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 Also, curriculum can be outdated and confusing for the kids at times.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.
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!
It has been just a little over a week since we had Zeke's big 2 year bash. We had a wonderful time and even managed to wear Zeke out by the end of the day! Zeke got really into the festivities this year by being able to open his own presents and get in on some of the games. He has even spent the last week singing his own little version of the birthday song. We feel really blessed to be surrounded by such good friends and family that made for such a special day. Scott made a video that sums up all the fun...
What an experience I had the other day!As part of our language learning program, in lieu of a formal track specifically for foreigners (which doesn’t exist in this country), our team has been finding creative ways to get deeper exposure to the language.Some of them started attending local grade schools, so I asked our neighbor, who is 11, if he knew of one I could attend in our neighborhood.I was aiming, with the many local adults who haven’t finished school, to join an adult night school program.Instead, the neighbor’s 16 year old brother came over and offered to ask his principal if I could join him.Sure enough permission was lined up and at 7:50 this morning, I became an 11th grader again!Katie couldn’t go as schools here are separated by gender.After I thanked the principal, we marched up to the second floor of the 3-story-tall high school.The first class was math where the students learned all about mean, median and mode: nawendi, nawrasti and baw.It struck me, as I caught bits and pieces of the lesson,that I learned these things in 6th grade in the States.These kids only attend school 4 hours a day, and that in shifts—some in the morning, some in the afternoon—and they cram in 13 subjects.To make that work, they have each subject maybe once or twice a week, and since each class lasts only 40 minutes, you can see why just now these 11th graders are learning about basic statistics.My conclusion is this: there are more schools and many more teachers needed!
After math came Arabic.Now, this might come as a shock to most of you, but I’m not, nor was I ever, what you would call “cool.”I still wear shirts I got 10 years ago (fortunately here they’re just coming into style).About half my jokes flop, and what I saw usually comes out fairly jumbled unless it is simple: me hungry, me tired, etc.But, I realized in Arabic class that I was becoming the buzz of the classroom in a good way.I remember in my high school the foreign kids kind of being made fun of.Of course I never did this, but it happened.So being wary of this reality, I tried to ignore their comments and listen. Meanwhile the entire class was talking over and generally being disrespectful of the teacher, who was growing angrier by the minute.He really was an angry guy.In our language there are a few ways to politely ask someone to be quiet, but he was saying to the class the equivalent of “SHUT UP!!” about every 2 minutes.My neighbor, who was sitting a few chairs in front of me saw me mouth “he’s really mad,” but didn’t understand what I was saying.So he got up to find out and when he sat back down, the teacher asked what I said!I could have slugged him, but my neighbor told the teacher that I thought he was really mad.The teacher was ready to slug me then, so he tried to embarrass me by trying to get me up in front of the class to speak in our language.I thanked him and said no, and then he came to where I was sitting to have a nice little talk and explain why he was angry. “If you’re not angry, they’ll eat you,” he said.I told him I had insulted him and apologized several times.Then after class I walked with the teacher a while and re-apologized.He wanted to know why I would sit in an Arabic lesson if I wanted to learn our host language (95% of the Arabic lesson was not in Arabic).I might skip next week and spent time with the principal instead.
After that, we were supposed to have a computer class, but a really nice and good teacher grabbed us and said, “Come to my history class.”He had me share a bit about me at the beginning and then did a 25 minute lecture on the 10 eras in local history.It was really informative and the students really respected him, in stark contrast to the Arabic teacher.After this was a cake walk for me as we had English.I did well in that one!Getting some new words and being able to affirm the teacher were highlights.Then we had “werzish,” or sports, class.My popularity soared and I felt like the Fonz!These guys gathered around me almost like they were going to gang-beat me, but were really nice and wanted to talk and joke around.The gym teacher was standing in the doorway with little concern for organizing anything so I asked if they wanted to play basketball; that was a dumb call on my part.They wanted to play full court but 3-on-3.I was a bit winded after the first minute of chasing these kids.I am a bad-to-average basketball player, but these guys were all in the horrid category.I felt pretty good out there—at least my missed shots were hitting some metal instead of air.Then we went inside, sweaty and hot, for another section of English.Afterwards they all were asking what I do so I told them about the LIFE Center.They brow-beat me with questions, and many were interested in coming to register—interesting when they hardly remember anything or show interest in their FREE English class at school.But after talked about the LIFE Center a guy asked me if I am Muslim or Christian.When I told him Christian, he asked me what is becoming a more common question, “Why wouldn’t you become Muslim?”This question has bothered me ever since I was asked it in a store down the street. My gut response is the opposite, how could anyone not want to be Christian?When I respond saying I have many reasons, they tend to revert to the defense they’ve been told all their lives.Who can blame them?I grew up with the societal right to choose, and I chose Christ for many, many reasons.And while my upbringing gave me the opportunity to choose Christ, He drew me to Himself. I am finding more and more that our host culture does not accept change in this area; the barrier isn’t so much with what to believe, but the acceptability of believing it.
