It has been lovely to enter the cooler season. The days are warm, and the evenings are cool. After months of not wearing pants, I do start to long for them. Today is the first day that I actually am able to comfortably wear them through the whole day. (It's because it's cloudy.) Also with the cooler season brings teams of people. :) We have just sent off our first team of the season this morning. Now the challenge will be to figure out a new schedule for our family life that will keep us healthy as a family and couple. I am looking forward to our future move into a home December 1st. It will make the scheduling much easier to stick to. I really think I have to literally draw up a week poster of who is doing what. lol
Brian has been super busy with his Spanish classes. 5 days of the week he spends 1 1/2 hours with Maestra Dolores. Cole also has a class with her, and we are looking at adding another one for him. I just love that Dolores is both a English and Spanish teacher. She has become more than a teacher. She truly cares for both Brian and Cole. This last week has been a busy one involving Cole's school and our concerns with it. We have found that his teacher didn't know what to do with Cole and what she did with him was give him 5 Spanish words a day. (I honestly don't know if this is true, as I didn't see or hear of this until she told us.) So we had come to the conclusion that Cole was wasting 4 hours a day with her and that he would learn more being at home than continuing with her. Also we had brought up a concern we had with how another student was being treated. We had asked if she knew that this boy was being beat on daily. Her response "he is a bad boy, deserves everything he gets". Our hearts broke. Cole had been standing up for his boy, defending him. Even when he would get in trouble with his teacher for doing this. There is more to the story, but so hard to get into words. None the less, she was good, and everyone else had something wrong with them. Not the learning environment Cole needs to be in. Our end result has been to take Cole out of his class and focus more on his homeschooling. I am excited to take this on. I love that I have a great teacher to help with both his English and Spanish. Mason will be staying in his class, for his school is on a different location and his teacher is wonderful. Oh I want to share what Cole had been telling me. This boy that has been having trouble, is a friend of Cole's and happens to be our neighbor. He was telling me how he had been sharing with Louis the love of Christ and had been asking Louis if he has Jesus in his heart. He is our little missionary.
The Fatima food program has been doing well. We have faithful volunteers and a regular crowd of 100 kids. Donna (American volunteer) and I had been talking the other day about how crazy 75 kids was at first, and now when the numbers are that low it is so quiet. We have found that 100-125 is the number that works well for Fatima, and that we are able to do the program well. I have to admit that we really have worked our selves out of a job. We fill in when there are extra hands needed in the youngest class or organizing the kids. But because the teachers are committed and the kitchen ladies are aplenty, it is functioning well. Maricela organizes the lessons, and gets the supplies together for the crafts for the classes. It makes it super easy for the teachers and the kids are memorizing scripture well! We had a gathering time for an open mike for the kids to recite their verses. (proudly!!) We all cheered them on. :) Brian and I have been looking at Fatima and asking ourselves as well as God "what next?" Brian has vision for the area, and as time goes by and people come into his life. The pieces have been coming together. It is always a process, but one thing we know is that our God isn't a rushed God. But when it's the time to do something, than we need to do it now!! Prayer for Brian and where God is leading him.
We said good-bye to our friends, Randy, Donna and Annie this last Sunday. They unexpectedly left 2 weeks early than we were expecting. It is hard to so say good-bye to friends, but I am so glad for heaven. What an awesome God!! Which god would put together a place that we would be able to reunite with our fellow brothers and sisters? My God does! It makes me excited for heaven.
May God Bless you! May everything you do, do it with purpose.
