Dear friends and family,

   Well today i woke up early to help get lunch started and had a little extra time on my hands and decided to get this done or at least started i think i just posted one last Tuesday?? so i guess i pick up were i dropped of... well lets see Wednesday we had school and then we had our normal shopping trip. We had cottage meetings in the evening with a older couple that live close to were one of my school children live. Then that evening we went to go pick up 3 of Amanda's friends at the airport. We kinda made it a fun little trip by stopping for food on our way down. Thursday we had school,hot lunch and then in the evening we went to Sarah and Lori's place for supper and 7's. By the way 7's is the big game here that we (school teachers) play a lot when we get together...it can get pretty competitive!!

     Friday we had school. Actually Amanda took of today to hang out with her friends they went to the beach. They said it was fun but it was overcast so they didn't get a lot of sun. that evening we went to Pastor Johns for supper. Its so sad that was the last meal we will have at their place since they are leaving this Wednesday!! :( They have been here for around 12 to 15 years....They will be very sorely missed! That evening after supper we had girls club at our house since it was Natalie's turn to lead out..our house was packed!!! There we around 10 girls and 8 of us with Amanda's friends so 18 all together...

     Saturday we got up to rain. It has been raining a lot lately......Anyway around 9:30 it stopped a little and we walked out to the bus stop and while there waiting on a bus it started raining again. Anyway we went to town a shopped around for a while. It was fun to do some shopping finally i hadn't been in most of the stores we visited. It was kinda nice to get some Christmas shopping done....i cant believe that in a little more then a month its going to be Christmas!! We shopped for a few hours and then rode up in the bus again and hung out at our house eating lunch. Amanda had asked James to take up to a few sight seeing places that day so that her friends could see some of the island that you cant bus to. so anyway around 1 we took of to see two water falls and a lake which i had already seen but it was fun anyway...and then we went to go visit some wild mona monkeys that i think are going extinct but they still live in the wild they just aren't really wild you can feed them bananas and stuff. we got to see two of then..they were so cute! One of them liked me or something because he would keep jumping up on my shoulder...And no i didn't have any bananas. ;) we then went to town and ate close by the water. Afterward we walked of to a fort which when we got there had her gate locked so we sat in a gazebo out side and watched the sunset and a cruise ship leave.

pic. compliments of Lori

That evening we wanted to play volleyball up at the court with limes but then there was a big basketball tournament or something going on up there so we just stayed home and played games.. well that raps up my week so i guess i'll go get ready for church... Love Crystal
p.s. Lori and my paper work got rejected but it sounds like its not that big of a deal we just have to reapply and pay a little fee monthly to stay in the country.

      Well hello to all of you out there who is still persevering and reading these things i call blog post. Or maybe my journal gone public but then that sounds like i don't have a life and i would like to retain some dignity so i will say i am killing 2 birds with 1 stone.... keeping you all updated and taking record for my doing for my later in life enjoyment.

     Well it is nice and balmy here some rain through out the week but not as much as the forecast predicted. So that is always nice when you don't get your plans denture continuously by the rain falling on our roof. any way i guess i'll continue in like Crystal fashion and go through my days one day at a time. :)

     Monday: well lets see if i can remember what happened...Well if you remember we had a family over for Sunday lunch....Well the next day (Monday) Rebekah came to school with a envelope full of tea from her mother who got it in England! Let me tell you it is really good tea!And am still drinking it as she gave me quite a lot. So anyway that evening we had Shavoi over and since it was my turn to cook i tried making this hash brown, eggs stuff which turned out tasting nice but looked awful!:b but any way.

     Tuesday: We had school and one of my kids did art class for us he taught every one how to make boats and hats. He loved it since he is very much the creative type witch can also be challenging when paper airplanes go flying through the air doing class. That afternoon was kids club witch went pretty well. We then were invited over to Sarah and Lori's for supper and we stayed around some of the evening.

    Wednesday: School as usual. trip to town.

    Thursday: we had school and then we went up to Laura to here the revival speaker preach. That evening we were expecting to host one of Kendall and Gingers company a girl that actually goes to Natalie's church as well. But there flight was delayed till the next evening.

