thankful...

So I know I'm a little late on the whole Thanksgiving blog post thing and should therefore get minus a blog demerit or something, but better late than never, right?

Last week (Wednesday) was our last day of Term 1 (3 terms in all). The kids flew off to meet their parents wherever they are and started a month-long break to relax, spend time with families, spend time in their African home countries, and be refreshed before starting another term here in early January. I am so thankful for each of my students and the time they're about to have with their family, as well as a nice month-long break to catch up on the things I would love to be doing with non-teaching time.

Right before break (we call it vac (like "vacation") here, so that's probably how I'll refer to it from now on, just a heads up) the students put on all of their Christmas programs - the band concerts and the titchie (elementary) Christmas play. They were all absolutely incredible, especially considering they were done in Africa, and I could kick myself for not getting pictures of it all since the kids looked so great all dressed up! However, my neighbor did get some pictures of the titchies doing their play...

The kids were officially all gone by Thursday afternoon, which left us to celebrate Thanksgiving in a much calmer atmosphere than there otherwise would've been. This was my first Thanksgiving away from my parents - away from either Wisconsin or Houston, away from the family gathering around and arguing over who cooks the cornbread dressing, away from seeing all of my cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents, away from our little family traditions that you don't really notice until they're not there anymore.

And while it was missing a lot, there was also much that I didn't miss. The only things I ever eat on Thanksgiving are rolls, turkey, cornbread dressing, and green bean casserole. And that's exactly what I ate here, and it was GOOD! Plus I'm in Africa, of all places to be away from my family, I think this place wins for the best. Plus I was with some friends from college that came in for the conference here, which was sweet, and the family we ate with is one of my favorites here, so I was surrounded by people I love. I am so thankful that it was an overall wonderful alternative to my traditional Thanksgiving.

And I'm sure all of you know and agree that Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiving without watching the Aggie game! So for weeks a couple other Aggies and I have been talking about trying to see if the game would be showing in Studie, the Student Lounge that plays sports games 24/7 on the small tv in there. Last week we figured out it'd be showing at 4 a.m., so true to Aggie spirit, Jamie and I woke up and met up with 2 other Aggie families and watched the Aggies play hard against that other team from Austin. It was an exciting game - exciting enough to keep us awake!! I am so thankful that we got to watch it. As silly as it sounds, it was so much fun and made us feel like we weren't quite the thousands of miles away as we were.
After the game I jumped into a van full of people to go to Nairobi and officially become a resident! We went to the immigration office and I got my E Permit and fingerprinted and it was disgusting and smelly, and I was exhausted beyond expression, but I was so thankful for this opportunity - I'm a Kenyan resident!! Who'd've though!

And lastly, we've been having an AIM-Kenya conference here at RVA since Thursday night, and it's actually been pretty great. We've learned a LOT about what AIM's doing in other parts of Africa and I've met a lot of missionaries that are serving in really hard places, and it's been incredible. Worship tonight was especially good and as I looked around, I realized how thankful I was for the priveledge to be in the same room as these men and women who have sacrificed so much to spread the Gospel in some of the most desperate places in the world. I am amazed at what God's doing here, and it is so good to meet some of His instruments!

Um, by the way, have I mentioned my Daddy's coming in 5 DAYS?? His flight is supposed to arrive Saturday night, in which case we'll be in Africa.. together.. for a week... WHOOP :)

Happy Thanksgiving a few days late y'all :)

Internet here has been a little wonky lately... being one of my excuses for not writing lately. Anyways, I have all sorts of goody good news today!

1) Daddy's coming in TWO WEEKS!!!! And not only that, but get this. For the past 3 weeks my 8th graders have been doing a project where they have to make a Hot Air Balloon Tour through 3 African countries. They have to make a brochure with all of the geography-type information (since it's geography class...), prices, dates, etc. And today they presented them to the class, giving hilariously amazing sales pitches. All through the presentations I thought "Boy, an African Balloon ride would be spectacular!!!"... and then Daddy emailed me and told me we're going on one!!! WHOOOOP! :) So expect some incredible pictures in about 3 weeks... because there are sure to be many!

2) Today I was the Mystery Reader for the 2nd grade class here. For those of you who don't know, I did my student teaching last semester in 2nd grade and that age has stolen my heart. I didn't know how much I missed it until I was with them today - and it was by far the highlight of my week. I miss teaching elementary school, but as I came home and prayed about it (I was a little sad.. missing it and all), I thought about how thankful I am to have the opportunity to get to know these 7th and 8th graders, because they make every day away from elementary school completely worth it. So praise God that I'm content, even out of my element.

