January Wrap-Up

The winter days keep passing, and we are relishing life at a normal pace again.  Here's some highlights from the past few weeks courtesy of my cell phone...

Our little apartment has a small attic space we use as a family room.  The ceiling is low and the light fixture was partially broken from one-too-many heads hitting it.  Over our Christmas break travels we picked up some recessed can lights to replace the broken fixture and spread the light throughout the room.  It's always interesting tackling a home improvement project on this side of the ocean, but thankfully we only ran into a few minor issues that we were able to work around and complete the install in one afternoon!  Now the clean-up... that took a bit longer.  Styrofoam insulation bits are a bear to eradicate...

A few weeks ago we had a Wii party as a reward for those who put in their after-school study all hours.  Archery was a HUGE hit and worked regardless of age!  It's so good to have fun!

The cold weather broke and we have had many days of sunshine.  Here the kids got out their bikes to ride around the court yard one day at recess.  In case you haven't seen it before, Reni has a special hand-powered tryke from Ambucs.  It's challenging for us to find activities around our house for him to do outside since we don't have play equipment or soft surface area/grass.  That makes his tryke all the more valuable to get him out in the fresh air.

This year Pastor Genti is working through the names of God in scripture.  When we got to the name "Jehovah Jireh" we decided it was a good time to also begin collecting an offering during church.  It's one thing to teach about God's provision in times of need while living in the Land of Plenty (America) where social safety nets abound, but in this country -- it requires a larger amount of faith.  Just a few days ago in the same small group we were discussing the health of a child in our church who is at risk of never walking again from such poor nutrition (we've given food, but other relatives have stolen it).  It was followed by a prayer request from another woman whose adult daughter was suffering the effects of poor nutrition earlier in her life.  They had been unaware of her deficiencies when she was a child, but now as an adult, the lack is manifesting itself in many health problems.  As someone who has never been without food, it's heart breaking.

After hearing the account of Jesus' first miracle at the wedding of Cana, Nathan surprised the kids with a pitcher of grape Kool-Aid from 'only' a bottle of water.  They were astounded and amazed (powder drinks are not very common here, and he had dumped some in the pitcher before beginning the demonstration).  And they loved the Kool-Aid too. :-)  

Our boy is probably not too different from most kids in that he is reserved in large groups and slow to warm up to people -- but once you're in, you're in with him.  I don't know when it happened, but he has decided Luli is his buddy and constantly wants him to come and play.  :-)

The kids are humming along in home school.  I popped in the classroom one day to see them working on an art project.  I can't say it enough -- we are so grateful for Pam's help!

Ellie received this "knitting" loom a while back and never showed interest in it until last week.  We haven't finished anything yet, but I was encouraged that she stuck with it as long as she did!  I suggested that she could now make gifts for all of her friends to which she responded... "But Mom, they'd all be... hats."

We're getting a lot of 'mileage' out of this puzzle we bought for the youth.  In spite of an extraordinarily long break due to the cold and flu, it's just now close to finished.

I had no idea puzzles would be so well liked -- next time we have someone coming from the States I'll be requesting a few more!  It's such a nice way to spend time with our friends (like below, after church). We put on some worship music and set out chips and salsa and voila!  a relaxing evening and good fellowship!

Finally, this last weekend in Met@lle we implemented a new strategy.  Prior to the meeting, I divvied up the roster into three new teams, printed attendance and verse charts, and distributed those sheets to three "captains."  Then, after a joint time of singing and story time, we rotated through crafts, games, and snack/verse recitation time. The numbers of kids felt so much more manageable split up (about 10 per team) and it worked ideally in the space we have in the little village house.

  Below, Xhesi's team is working on their coloring page (which also lists next week's memory verse).

Nathan was in charge of the game station.  I just can't take in enough of the view from the back yard.  Photos don't do it justice.

Happy soon-to-be February!