    Friday: Ya! no school. Natalie and the rest of us made donuts and we had the teachers over for coffee and donuts. So we had a nice relaxing morning!

It was so nice to have a break we went to the beach. That evening we (us single people) took Pastor John and Miss Rachel out for dinner because they are leaving the 19th of November. We went to a Chinese place and the food was great def. made a lot of memories that night as well. Well then after that Sheila our guest comes in and with her a whole bunch of cheese, coffee, and candy, and chocolate!!!! Man if you want to win us over let me tell you just bring these three things and we will put up with a lot! But no i do not mean that we had to put up a lot with Sheila rather it was the opposite she made us cookies and brownies to beat the band. In fact we do NOT sell those cookies to anyone because we are just a little greedy about them although Amanda did give one away.But i am getting ahead of my self this didn't happen till Tuesday.

    Saturday: Grenada's Thanksgiving day!! That morning Natalie and me went with Kendall's and there visitors (Gingers sister and her husband and child and Sheila, Gingers niece i think) to the beach. They dropped us of at Grand Ann's and the three of us hung out there while they went to another more private beach. That day Amanda couldn't come along because she was helping to pass out invitations to people in Willis a town about a half hour away were we were going to have a crusade and kids club at. That afternoon we had a joint church attendee's picnic with Laura and Limes at a field here in LaBorie. It was a fun a lil different then how we would celebrate Thanksgiving but not bad. The men played football and rugby and us woman sat around and chatted or entertained the children. We had fried chicken, pie (mac&cheese pie), cabbage salad and an assortment of brownies and cookies.

    Sunday: It was really nice i taught Sunday school. For lunch i made chicken and pasta salad and i cant remember if there was anything else or not. I was going to try to make breadfuit punch but then it didn't work out to get a breadfruit from Shavoni because they didn't have any that was ripe. But anyway.

     Monday: School started up again. Shavoi came over and we had a lot of the local boys over who go to bible study at James and Ryan's over to our place for pizza because  two of the boys had birthdays the week before and we had promised to do something for it. They sat out on our door step and were there normal loud, rambunctious selves. It was a good evening.

     Tuesday: School we made lighting bugs out of pop cans,paper, pipe cleaner and glow sticks for art.That afternoon we had interviews with the board member. Amanda and me then went down for bible club it was my last time for the month it went pretty good.

      Wednesday: school

     Thursday: School. We had the crusade up at Willis. It went pretty well except that one man was there the whole night passing back and forth cussing us out the whole time whether he was agreeing with us or disagreeing. He def. was high. When we first saw him he was dressed only in a shirt and then later on he left and came back with only pants on then.

         Friday: school, teachers meal at Kendall's

        Saturday: Lime youth and LaBorie youth went up to Willis to have a kids ministry. Limes did the singing and skits and we did the games and snack. It was a lot of fun but people said who had helped with it last year said there wasn't as nearly as many kids this year... after that we went to a falls nearby it was nice feeling sorta cold water! We then drove up to a lake to eat our lunch and then hiked a mountain that i barely made up! it was really pretty though you couldn't see out much because of the clouds i actually saw clouds beneath me!

      Sunday:  We had an amazing serves! It is so much fun coming to church and after prayer see who all shows up! We were blessed to have a family who use to come to church come back after about a year they said they felt loved and a home here. The mom and one of her daughters use to be members..there are two other girls in the family, i don't know were the dad is...Its kinda cool one of the girls are really close to my age. I guess i kinda miss hanging out with girls my age. So i don't know it would be nice to develop a relationship with her. Her and her sister might want to have bible study so i will prolly help with that some.

      Monday: school, Shavoni over for devotions. I am so proud of her she! Amanda gave her a veil  to wear so she has now started wearing it and she is interested in baptism! Its a little nerve racking for her though with her going to collage. She was pretty nerves to go to school the next time. But man do you blame her? Anyway she did good!

     Tuesday: school, Bible club in Hopeveil

     Wednesday: school, Preparatory serves here in LaBorie with the Limes group.