3) I've had some individual donations for gifts for Kenyan kids here, and today I talked with Bernice, my house worker, and we decided to buy the Little Lambs kids shoes and sweatshirts for Christmas! We have a shopping trip planned for after school gets out sometime, and I'm just really excited about it! And praise God that He's bringing provisions for this! If you could see some of the shoes these kids run around in... it's incredible.

I feel like there was more, but it's not coming to me at the moment.

School's wrapping up - I give exams on Monday and then Tuesday we're playing games (Settlers, Ticket to Ride, fun things that somewhat have some vague thing to do with geography.. ;) ) and then Wednesday is a half-day and then it's BREAK! Actually, we have an AIM conference here at RVA for the few days after school and then teacher in-service, but THEN break!!

Surely I'll have more exciting things soon, but for now I'll leave you with some pictures of the happenings since I've last blogged...

Carnival Night - it was the weekend after Halloween. All of the kids dressed up - some incredibly crazy - and they had games and decorations and all sorts of fun stuff going on in the gym.

Some of my 7th graders
Some of my 8th graders...
Then a couple weeks ago we had the jr. high soccer tournaments. RVA ended up with 3 teams - an A team, B team, and then the "ragtag" team that was put together minutes before the tourney since another team dropped out. The A and B teams both lost in shootouts in the semifinals, but I was proud of the boys!

One of the titches (elementary kids) played.. it was super cute to watch!

And then last weekend Cassie and Jenny got packages with some fall stuff in it - Jenny got the leaves, Cassie got the baking goods, so we decided to have a little Fall Party. Right now the weather here is like Texas' spring, but even prettier! The trees are nowhere near changing colors, so since we were missing the Fall look, this was way more fun than you'd expect :)

There we go! Happy Friday everyone :)

Uncontainable

Two weeks worth of posting, so get ready.
A couple weeks ago - October 20th - we had one of the coolest days at RVA yet. It was Multicultural Day so - as you can probably figure out by the name - we celebrated the many cultures of RVA students and staff. Since it's a national holiday for Kenya and we're not allowed to have school, we decide to have a little celebration of our own. Kids dress up in their country's colors and paint their faces and wear crazy get-ups to show their spirit; classes perform songs in foreign languages (Spanish classes sing in Spanish, French classes sing in French, Swahili classes sing in.. you guessed it - Swahili!... etc.); Korean elementary students do some traditional Korean singing and dancing; and best of all, we have a flag ceremony. Countries of origin are determined by a student's passport country. For each passport country present, we have a flag. The oldest students from each country have the priveledge to carry the flag into the chapel as we sing their national anthem and listen to the cheering from fellow countrymen. It's reeeeally cool. This year there were 24 flags (I think?) represented - which is pretty incredible! We spent the rest of the day playing games, enjoying a student v. staff American Football game (IT WAS SO MUCH FUN TO WATCH!! I miss football a LOT...), and shooting off fireworks at night!

haha, he's one of my students...

Then two Saturdays ago - the 24th? - we had Pinewood Derby. This is the day everyone's been waiting for all term. For weeks now, we've heard announcements at least 3 times a day and students and some staff have been spending practically every free moment trying to make the fastest or coolest looking car possible. Even though I had high expectations due to the major hype, I was still blown away by the entire setup we had. There was a track that spanned about 70% the length of the basketball court with a camera set up at the end to have frame-by-frame replays in case it was a photo finish (which we had plenty of). These were played out on a projector screen along with updated scores and times. Hi-tech stuff here! The cars were beyond amazing! Each grade level had one Fastest Car, one Most Creative (I think?) and one Best Workmanship (or something?) and maybe some other awards... I skipped the awards ceremony so I don't really know actually. Either way, I was absolutely amazed and SO proud of my 7th and 8th graders!!







This weekend we had Class Night on Friday night where I hung out with my 7th graders all night and was in charge of the "Twister" station - right foot blue, left hand green, etc. - for an 1 1/2 hrs. We ate donuts and let the kids be as loud as they wanted. It's good for them :)

Then yesterday (Saturday) RVA hosted a soccer tournament so I helped out with that and watched all of the games and, for the first time in my life, truly LOVED watching soccer. It was super intense, and our boys did REALLY well, going undefeated in pool play and losing in the semis. Then last night was Caring Community, so we teamed up with 2 other groups and challenged them (actually they challenged us) in a photo scavenger hunt, and our 8th grade girls had a BLAST.

Needless to say, it's been busy here lately, and that's just the weekends! We have 3 1/2 weeks of school left in this term and then we have a little over a month off, so it'll be a great time to relax and get psyched up for next term!

And now I'll leave you with a breathtaking sunset, and these pictures aren't edited at all... it was ridiculously incredible.

On the right side of the picture you see Mt. Longenaut (sp?), a dormant volcano. Coooool :)