you, but if you think of it, would you help us pray that the electric would at least stay on all night so we can sleep comfortably? It sure makes a difference in how we function through the day. If it were just Doug and I, we could handle it better, but when the children don't sleep, they have a hard time applying their minds to school. I've always said we could handle the demands and heat of the day if we can just sleep through the night.

I'm sorry I talk so much about heat, but it is a major factor that we have to deal with here daily. I think we're going to have mandatory nap this afternoon so we can get rid of some of those grumpies that are invading our home.......if the electric stays on! :-)

Birdie providentially hit over the wall?

Brandon came in Saturday after playing badmitton with some friends on the street and said that they hit the birdie over one of the neighbor's walls. Each house has it's own wall surrounding their back yard. It's a big thing here, partly for protection from thieves, and partly for privacy in your back yard, I guess.

Brandon said a neighbor said, "The man who lives in that house is mean." He was afraid to go to the door and ask to get the birdie. We were busy, but tonight Daddy finally took the time to brave it out and go ask the neighbor if they could get the birdie out of their yard.

When the man opened the door, he right away said, "Come in." He told his wife, "A neighbor came to visit us." Before Doug could tell him why he was there, they started chatting. The family lived in Miami for 20 years and have lived here for the past 3 years. They speak English quite well and the children do not speak Spanish. He said they stay in the house all of the time because they don't know anyone, they do not speak much Spanish, and they do not like it here.

Doug said they seemed very lonely and were glad Doug and the children stopped in. They have a boy about Brandon's age and the boy immediately asked if Brandon could stay and play. We offered to take the boy to the park sometime to play baseball. He really lit up at that idea.

He asked what we were doing here and if we had adapted. Doug told him we were missionaries and was able to briefly witness to him. The wife said, "That's great to have something you believe in." Doug was able to tell them it was more than that.

We're convinced that God has us here for more than to just live in a restful community. These people are wealthy, but they are very hungry. In the 9 months we've lived here, God has given us the opportunity to share Christ with several of our neighbors. Our focus is not necessarily to work this community (we live about 15 - 20 minutes from the church), but we are always willing to share Christ with whoever we come in contact.

We're also convinced that there are a lot of lonely people. Don't be afraid to reach out to someone - no matter how mean they may seem. You don't know how lonely they may be inside.

Electric problems

For the past week we have had horrible electric! It has been off more than it has been on. It kept going on and off last night through the night. Today it went off around 7:30 and hasn't come back on yet. (It's now almost 2:00 p.m.) I think we're about on the end of our invertor, so I must close for today. I have more posting to do, but it will have to wait till another time.

Supplied

Out with the old and in with the new - boy, am I glad! Some missionaries that live in this community are "burnt out" and returning to the States for a time of rest - we know all about that! They sold most of their stuff and so we got blessed by a few things of theirs. This couch was one of them. I'm SO happy to not have the ugly brown couch in my living room. This one will match my mauve decor and also fit our whole family as well as be more comfortable! We got it for a very good price. I really wanted hunter green, but hey, you can't have everything! We also got this large tank that will hold 530 gallons of water! That will be very handy for times when the water goes off. It is common here to put tanks such as this on your roof. They do not have water 24/7 and so the reserve water enters your house by gravity until the water comes on again.
Doug and 2 other guys hoisted it up onto our balcony. From there they had to get it up on the roof. They say these things are light, but don't be fooled. Doug said they probably weigh between 150 and 200 pounds and they're very bulky.
Doug used a rope to help guide the tank up the ladder. Easy does it!
Hooray! It's up! Doug spent 4 or 5 hours on the roof on Saturday hooking up the tubes etc. to the tank. It was a heat index of 111 degrees and the roof is black. He was very hot, drained, and burnt when he came in. Thank the Lord we now have a good amount of reserve water!

Double birthday

As mentioned before, Jonathan & Regina celebrated their birthdays on Sept. 11. It was not my desire to have 2 children share the same birthday, but evidently God saw some reason for it. We have been only positive about it and Regina always says she's glad Jonathan was born on her birthday. Here is Regina with her 3 darling brothers.
A close-up of the cake. My life-saving husband helped outline this for me. I then plopped the icing on and smeared it around in the colored zones and he took the black tube and did all of the outline. If you need help doing cakes, you can hire him. :-) It might be expensive to pay his way over, though.
Ryan got Regina a smiley face ball.