     Thursday: school, staff meeting, counsel
Wow this would prolly rank with one of the worst day of my life kinda of day. No, no one died or anything. But it was a really stressful day with one of my kids who really tested me and made me feel like he hated me. i won't go into details because its the climax (hopefully) that has been building for a long time with this kid.I don't know what was my problem but i really took it hard and couldn't get over it took the whole rest of the week and weekend for me to get over it emotionally. And Monday i was actually nerves! But through it all God was there.

    Friday: We finished up dealing with the issue of Thursday and them promptly one of my i thought above reproof kids destroyed what very little bit of faith in humanity i had left by lying about not cheating and then framing someone else.This took quite a process to find out every thing after lashes tears talks with principle and then in the end a spanking and more tears from her and me...after being so emotionally drained i couldn't keep them in. Friday morning or was is Thursday night i had prayed that i could be able to connect better with my kids at lunch break and so lunch break with out me hardly thinking about it i was able to have a nice relaxing lunch time with my kids so that is one thing i look back on although i don't remember everything that happened and know that God was with me through this stressful week. One thing that killed me was since its games class in the afternoon and all the kids can bring cloth to change into that is not their uniforms. Well anyway Renel had brought  a shirt but not a skirt so she decided to implement a skirt with her jumper by zipping it up only to her waist and then let the rest hang down! So she comes walking into class during lunch after she had changed and with my frazzled nerves there was nothing stopping me from having a full out laughing breakdown right there.(yes normally i try not to laugh at them in front of them but not today)  Poor girl she was so confused i tried talking to her but i was laughing to hard so i took her out of class and once i had calmed down enough i helped her put on her jumper properly! groan i am laughing as i type this...

     Saturday: Thank-God for weekends!!!!! We went to the beach! and had a pretty calm day..
 
  Sunday: I've told you before sundays around here are amazing! Today one of the teen boys here that we have really wanting to come to church came to church today. He has been kinda searching we could tell for a while and he didn't really want to come to church cuz he knew that people would talk about it around Laborie. Anyway Kavona if you remember her...she is this guys sister. We had her and her two kids and  her brother and the guys over for lunch.

  Monday: I was rather nerves but it went pretty good...im still recovering. Had Shavoni over.She's doing pretty good. so i was rooting around in our storage/cleaning room place under our steps and suddenly focus in on the rat trap i had put in there sunday so it was out of sight for our visitors and find we had caught a rat! What was it a few days ago we had a pear that was on the counter bitten into with teeth marks that were recognized my Amanda and Natalie as rat teeth marks..(last year they had a rat in the house and had caught it) just saying it was rather startling seeing a rat so close to you all stiff and dead. any way here is a pic.

   Tuesday: finally caught up to the current date! Today went good i have been picking different teachers brains on a lot of different things and am trying to be a better teacher for this one student and stuff so some new stuff is going on inside the class room so i would love! Wait need your prayers for me right now that i would turn to God even if it is closing my eyes right in from of my students during class time and asking Him for guidance for all the issues and sper of the moment decisions a teacher has to make all the time. So although today was not easy i can say that it was a step in the right direction.


   Well if you actually was able to wade all the way to the end of this long entry i now say good-night and thanks so much for your prayers and don't stop!!! Love Crystal

   

     

Goodnight friends and family,

How are things going i cant believe it is time for another update already!! Time really flies down here....it is already the 8th week coming up and time for thanks giving break this Friday. So what is the weather like up there? It is still hot as usual it's hard for me to get into the festive spirit because all the signs tell me differently. Although one thing that is changing is that the all saints' trees (as the Grenadians call them) is blooming yellow so it looks a little like fall when you look out over the valley and hills. So ya i'm a little bit jealous of you guys thinking of snow and then snowboarding and such. It really gets to me that at home my board is sitting in my closet nicely waxed and i am not there to take full advantage of that this winter. But that is ok i will just brag up the beach this winter to you guys :) Well i guess i will start my usual ritual of going through my week day by day. I think to my self when i do this....you guys have got to hate reading every stinkin thing i do..but then i think to myself....i am so gonna love my self years later when i want to read back and remember days gone by...so i guess the truth be told i am more doing it for my self then for you...so in other words don't feel bad if you skip all i write and just look at all my pictures..which prolly gets old for you all as well.... ;p 

     Monday: the norm...school, Shavoni over for in the evening...