We have had a busy last few weeks. We have had a ton of opportunity for practicing our language and for investing in new friendships. First, a few weeks ago, there was a big holiday here to celebrate the end of Ramadan, the month where the people here fast from food and water during daylight hours. Its an exhausting time for many so they are very ready for some fun times with family and friends, and of course, lots of food! We did a marathon of visits during the week and even enjoyed lunch with two different families. Zeke was great and fully engaged in the visits through trying to help serve tea and getting into everything he possibly could! The good news is that the people just eat up everything that he does! Through this week we also got to visit two different family friend's of ours who recently had babies. It was great to be able to congratulate them during such a joyous time in a family's life. I had forgotten just how little newborns are and just how much work! It is good for us to see, once again, what we've got coming up! It was also interesting to see Zeke, who is usually so independent, both interested and jealous of me holding a baby!
We've also been able to have some general visits these last couple weeks. Our house has been very busy as we've had multiple families over. Our neighbor's children all came over (spanning from age 12-24) the other night and played video games and had pizza. Its all boys except for one girl and her and I, though difficult at times, we able to have a very nice conversation. We also had some good friends come over for dinner last Friday. I made them sweet and sour chicken, with a cherry pie, along with a few of their own cultural traditions. I could tell it was different for them, but they seemed to enjoy it. I was so exhausted after the whole week that I actually dreamed all night in the language we've been studying!
We have really come to a point where we are getting more comfortable with many of the friendships we have built and are really enjoying these social times. It took some time to figure out what was expected of us when we visit someone, as well as how to make them comfortable when they visit us. Now that we've got a few of these things figured out we have really been able to enjoy ourselves and get to know our friends better. We really feel like this is home and are glad to be here!
Everything is going well with the baby. I had a check up last week and our little guy is measuring right on track and is as active as can be. I love being able to feel him kick and spin around, especially while he still small enough that it doesn't hurt! We are just over half way now and are really getting anxious to meet him. Many people ask me if Zeke gets that he's going to have a baby brother. He can answer the question "where is mommy's baby" by pointing to my stomach, but I'm pretty sure that its all pretty lost on him for now. Fortunately, once the baby comes I'm sure it will kick in pretty fast! This Friday we are also very excited to celebrate Zeke's 2nd birthday! We are celebrating two days early since Fridays are the best for any sort of party. Considering all of our teammates, the short term team that will be out visiting us and all of our invited guests, its looking like its going to be a pretty big bash! We were able to find Zeke an amazing birthday present that we cannot wait to give him...more to come on that, along with pictures, after the big event. For now, have a great week!
We have been back home and settled in for about a week now. We had some pretty major jet lag to overcome, but with time and commitment to not letting ourselves sleep much during the day, we pulled through it around day 5. We are happy to be back home, in our own beds, and back with our friends here. We have started back up with our language studies and have hit the books with a renewed vigor! After saying all that, I wanted to share a bit about our process in getting back here last week.
We arrived at the Chicago airport during the evening only to find the unexpected...no lines! We walked right up to the counter and handed over all of our passports. Scott asked the guy who was helping us "I'm sure there aren't any more available, but if possible could we get a bulkhead seat..." When we tried to set this up in Jordan, the night BEFORE our flight left, we were basically laughed at. However, to our great surprise and joy he told us there was one available. Plus, our flight that could hold about 250 passengers was only bringing back around 80! We were thrilled that it would not be like our packed out flight coming. So, we got through security with relative ease and started making our way to the gate, with only about 30 minutes of our 3 hour wait having passed. As we made our way down the corridor we found the most wonderful thing....a little play area for kids! It was one of these areas that teaches kids about the dangers around them, but it had lots of things that he could touch and play with, plus it was a contained area, so we could just sit and watch him play. After a little while another little girl came with her mom and the two of them played together for a little bit while us parents talked.
Finally we boarded our very empty plane and settled into our wonderful bulkhead seats. After a nice chicken dinner they gave us a bassinet for Zeke to sleep in. He was too big for it so we put it on the floor and he settled into it with his legs hanging out the end. He likes to be contained, though, so it wasn't too long before he fell fast asleep. It was probably about midnight central time. Zeke stayed down for about 4 hours and when he was awake he was happy to sit with us or play on the floor. The time passed quickly and we even made it in half hour early!
So, after our wonderful flight we were getting our baggage when an airline employee came and asked us if we were transit. We told him yes and he promptly escorted us to a counter where we could recheck our bags for the next mornings flight AND escorted us to a shuttle that took us to the hotel that we would stay at overnight for free! The hotel was a little creepy, but clean enough and comfortable. Zeke and I were up most of the night, but survived on snacks and Thomas the tank engine videos. Our short flight the next morning was just as uneventful and we were greeted at our landing by our friends Darrell and Cheryl.
