summer break and back to school

 

Summer break was mostly spent relaxing and enjoying not having to get up early and being more of a relaxed schedule.  The kids spent a lot of time on the playground and finding trouble like all young kids will do.  We did a couple of special things with the kids so they could get away from the village and see a bit of the island.  The first was a trip just our family.  There was a fellowship with another church in our denomination in Cebu that invited us to join them for a couple of days.  We where gone about a week.  We spent three days in the town of the church a couple of days for the fellowship and then a day with some family while Jonah went to another island for a meeting.  When he returned from the meeting we went back to Cebu city and spent a night and two days there.  We celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary as a family enjoying some nice meals out and did some shopping for clothes that the kids and I (Jessica) needed.  We took a late ferry and arrived home late at night.  I am thankful that I have kids that have been trained to sleep anywhere.  The second outing was for all of  us.  We went to a resort on our island that has several pools to swim in.  We went with some friends of ours and the orphanage. The kids enjoyed spending the day in the pool.  Once they all got in the water it was hard to get them out.  They would not even come out for the promise of food.  We spent about five hours there at least three or four of which was spent swimming.  This was a week or so before school started.  We started trying to get back into the school schedule that last week and boy is that hard.  The kids where excited to go back to school and see their friends again but getting up early is not easy.  June 4 is our first day of school this year.  We have four kids at the local public school, one that is homeschooled and three that are still to young for school.  The first plan for the year was to have five at the local public school and none homeschooled but Faith struggled the first couple of weeks and came home crying at least three times so have decided homeschool is better for her.  Precious is in 5th grade and almost ten years old.  Faith would have been in the second grade but will do that at home.  She will be six next month.  We are homeschooling her with a curriculum that is provided by a private school that is run by a pastor friend of ours.  Mickaela is in 2nd grade and turned 8 in March.  Andrew was going to start at preschool but they said age wise he belonged in kindergarten so we are trying it out and hope that he can learn and succeed.  He will be 5 in August.  So far he seems to be learning a lot and is growing by leaps and bounds.  Nathan is also in kindergarten and he will be six the end of October.  Faith's trouble at school comes from a fear of getting in trouble with a teacher I think.  All of the times she has come home crying was when other kids where talking to her when they where not supposed to be and she thought she might be in trouble with the teacher because they where talking to her.  I also think it is harder for her to focus in a group of so many kids.  She is my social butterfly and would rather talk and be a part of everything around her whenever possible.  We have to have her in a quite room at home when she is doing her work otherwise she is distracted by everything around her.  She is bright but distracts easy.

 Here they are ready for their first day.

 Mark wants to go to school to

 

 

 

Often when the other kids leave for school he will grab a small backpack and want a paper and pencil and snack for his bag and will try to follow all the kids to school.  He will get mad at me if I do not let him go.  He even knows some of the teachers names and will tell us who his teacher is.  Most often he wants to go with the grade six teachers.

 

 



school transportation

 

We do not  have nice yellow school buses that come to pick the kids up.  Most days the kids walk to school.  Not to worry it is not far from where we live.  On rainy days or days that are wet then one of the wonderful menfolk will drive the kids to school in our topdown.  It is most often used for hauling water but kids fit well to.  There is Mark with his bag.  He will often ride to drop his ate and Kuyas off to school. 

 

Andrew in uniform.  We did not think he was going to kindergarten so was not in uniform in the

first pictures.

 

 

 

Thanks for coming on this journey with us and God bless.