Happy Birthday Noah!!!!

Happy Birthday Noah! It was 11 years ago that God blessed us with a handsome, healthy amazing son. Noah, we love you and are so proud of the young man that you are . We love watching you take care of your sisters. We love how sweet and tender you are at times and how ALL boy you are at other times. We love watching you play all the different sports you enjoy and how hard you work to be good at them! We are so proud of how you have been so outgoing and met lots of new friends while we are here at training. You make us very proud.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! This is certainly a different holiday for us. We are planning to sleep in and have worship time with our house church late tomorrow morning. I have a special Thanksgiving lesson planned that should be fun. The kids are going to help me and we are going to make a Thanksgiving chain representing all we have to be thankful for. At lunch we will have a special Thanksgiving meal with our fellow missionaries. As I have mentioned before we do not have TV's here but Tim has managed to borrow one for tomorrow and we are going to spend the afternoon playing the Wii. The kids are so excited! It is a big treat for them. We are looking forward to having a day of rest and enjoying each other.
We hope that your day is filled with lots of sweet family time and tons of yummy food too. :)

Van and MAC

This weekend we participated in a regional volleyball tournament. Our region is called MAC for short. So, our group made tee shirts with the MACdonald's theme. :) We did not win but we sure were cute!

A car update. It was not the battery so Tim is thinking it might be the starter. We had it towed to a local body shop so we should hear something today. As you see, Tim made friends with the tow truck man.

Hair, Car, and Chocolate Update

For those of you who have been worried about the news in my haircut update, fear no more! All is well! Our friend Jana went with us to the haircutting workshop and it turns out that she missed her calling! She was awesome. She did such a great job that I let her do both of the girls. The best news is that she will be in Costa Rica studying language with us so we have a haircutting expert for the next year. :) By the way, if it looks like GL is asleep in the picture, she is. It has been a long week!
It has been quite an interesting day around here. We had shots this afternoon and this evening Noah had some weird reaction to the Typhoid shot. He seems to be getting better so I think all is well. I took a fast trip to town late this afternoon and when I came out of the store, my car would not start. Irritating. Thankfully, I was able to call one of my room mates who was also in town and she picked me up. Not sure what the deal is with the car but Tim says it is to cold to deal with it tonight. I guess that will be his Saturday project. (Josh and Steph, do not stress we will make the car all better :) )
On a happier not, my sweet friend Jess brought me a BIG soft peanut butter fudge brownie from her dinner out and I am going to enjoy it tonight! They do not have any kind of dessert here so it is a rare treat. It will make all the stress go away. :)

Cultural Mail

One of the things they try to stress to us while living here is that other cultures are not like America. Things do not always run as efficiently as they do here. So, as a learning experience today, we had Cultural Mail Day. Off Tim went with the kids to get the mail. He arrived at the mail room and stood in a LONG line only to find out that he had to have his passport in order to get his mail. So, they walked across campus, gathered the passport and went back to the long line. Tim got to the front of the line only to discover that he had MY passport. The 'government officials" hassled him for awhile and then he had a brilliant idea. He pulled out some American cash and began bribing the government officials. Guess what! It worked! They gave him our mail and two letters stating that we had other packages on other areas of campus. At this point, Tim was tired of dealing with the cultural mail so he sent Trinity to get the packages. Nope. When she got there, they told her that it had to be an adult with a passport. By the time she found us, mail time was over. So, I guess we will hope that our packages are back in the American mail room tomorrow. I told Tim that at least these "government officials" spoke English which is more than we will get next time. :)

Bible Storying

We are halfway through week 5! We actually had snowfall yesterday and more is coming Friday. I am freezing and the Tim and the kids are delighted about the snow. They are hoping for enough for sledding! I think they have lost their minds!
This week we have been learning tools to use once we get to the field. We have trained in a concept called T4T. Training for trainers. In essence we learned how to go into our people group and train locals to lead in their own churches. We have also learned a great tool called Bible Storying. It is my favorite tool so far because you use a situation that you are in and share in conversation a bible story that relates to the situation. For example, if I was talking to another busy mom and we are discussing how much work it is to keep us with our family, I could share with her the story about Martha and Mary. Jesus teaches Martha that all of her busy work does not matter in the end, he encourages her to do is be more like Mary and sit at the feet of Jesus. I need to be reminded of this story quite often!

