Celebration
It was sure a celebration as we visited with these two Saturday. Now Ms. A is in Honduras and as of this writing, Mr. J is in flight from London to Nairobi Africa. Still one more flight for him and then a long bus ride {he won’t arrive to his final destination until sometime July 5th}. I love how happy they look.
We getting closer to the end of fundraising for Teen Missions. It can’t come soon enough as we drop them off in 40 days! This was an idea I came across. We hand out the containers, you eat the M&M’s and then fill with quarters!
{Still taking donations if you would like to donate to Ms. A or Mr. C… I can get you the info to do so online}
Free Theme.
Madagascar which is were Mr. C is going this summer.
Read more about the trip here. If you’d like to make a donation {he has to raise $5290}, leave a comment and I can give you an online link.
Ms. A is excited to start. We’ve chosen together some new things that I hope fits her better and challenges her. She will be taking a few credits for high school this year as long as she does the work. I know she can meet the challenge!
Total Language Plus – she will choose the books she wants to study off a list I’ve provided and is starting the year with Pride and Prejudice
Biology 101 – Great program for the not so much science lover. We will add dissection to this and follow Apologia Biology for these lessons.
Mystery of History – Volume II
Bible – Including Jesus Freaks, Passion to Purity, and Quest for Love
Homeschool Band – this is her fourth year. She plays the flute and will be in advance band.
And because one going to Teen Missions is not enough, Ms. A has decided to go in the summer of 2017. She is going to Nepal where the team will help with the Children’s Home doing construction as needed. I wonder how hard it will be for us to leave our daughter with Teen Missions????
{and her hair is a brighter blue now}
We start school today! I’m ready… but it’s going to be a crazy year! Let me introduce my students for 2016-17.
First up is Mr. C. He has two credits left to finish high school. Hard to believe I’ll have two graduates!
He will be doing:
Latin 2 {his choice} -This is an amazing program. LOVE it!
Pre-Calculus – because this kid is super smart and will totally be able to handle this level. He has gotten straight A’s in each high school math and NEVER written a problem down. He does it all in his head and just has a doodle page for the whole year. Drives me crazy.
He works part time at a local hardware store and volunteers at the Food Pantry all day Tuesday. He also still takes piano lessons and is looking for a Ukulele teacher.
But his biggest plan is going with Teen Missions again in the summer of 2017. He has chosen Madagascar which is a team that rides motorcycles to the villages to host Sunday School classes and spread the Good News. Fundraising details to follow.
We are at 10 days and counting until our boys are home from their seven week mission trip. It has gone so fast and we are looking forward to hearing all about their trips!
We do not get any contact from them personally while they are out of the country. They can mail us, but I know from Vanuatu it can take three weeks for mail to come. Maybe this week? However, the team leaders send updates via email to Teen Missions and they post them for us to keep up with what they are doing.
If you would like to read one or a few, here is the link to Northern Ireland and this will take you to Vanuatu team updates.
I can sum it up a bit. The Vanuatu team’s job was to build a Kindergarten for one of the tribes. They were welcomed by the tribal chief in his loin cloth… can’t wait to hear about that from Mr. C. The tribe was excited that they were chosen to receive the building. The team has worked hard, and from our last update, they almost completed the project. It was made harder because the team had to hike up a mountain 30 minutes every day to get to the job site. They also have to bring all the supplies with them for building. I’m not sure exactly what this means… I can only hope the cider block was delivered and they mean the cement bags {which would be just as heavy}. The team brings their own food and, because of Cyclone Pam, it is a good thing. The island they are on was not hit hard, but their crops did suffer loss so food is scarce. I can imagine Mr. C will come back with more muscle and skinnier. His team has gotten to see beautiful waterfalls and visit with the locals but mostly just working.
Meanwhile, Mr. J’s team is in a place where food is the center piece of activities. Every update includes not only what they did but what they ate, and it is many types of potatoes, fish and chips, and “fizzie” {which is our soda/pop}. His team has been running “bible schemes”, which are somewhat like VBS, in both the morning and afternoon for the little children. They also present at local churches on Sunday’s and have met with a youth group. In their down time they have gotten to visit the Great Causeway {pictured above} and the Titantic Museum. They boys are having completely different experiences.
All the teams begin flying to Florida this week. Mr. C’s is on Wednesday I think… the time change gets confusing as you translate {or at least for me… they are 15 hours ahead of me}. Mr. J’s will be on the 7th with both teams landing in Florida on August 8th. From there they will spend 5 days debriefing, listening to the experiences of other teams and learning how to share their experience back home. Then they finally fly home on August 13th.
This picture comes with a story.
My husband surprised me with tickets to fly to see the boys at the commissioning ceremony on Saturday. It was an amazing day and the boys were so surprised! We were able to sneak up on both of them. Such big long hugs we were given. They were so thrilled we made the trip.
We spent from about 2 until 10:30 bouncing between both teams visiting. They have bonded well and were excited to get to their countries. The Vanuatu team left for the airport as soon as commissioning was over {which was amazing to be at}. Northern Ireland leaves today at 4:30. Mr. C’s team will be 15 hours ahead of our time and Mr. J will be 5 hours ahead.
Mr. C asked if we could come to the airport Sunday morning to see him one more time. Rich and I woke up at 4am to spend just over an hour with them. It was an exhausting weekend but we were all blessed getting to see each other one more time. Now the countdown to August 13th begins {and watching their planes fly to their destinations through flight aware.com}!
This was taken after their “bucket” shower and dressed in their travel outfit.
Knit1Kids4 