Our friends drove us home only to discover that someone had been in our house...doing all sorts of improvements! Our fearless leader, Darrell, had put his handy man skills to use while we were gone by installing towel bars, a lattice for our grape vine, and even covering up some ugly cement in our bathroom with nice white paint. There were several other wonderful things he did and it was a wonderful way to come home! We are very blessed to have such good friends here and it made us feel as though we were missed and they wanted us to come back!
The only small downside to our homecoming was the discovery of a new tenant in our home....a mouse! He came across the floor as we were cooking dinner and we have yet to track him down! However, he will be dealt with in good time. Overall we are thrilled to be back and have even had a few catch-up visits with a few friends, including one who just had a baby about a week ago. So, back to the grind of real life and looking forward to our next adventure...our next baby! Who, by the way....is a boy!
We just completed a week of rest and relaxation in the beautiful Petra, Jordan. It was a much needed break for our greater team (from 5 different areas we all gathered) and a good time of spiritual, emotional, and physical renewal. We had friends from Lancaster, PA join us to bring the Word, encouragement as well as share their many talents with us, and we also had friends from Sheboygan, WI join us to help do a vbs for our kids and help with child care. The week would have been very different and definitely not as fulfilling if all these folks hadn't come, so thank you to all that came and those that supported them and made it possible!
We had a great time filled with laughter and tears, and many good memories were made. Each morning we would come together for fellowship and a message, then most afternoons were fun in the sun and for the evenings we would have activities like the talent/no talent night, survivor and other fun and games. I've included a picture of Scott dressed as a woman for a challenge in our survivor game! We also had a great time catching up with friends that we only see once a year. Overall it was a huge blessing. The kids all wore themselves out through play with each other and having lots of fun activities during their vbs time.
Last year we went to this same location and Zeke was terrified of the pool. This year we almost couldn't keep him out of it. He was still somewhat hesitant at times, but overall enjoyed splashing around and playing with the other kids in the pool.
Another funny experience was that Zeke was once again very comfortable with the local people. The funny part is that he thought they were the people from our area so he kept speaking our local language to them instead of arabic. They kept asking me what he was saying! Another interesting thing was that we discovered that Zeke has an amazing memory for names! He learned almost all of the kid's names and would use them whenever he saw one! Not bad for being just shy of 22 months! Zeke made friends with the man who ran the bar by the pool and was able to scam juice for not only himself, but for his little friend B as well!
I think a fun thing to do, when possible, is to go from one amazing time to another...and we get to do that be heading to the states! My brother is getting married so we will head back for that as well as some connecting with friends and family. It will be a packed time, but I am so glad that we had this first so that we aren't showing up to our families as completely wiped out people! I will try and blog once or twice while we are there, but I promise nothing! We will be back in action by mid-September, so if you don't check back here often plan on checking back in at that time and I'm sure we'll have lots to share!
We are currently trying to get ourselves organized and tie up all loose ends as we prepare to travel to Jordan for a week of relaxation and recuperation with our larger team before traveling on to the states for some time with family and friends. It was been a good, but long summer and we are definitely ready for some get-away time. Zeke has been without some of his little buddies these past couple weeks and I think he is ready to have a whole hoard of playmates as our team is inundated with children!
This summer has been full of busyness and adventure. We have had the pleasure of going on several picnics, we have connected with new friends, hosted events with our short term workers that were here for the summer, prepared our new center location and much much more! Oh,and we've studied some more language!
Our short termers were a great help as they pretty much ran the courses that we offered at our center and freed us up to study and just connect with this class of students. Coffee shop nights were packed out and laid back this summer, which made for fun Thursday nights. Zeke enjoyed running around all evening during them and getting his fill of cake and soda. We hosted our very first girls only event where we played games, ate yummy snacks and learned to make a bracelet. I think it was as much a blessing to us as it was to the women we invited. I have a hunch that there will be more events like this in the future! We also had a group of 3 men come from Oregon specifically to help with some minor construction on our new center. They have been a huge blessing and have prepared the way for our big move to the new building at the end of this week. We will have our first set of classes beginning at the end of Ramadan. We couldn't have done it without helpers like these!
Zeke made the most of the summer by running around as much as he could ( and getting as sweaty as he could in this heat ), playing in the water every chance he got, eating fun summer treats like ice cream and icees, playing on his horsy and getting as much attention as he possibly could from our neighbors and friends! One night at coffee shop when the eletricity went out he showed off his command of the language to everyone as he shouted out "karaba niya," which means "theres no electricy." Everyone got a good laugh out of it. Ah, what a kid!
So its been a full last few months for us, and we continue to be excited about what God is doing here. After we get back from the states we begin our last year of study and look forward to another full year here of building relationships, diving deeper into this crazy language and into 2010 welcoming a new addition to our family! Thats right...baby Wiggins #2 is expected in late February. So we have lots to look forward to as God leads us and shows us each step that He has for us as we do our best to walk in obedience to His will!