They offer many different extracurricular classes here everyday. Tonight Trinity is going to Taekwondo and Friday I am taking a basic haircutting class. Don't worry I am not going to cut my own but I do have to take a “hair model” with me. I am going to have the kids draw straws! :)

5K

In the spirit of physical health I let Noah talk me into running a 5K with him this morning. Actually running it “with him” is not very accurate. Running it about 15 minutes behind him would be closer to the truth. What was I thinking? Clearly, I was not. I did manage to finish and I was not even the last one. Impressive, I know. While we have been here I have been working out most afternoons and have built up what I thought was a pretty good endurance. I was mistaken. I think I better train a bit harder next week. Tim and Gracie Lynn ran also. Our friends told Tim to be sure and wear his nametag so that when he passed out, the paramedics would know who he was. :)

Ouch!

We had our first immunization clinic today. We will have a couple more clinics before we leave. Have to get lots of shots to be healthy in Central America! Can you tell who did not have to get any shots? You guessed it, EDEN got to be the lucky girl today! :) Tim and I each had 2 shots but the kids only had to get 1. Dr. Cooper gave them several before we left Thomasville so hopefully, they will not have to get stuck to many times here.

Housewarming Gift

When we got to our quad today there was a surprise waiting for us! Gene Lord and our friends over at Flower's Bakery had delivered an AMAZING Thanksgiving meal! Look at all of that food! There is a ham with ALL of the trimmings and a Turkey cake for dessert. We are going to have our house church over Sunday night and share our treat with them. Thank you so much, we feel very loved!! Yummy!

FULL head and heart

We have had a very FULL week and it is only Wednesday! Here are a few highlights of our
week so far:
Middle Eastern meal,eaten with our fingers
Study of Anthropology: the science that deals with the origins, physical and cultural development, biological characteristics, and social customs and beliefs of humankind.
Contextualization:To place (a word or idea, for example) in a particular context.
*I give you the definitions although most of you know what these words mean, I did not till this week :)
Pacific Rim meal,yet again, eaten with our fingers
Panel of adults who were raised as kids on the mission field
World view workshop: Roman Catholicism
Post Modernism

and there is plenty more planned for the rest of the week!
As you can tell we are making very good use of our time here. I am continually impressed with how well planned out this time of training is. Our leaders are so passionate about making sure that we get the best training possible before we leave here. Their passion is contagious! Our heads and our hearts are both FULL! :)

African Worship

We have had a fun weekend here at what we lovingly refer to as “The Compound”. :) We have decorated our quad for Christmas. We all got together and made it very fun and festive. We now have a winter wonderland in our living area.
Each Sunday night we have a worship service in the custom of another country. This week, we worshiped like they do in Africa. All of the women had to wear long skirts and head coverings. The children and women sat on one side of the room while the men sat on another. I have to tell you that Gracie Lynn now thinks that we need to go be missionaries in Africa. There was lots of music and dancing. She was very happy. :) It was lots of fun!
Here is a picture of me and my friend Jess. She and her hubby Adam are going to serve in the jungles of Peru. Silly girl. :)

TGIF!

We have completed week 3 of our training. It has been another busy week for us. Tim and I had sessions on working with a team on the field. We are already getting to know the folks in Panama through emails. We also had the opportunity to hear about 4 different church plants that have begun recently in different areas of the world. There are missionaries who are on stateside that are here with us and they were able to share their real life experiences with us. It is exciting to hear real stories from real people. It makes us very excited to see what God is going to do with us as we go to serve.



Here is just a funny for you. Most of the men here on campus are participating in No Shave November. Tim is doing his part. :)

New Family Members

We would like to introduce 2 new members of our family. Meet Peter Panda and Jeremiah Pig. :) The girls are learning to take care of their new friends this week. They have to eat and brush their teeth. You even have to find time to play and read to them. They are both having lots of fun!
We are having a busy but good week so far. One of our quad mates is having a birthday today so we are having a little party for her tonight. She is 23. We are old. :)

Fall Colors

Happy Monday! I have been so busy telling you how cold it is here that I have forgotten to mention that it is SO BEAUTIFUL! This is the view from my home. :) Every week the leaves are more colorful.
Gracie Lynn went on a field trip to the Zoo today. She said there were lots of neat animals and they showed her all of the ones that live in Central and South America so she is going to help us find them when we get there. :)
We have conferences with the kids teachers this week. We had Trinity's this afternoon. Her teacher is such a nice lady. She was a MK (missionary kid) and she took her own kids to the field as well. So, she has lots of good insight to offer all of us. She really has a heart for working with these kids and you can sure tell! Trinity LOVES her and has really grown so much just in the past few weeks. We are so grateful for the incredible support system that is provided here.

I VOTED FOR THE CHICK!

Palin Power!!! We joined THOUSANDS of other Palin People at the football stadium last night and cheered Sarah on! It was so cool!!!!! It was like a big pep rally, lots of music and cheering. Sarah and Todd came out at the end and she gave a great speech. She seems (just like on tv) like such a great normal down to earth smart momma. Of course, she looked super cute on top of all that. :)