First week

I can't believe we have been here for a week already. There is so much to take in! Monday we finally got to take an official tour of campus. The tour took most of the morning and we were able to hear some of the back story of how this ministry came to be. But even the tour only just scraped the surface of everything here. There is still so much more to see and learn. We are slowly becoming familiar with where things are at in town (and where the beaches are so we can escape the heat temporarily). I've even gotten brave enough to go to the grocery store with multiple kids without Gabe right there with me for moral support! It's starting to feel a bit like home.

Gabe has already begun spending his days at the school, even though classes don't resume until the end of the month. He is familiarizing himself with the curriculum and setting up his classroom the way he would like. The kids have all been over to the school a couple of times to *help* Gabe and are becoming a bit more familiar with the school setup. Gabe has met several of the teachers, but not all of them yet. Some of the teachers are Spanish speaking and others are English speaking. Kids are put into classes according to their ability. They want the orphanage kids to be bilingual, so for kids that have been there long enough, they can be put into entirely English speaking classrooms for school (except for an hour of Spanish a day). For kids that are newer to the orphanage, they start off in Spanish speaking classrooms but spend an hour a day learning English. Our 4 oldest girls will all be in English speaking classrooms and will receive an hour of Spanish a day. We are doing something a little different for Eli however. There is an all Spanish kindergarten class, but it is only half days. Eli is ready for longer than that, so the principal has arranged for Eli to spend the first half of each school day in the all Spanish class, and then he will move to an English K/1st grade classroom for the afternoon. I'm excited to see how much Spanish Eli picks up over the course of this year!

While Gabe is working at the school I am trying to keep up with all the laundry and housework my kids create. One of my hardest tasks right now is keeping shoes on Eli. That boy is constantly taking off his shoes and leaving them all over the compound here. He completely lost his tennis shoes on Monday somewhere over by the visitor's center (still haven't found them!) and there have been multiple times were we had to spent 15 minutes or more just to locate where he left his sandals. The day after he lost his tennis shoes, one of his flip flops broke. Since we only travelled down here with two pairs of shoes each, we simply glued his flip flop back together. It lasted for a day and then broke again in a different way. So we glued it again and a day later it broke again. So we finally went to the clothing warehouse here on campus and fortunately they had some sandals his size. He's only misplaced his new sandals about 6 times since we got them 3 days ago....silly boy!

Things have been a little different on the compound this week, as the orphanage kids spent Tuesday through Friday at "the pools" for family camp. "The pools" is a set of 3 swimming pools about 15 minutes (on dirt roads) northwest of the orphanage. It is completely in the middle of nowhere! The orphanage kids camp there in tents with the houseparents and other staff. They divided the kids up into 4 teams and had a week long competition to see which team could earn the most points in various silly games. The winners each received their own Ramen noodle cup (and the kids were excited about it!) I took our kids out to the pools on Wednesday and we watched some of the activities and then joined the kids when it was time for swimming. I could tell my kids were overwhelmed with it all though. After all, they were surrounded by approximately 70 kids (plus adults) who were all speaking Spanish! But on Friday, all of the staff was encouraged to come out for the last day of the camp, so we all went out again. It again was overwhelming, but not quite as bad as the first day we were there. I think this next week things will return to normal at the orphanage, so I hope to take my kids and visit one casa at a time (the orphanage kids are split up between 7 "homes") and let my kids interact with the orphanage kids in a less overwhelming manner.

Overall, we are adjusting pretty well. The hardest part about being here has been not knowing the language. Even though we have been trying to familiarize ourselves more with Spanish since we found out we would be coming down here, they speak SO fast that it is hard to catch much of anything. But we are grateful for the English speakers that live around us. I'm especially appreciative of the English speaking kids that live in the duplex area. They have been very welcoming to our children and I think it has made the transition for them a bit easier to handle.

We continue to be thankful for this opportunity. It is not easy being so far from home. It is very frustrating trying to understand what other people are saying (and trying to BE understood as well!) And it has been HOT here this week and we don't have air conditioners! But sometimes the things that are good for us are not always easy. God continues to meet our needs and give us encouragement when we begin to feel discouraged. We know God called us here for the year and are excited to see what this next week brings. Thank you to everyone who is financially supporting us or praying for us during this time. We are grateful to you!