an education...

We have had the opprotunity over the past couple of months to visit a small, village school that is just outside of our city. These visits were both very enlightening and tiring! This particular school is currently meeting in what is supposed to be a house, so their classrooms are small and they have to run a tight schedule in moving teachers around to the different rooms in order to get all subjects covered for the kids. Classes run about 45 minutes long and students seem eager to learn. The style of learning here is through rote memorization, so information is presented and then students are expected to go home and review that lesson, memorize its information, and relay it back to the teacher through a class review or through a test.

Most American kids would be thrilled with the information I am about to share, but here it is a self perpetuating problem: kids only go to school for about 4 hours a day. Often when teachers can't make it in to school, there are no substitutes. Also, curriculum can be outdated and confusing for the kids at times. However, from what we saw, the teachers are doing their very best to invest in these children. I was very impressed by the level of encouragement the teachers gave to the students and how excited the kids were to participate. I'm sure not all schools are like this, but we really appreciated what was going on at this school while working with the circumstances they have in place.

It was so cute how the kids kept sneaking looks back at us and smiling shyly. We also got to offer small bits of help during the English classes. We all kept our coats on the whole time since these building are made of cold concrete and the temperatures are beginning to drop. Scott shared previously about going to a high school, so now that we have been to a primary school we look forward to maybe seeing a middle school in the future. Like all school systems in the world, there is always room for development, and here is no exception. With everything these people have been through in their past, as I look around at the little faces of these young children I do see a hope for the future. As some of the tragic events of the past get further and further from each new generation, there are opportunities for people to enact change and to make this country what they want for it to be. We are so thankful to be a part of this process and to be here amongst these people.

Family Fun :-)

Recently we have been trying to find unique ways to spend our family time. It is so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life and allow family time to become an extra day to get things done around the house. Therefore, one of our recent activities was a family hike near some mountains in our area.

It was an absolutely beautiful day. Cool enough to wear a jacket, but warm enough that once we got moving we wanted to shed those jackets! Zeke got the easy ride on Dad's back while Scott and I maneuverd the tricky terrain. We've been getting alot of rain lately so it was nice to get out between showers enough that the ground was hard enough to walk on with out sinking down. We saw lots of animals (including a cow that didn't seem to have a home) and many beautiful views. We even found what appeared to be a very old cemetary. The place we went is translated a thousand husbands...we have wondered for sometime how it got that name and we have begun to wonder if maybe there was a battle here where many men lost their lives. One gravestone in a newer section of the cemetary was marked that i'ts occupant's death was as a martyr. Bopefully someday we will discover some real information about this place, but for now it was a very intriguing find!

We also decided that Zeke is old enough to help with some things around the house. So we had a family cookie bake last week. Zeke loved it! He got to dump in all the ingredients and stir everything up to make some delicious chocolate chip cookies. His favorite part was definitely eating them at the end. The main challenge in including a 2 year old in this kind of activity is that they don't contextualize. This wasn't to be a one time event for Zeke, therefore, he thinks that everytime mom is in the kitchen that it is his duty to pull a chair in from the dining room and help with whatever I am making! I appreciate his

efforts, but at this time his "help" is really more of a hinderance, as you can imagine! It is wonderful, though, to see how much he is growing and changing all the time and how many new things he can do in participating in family activities! I guess he really isn't a baby anymore!

As it happens often this time of year our entire household came down with a pretty nasty illness. We don't know if it was possibly h1n1 or not, but what we do know is that it was miserable! Zeke had a fever for a week straight! It was very strange to see my active little boy wanting to do nothing but sit in my lap and moan! It was especially difficult because I was sick as well! However, we all got through it and it was so rewarding at the end to see Zeke's smile and energy return, along with his precotious nature for getting into trouble!

Zeke recently had a couple of new milestones. One was his first birthday party that wasn't for him! It was hard for him to accept that this day with its presents and cake wasn't all about him! He had a good time, though, and really got into the birthday games. Another big milestone for him was moving from a crib into his big boy bed. We were really nervous about this transition, but Zeke did beautifully. The first morning he was so proud to come strutting into our bedroom to let us know that he was awake! Since that first morning, though, he has learned to stay in his bed and wait for us to come and get him. With these recent rainy days he has even fallen back to sleep until late since his room was still dark!

We feel so blessed by God to have a good, healthy family. When the hard times hit we still know how to count our blessings because God has given us so many good things. We are starting to get very excited to meet the newest member of our family, as we are just a week shy from entering the final trimester of this pregnancy. I'm sure the time will go very fast since we have several holidays to look forward to and then we are off to Jordan where we will meet our new little guy. Our prayer for this holdiay season is that God would use us in whatever way He sees fit and that our life and example would be one that is honoring to Him as we invite friends over to celebrate with us. Feel free to contact us...we love hearing from you and knowing what is happening in the lives of families stateside. Have a great week and happy Thanksgiving!