Final Week

Finals week....not the favorite week of the school kids.  But after they get through this, they have the whole summer to look forward to.  This is the last week of school.  Graduation is on Thursday.  Everyone is getting quite excited for a break.  On Saturday we had the 8th Grade Graduation Banquet.  I can't believe that Emma will be in high school next year.  CRAZY!  I will have two high schoolers.  Friday night the high schoolers hosted a bonfire and invited the 8th graders to join so that they could all get to know each other.  That was a lot of fun.

Tomorrow Cale's class gets to go to a local restaurant to make pizzas, and then they will go to the pool to swim.  He is so excited about that.  Wednesday all of the middle schoolers (Grades 6-8) will hike to the waterfall, swim, have lunch and then hike back. The mountain right behind the Hostel, Mt. Cyclops, has some beautiful waterfalls.  I will be going with them and will take some pictures for you to see.  

Right now you can put people here into one of two catergories-those staying and those leaving.  Many are going to their home country because they have a child graduating and starting college.  Some are going for the the summer but will be back.  Some are not coming back.  And then there are those of us that are staying here all summer.  It is amazing how much things change here during the summer.  It gets so quiet.  It actually takes us awhile to adjust to it. It is good, we just aren't used to a new sound-- silence.  Haha.

Hope you are all well, and enjoying all the green shoots popping up around you.  The Earth is coming to life!  I love that!

Here are some pictures from Emma's graduation, and a dorm party we had honoring our Graduates.  It was a feast-stromboli, veggie salad, fresh fruit salad, real pretzels from Timika, homemade ice cream, with homemade caramel and chocolate sauce. YUM!

Cooling Off and Winding Down

Well, the kids only have 11 1/2 more days of school.  When it comes down to the end it is often hard to stay focused and keep trying.  We are encouraging them not to give up. There are quite a few events packed in to these last two weeks.  Tomorrow is the Elem./Middle School Spring concert.  Saturday is the Junior/Senior banquet. Next week is the band concert and then 8th grade banquet and Graduation, then finals and High School Graduation.  We just had our High School Sports Awards night.  I am so proud of these kids.  They won all kids of awards.  Yohan got a participation award for soccer, Wyatt won best offensive player for soccer.  Arnold won best defensive player for soccer.

Wyatt was sick all last week with a stomach bug that he is still having trouble with, so today I am starting him on an antibiotic.  Garth has been sick since last Thursday.  We started out thinking it was dengue because he had many of the symptoms but we don't know for sure.  His blood work showed his numbers were right on the border of maybe having dengue or maybe not.  He is feeling better today, but spends most of his days in bed.

We have been trying to squeeze in as much fun "family" bonding time as we could. These adventures usually include some way to cool off from this crazy heat.  Of course we fit in a trip to Amay, one of our favorite beaches.  But we have also found a few places to swim in the lake by our house.  The latest spot we found is right by the airport.  It is such a nice treat to be able to cool off.  

Spring should be on its way to you soon.  I know some of you just had hail and tornadoes, but hopefully sunshine and colorful blossoms will soon surround you.  How encouraging to know that it is not winter forever.

Hope your day is joyful.

Love

Rachel

Power

8th Grade sneak!  What a blast!  Parents surprised the 8th Graders while they are in school with a fun overnight getaway.  The other day the 8th graders thought they were going to PE class but we had other things planned for them.  We surprised them, got them out of school, drove them into Jayapura (1 hour away) to the Mall for a scavenger hunt, games, dinner, an overnight in a mission guesthouse.  Then on Friday we took them to the lake for a day of tubing, wake boarding etc.  They had SO much fun!  Way better than school I heard.  Haha.

As a dorm we had planned to go to the beach on Saturday but so many of the kids were wiped out, and sun burnt that we decided to wait a week.  The plan is to go this week instead.

Happy May Day!  It is coming fast!  School is out May 28th.  There are a lot of activities planned between now and then.  For me a lot of them involving food.  I am helping out with quite a few of the events, cooking the food.  I really enjoy that.  Tomorrow we have no school and have Track and Field day.  There is a mission school a short plane ride away and they are coming to join us in an all school event.  The High School kids are mixed in with the younger grades and help them with the various activities of the day.

One of our dorm girls brought us a Cassowary egg from her village.  It was huge.  Have you ever seen one?  Well, I cooked it up and it filled up my largest skillet.  This one egg easily fed 8 kids.  Crazy!

One thing you get quite used to here is the power going off.  Sometimes it is only off for a few seconds, but other times it is off for quite awhile.  Things

 don't work the same here as they do in America.  There isn't enough power for everyone to be on at the same time.  So, the power company decides who gets power and who doesn't, and will just randomly shut things off.  Funny how it doesn't stop anything.  If the pastor is preaching, or a teacher is teaching or we are eating dinner...life just goes on.  I am so very thankful it is not like that with God.  He never says, "Hey, I don't have enough power to help all of you at the same time, so just sit tight and wait.  I will come back to you."  Ha.  Just the opposite.  He tells us He is there just waiting for us to let Him help, to let Him be our strength.  The fullness of His power is available to all of us, all the time, at any time.  So, why do we try to live life in our own strength?