    Tuesday: school, for art we made little books and then decorated them...they loved it since pretty much all of my students love doing anything with paper. Kids club...(which went a LOT better...although there was some behavior things going on but i think i should expects that as the norm)

 so here is kind of an interesting story on our way down to bible club something suddenly came crashing down from a tree up on the hillside and came to rest a lil way up the road..and on further inspection found it to be a nice little coconut. So Amanda kicked it of to the side of the road and we decided to see if it was still there when we came back and if so we would haul it on home. well it was... but cracking it became rather and interesting show of wills and it took many a hard hurdle against the cement step to get it cracked a little so that we could pry it open..(since or brave machete was rather on the (really) dull side) let me tell you fresh coconut is def. the way to go. It is SOOO good!!

 

     Wednesday: school, and then in the evening we had a kids night at church since it is children's month. I had invited two of my kids from school to come and one of them showed up so that was cool.(besides two of my kids who come to church there already) Its kinda funny i had told her about it and told her she should come but she was like write a note Miss my mom wouldn't believe me..so i did and she was all exited and couldn't wait to see if she could come and then that evening her mom and her show up and her mom is like whats this thing about? You got Renel all exited!! And then the next day at school Renel told me she loved it...so that was cool. We had done a lot of singing and then bible base ball and then after that a story and snack. The kids were actually pretty good with getting the answers right in bible base ball i was pretty impressed! And then i got mine wrong...."how many rivers flowed out of the garden of Eden?" 

     Thursday: Well that morning i was informed that Darrell was going to be late and when he finally did come it was half way through devotion time. And as the day progressed i noticed that he was really quite so i inquired about it one time while he was waiting for me to score his work. and he didn't say anything besides shrug his shoulders so i kinda let it rest. Well next time he was up to score there were tears in his eyes so i asked again and he didn't want to talk, but i didn't just want to ignore this so i kept asking and then finally asked it he wanted to go some were else to talk about it but no he didn't want to do that...but by this time snot and tears were all over the place so i told him that we should go to the bathroom and clean up so of we went and after he cleaned up i tried inquiring again and asking him if anything happened at home or that evening or on the way to school but he wouldn't talk so i was kinda getting worried but then he finally said he had a head ache but then when i asked again he said he didn't. by this time we had been out of the class room long enough and i was at my wits end so i asked if pills would help and he said it would so i went down and asked miss Eberly for pills and asked her if she new of anything that was going on that would cause this torrential downpour but she knew nothing so i went back up and gave him the pill which he then refused. Soon there after it was brake time so i went to Mr. Horst to see if there was a reason for him being late to school and thus maybe find out the cause of his weeping. I there learned that his mom was thinking of pulling him from school because she was tiered of always fighting with this other mom who sends her boy to school. And who is very boisterous in his playing as well as Darrell which makes for fights and such which then go home as probable far fetched story's to there mothers who then go about remedying and dealing with it by fighting in their turn with one another. Which is very sad. Anyway Ryan then went and talked with Darrell and after that he seemed to do much better..i don't know what they talked about but it seemed to set Darrell's mind at ease. Ryan did tell me though that Darrell said something to the effect that his head hurt because he was thinking to much about what had been going on. So my conclusion was, that he was worrying about changing schools. Well at school Rebekah got sick and i couldn't get a hold of her mother so she had to lay around on our hard benches almost all day. I felt really bad for her. It was kinda nice though that she had gotten pretty much all of her work done before she went down though. that evening Amanda made an amazing meal and as tradition has it we had Lori and Sarah over for supper and the evening.

