Catching Up

I am a little behind on updating about our day to day life.  This post will cover the past two weeks.  Week before last Cruz was on a school break.  They were out for 1.5 weeks.  He had missed several days of school when he was sick last month so his teacher sent all of his work home for him to complete over the break.  Needless to say it was not much of a "break" for Cruz.  He had over 30 sheets of make-up work to complete!  Most of it was handwriting which was a lot of fun for both of us- not. ha. The one thing I am not going to miss about Cruz being in national school is the amount of homework he has every.single.day! 

Cruz writing his cursive letter "b" with the vowels

I decided to take advantage of that time also and do a little schooling of my own.  I did a mini VBS with the boys several mornings.  I did an Obedience theme with them.  We studied Daniel, Jonah, Esther, and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo.  We learned about how each of them obeyed God.  We read stories about them, sang songs about them, and had coloring sheets for each lesson.  It was a lot of fun and the boys learned a lot. 

 

Here are the boys coloring sheets from our VBS. 

I also did a science lesson with them.  We went on a  "color walk" around our neighborhood.  I took a box of crayons and the boys had to find something that matched each color.  When we returned home I had them use those crayons to draw what they saw.  Here is Cruz's paper.  I thought he did an excellent job!  They have asked several times since to do it again.  


One day we studied all about owls.  We read stories about them and watched several you tube videos about them.  It was very fun and interesting for the boys.  Afterwards we made this craft.  I ran out of brown paint so we had to use crayons for the wings, ha.

We spent some time also reading and writing for Cruz's phonics homework.  I worked in his school work with ours fun work and that made it more enjoyable.  It was like a small glimpse into our home school future.  

Thursday before last we traveled to Muyurco for Bible study. Rafael, a believer from a nearby village went with us.  He is also David's helper at the Bible study in Nearar.  He did a great job of leading music and encouraging the people there.  We hope to have him join us more in the future. 

Rafael ("Rafa"), David, and Cruz hiking the trail in Muyurco

Little Ben a.k.a. Batman hiking the trail in Muyurco

I shared in another post about our long weekend in Jocotan doing some work training so I'll fast forward to this past Wednesday.  We traveled up the mountain to Tunuco Arriba for our weekly Bible classes in the school there.  Wednesday is a long day for us.  We leave early for the two hour (one-way) drive to the village.  We have two back to back classes in the school, and then travel two hours back down the mountain home.  We are usually exhausted by the time we get back.

some of the children at the  Tunuco Arriba Bible class

Mrs. Diana did a review of the Creation story.  She made a review game for the kids to participate in.  They had to come up and attach the strings from the day to the correct picture of what was created on that day.  It was a lot of fun for the kids.

Creation review game

Here are the boys with Mrs. Diana and Javier in Tunuco Arriba.  Javier travels with us most weeks and does some visitation and prayer walking in the village while we have class.  He is a fluent Chorti speaker and loves the Lord.

When we got down the mountain Mrs. Diana invited us in for lunch.  We gathered around her table with her Chorti Bible translation team and enjoyed a delicious meal together.

Homemade soup and tortillas.  Yum!

We had Bible study again in Muyurco on Thursday afternoon but I did not take a single photo.  We were surprised this week to find about 20 smiling faces waiting for us when we arrived at the creek to park our car.  Most were from a neighboring village.  They hiked the trail with us and joined in on our Bible study time.   We had a great afternoon together.

The rest of my free time this week has been working on my home school room.  Because we have a hotel next door we have decided to turn our spare bedroom into a school room instead of a guest room.  We will definitely get more use out of it that way.   It is coming together nicely and is making me very excited about starting school in just a few short weeks.  Here is a little peek at it so far.  I'll post more pics when I'm done.

I'll leave you with this picture that I snapped on a recent drive into town.  We used to have a different circus come through Chiquimula on a regular basis but it's been seven months now since we have seen one.  Cruz asks me all the time when is the circus coming back.  You can imagine our surprise when we spotted this large group setting up in a field near the center of town.  Cruz and I squealed!  ha  I am not sure if we'll squeeze in a visit over the weekend or not, but I am certain we'll be visiting it in our near future.  I cannot wait.  Our family loves the circus!

We are excited about the holiday weekend.  We do not have a whole lot planned but we will take some time to cookout and celebrate America. More than anything else I plan to spend a lot of time over the weekend specifically praying for America.  I feel like what America needs most right now is prayer.  Would you join me in taking time out of your celebration to spend some time in prayer for our Country?  Have a safe and enjoyable weekend everyone!