Jonathan's birthday

Jonathan got jipped. He just got cupcakes. :-) I had originally planned to make him his own character cake, but we had so many things going on, I ran out of steam. He didn't seem to mind. He enjoyed the cupcakes and didn't know what he was missing out on.
Opening some cars.

Checking in

This week has been crazy as we have had several electrical blackouts. It has made getting laundry done and our other duties quite interesting.

The hurricanes have bid us goodbye and we hope that is it for this year - although not likely. We received a ton of rain from Fay, Gustav, Hannah and Ike. There was some flooding but no major damage that I'm aware of.

Regina and Jonathan celebrated their 8th and 2nd birthdays yesterday. I hope to get back on here next week and post pictures. Have a great weekend!

One year ago!

It is hard to believe that one year ago today we were on the plane traveling to this beautiful island. We are already half way through our term! Where has the time gone? I think it is because this time we live in a much more peaceful place and are not as stressed. Our other terms, we couldn't wait for a break, I believe, due to the stress of living at the noisy, dirty, and very hot mission building.

We pray the Lord will make us a blessing as we labor the last half of our term.

Encouragement for Depression

Doug and I never felt able to put into words what we experienced here several years ago that brought about our decision to return to the States for a time of rest and recuperation. After Doug and I listened to these broadcasts on Focus on the Family, it helped us to better understand what took place. Evidently there are different names for it, but this program refers to it as "depression".

We have many friends who are in ministry. Maybe you will find this an encouragement or maybe it will keep you from ending up there.

http://listen.family.org/recentdaily/

Scroll down to listen to the broadcasts from August 18, 19, and 20.

In between storms

This is water that came in our patio door from Tropical Storm Fay. Tropical Storm Hannah is making her last appearance and waving goodbye. We thought she was going to go right by us, but she backed up close to us and sent us alot of wind and rain. The wind was between 30 and 40 mph on Tuesday and yesterday. There are trees and signs down, but no major damage that I'm aware of. The streets were flooded, but I don't believe quite as badly as with Fay because Hannah gave breaks in between the rain. It is still breezy today, but not as strong.

The only damage done to us was a wet living room/dining room floor which got our rug wet and now it smells like a dead animal. :-) We were glad to see the sun for a few hours this morning and dry out a bit. Now it is raining again.

Now we are awaiting to see where Hurricane Ike will go. It is to be near here on Sunday. It looks like a beast. We're hoping it goes above us as predicted, but no man seems to be able to accurately predict these hurricanes. I really hope it doesn't hit anywhere.

We use this website to keep track of what is happening in the Atlantic/Caribbean. We check it everyday during hurricane season which goes up through November 30.

http://hurricane.accuweather.com/hurricane/basin-story.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0&basin=atlantic

Vegetable Frittata

Can you tell I have time to blog today? The children are finished with school, Doug is away at a meeting, and while some homeade donuts are rising, I actually have a chance to catch up.

Here is the recipe for a delicious frittata that I made recently.

3 T. vegetable oil
1-1/2 c. finely chopped zucchini
1-1/2 c. chopped mushrooms
3/4 c. chopped onion
1/2 c. finely chopped broccoli
3/4 c. chopped green bell pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
6 eggs, beaten
1/4 c. half and half (I used milk and it was fine)
2 pkgs. (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
2 c. shredded cheddar or swiss cheese
4 slices whole wheat bread, cubed
1 t. salt
1/4 t. black pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease a 9 x 13 baking dish. Heat oil in skillet - add vegetables and saute until tender. Remove from heat and let cool slightly. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs and milk. Beat in cream cheese until mixture is smooth. Stir in other cheeses, bread cubes, sauteed vegetables and salt and pepper. Mix well and pour into prepared baking dish. Bake for one hour or until center is set. Can serve hot or cold.

Another tarantula

Doug found this tarantula outside and trapped it in a milkcan. He then put it in a cage for observation. Must be a guy thing. This might interest any tarantula lovers out there. :-)

Miscellaneous photos

This is a carlot. For their advertisement, they have a real truck on the side of their building. One of the day's of vacation, we went to Wendy's. Look familiar?
We were surprised to see they now have shakes. Is this in the States, too?
We were THRILLEd to see this sign. It says "Papa John's - Coming here." Wow! We have had so many more products from the States this term. I think because of the free trade agreement between the D.R. and the U.S. We will be thrilled to eat here whenever they get it built.