      Friday: Goodness the day to remember or more like forget....! So to start off, Fridays are one heck tick day of trying to get a whole days worth of work done as well as bible memory done all in a half a day and since its games class the rest of the day that puts the kids in a feverish pitch of excitement as well...so that is a normal hair brain Friday but that was not to be this Friday......no indeed. so we start of the day with a science self check (yes we forgot to do our bible memory) and as i make my rounds around to the desks to see how things are progressing i catch one of my students who clearly knows better looking back in her book to find and answer to a question she forgot...so i question her and she admits to the charges places before her...and then comes the moment of decision for me..yes i shouldn't have to ponder on the punishment but i have never had to come to this point with any of my kids yet, and of all kids it has to be one of my few kids who is growing up in a Christian home and clearly know what she is doing is wrong...so i do what i know needs to be done and haul her of to the 'spanking room' and let her know what is about to take place and double check to make sure she knows why this is going to take place and then i tell her to wait while i march down to Miss Eberly's room for assistants. Thankfully she consents to doing the not-at-all fun job. So ok breath that is over lets get back to class after we clean up and move on with the day as normally as we can....but wait! What is this Darrell and Rebekah are grinning at each other from there desks and is that a paper i just saw being slipped to the other? groan i have told the class that note passing is not to be done. Well i will question them and if proven guilty i will give them a mark and we will move on with the lesson learned..right? Umm no, guess again. 'So... Darrell did you pass a note to Rebekah?' disbelief and hurt  flash through his eyes with the effects of an mouth dropping open to finish the look of incidence but wait i know this lovable kid to well. That is his tactic he uses to get out of everything... more questioning...with the shake of the head and a pert no as the response....(i'm sure i saw that paper being passed) out loud... so what were you smiling at each other for then? shrug of shoulders....so if i were to ask Rebekah about this would she say the same thing? Shrug of shoulders again...So i call Rebekah up and question her as well and she acknowledges the passing of a note right away. OK so now what. Darrell is still somewhat maintaining the Ora of innocence so i ask that the note be brought to me..so Rebekah goes away and fetches it from Darrell's desk and brings it up to me. Scrawled across a slip of paper is written 'do you like me more then David' and it looks like a few more names to but not sure.... oh goodness 2nd grade politics mixed up in this as well. Well now i have a lie to deal with. And not wanting to sentience Darrell in front of Rebekah i tell them to go put marks beside their names and then go sit down. Well i soon come around and find Rebekah weeping at her desk and further inquiry finds that she was given the note but that she gave it back but did not reply so finding her guiltless and feeling bad for judging her without looking deeper into her side of the story i remedied this predicament with telling her i will erase her mark and not count it which cheered her up considerably....Well its break time and time to deal with this lying so Darrell gets brought in and sat down on the bench that all kids know is not a good place to be sent because it normally means a talking to by a teacher. So we discuss what happened again and i make sure he knows what i am accusing him of and he acknowledges his wrong before i once more march down to Miss. Eberly's room for assistance. but break time is almost done so we decide to do it once we have our classes started again and the poor errant boy has to sit quietly on the not-a-good-place-to-be bench for a while longer in wait of his punishment.So finally when the moment came he was rather subdued after sitting and pondering his past conduct and his imminent punishment. So anyway that was a really wild stressful day...let me tell you i never knew how emotionally and physically draining that is!!!! (by the way we did remember to do bible memory then at the end of the day)

my sunshine boy who has the cute's, cheesiest smile! totally cheered me up! Cyle getting a drink after games class.

That evening we had Jr, youth night so we all piled into the truck and lumber down to the beach with around 8 or 9 loud rambunctious kids ranging from 8 to 12. among the tribe was Rashod, who was brought in among us as it being his birthday the day before which made him take 8 as they call it down here. It totally made his day! In fact earlier that day as we were heading up the road to eat supper at Pastor Johns we passed him all dressed up and here he was ready to go even then! We played jump the river and football with them.. which was a lot of fun! although we hadn't made any official notice at the beginning about refraining from sea bathing so only half of the number helped with football. Then we had a story and snacks to rap up the evening ... 

 my shower drain and my feet. i was wet from the hips down and sand everywhere!!!

 our amazing fruit bowl!!! bananas, mango's, oranges, and sugar apples

     Saturday: We all got up nice and early for a Sat. morning and went down to Pastor Johns were we all piled into the bus and went around the country side and picked up church member lady's and then went gallivanting around the country with Pastor John as our guide which was awesome since he has lived here for year and years...Anyway one thing that happened was when we were going up a steep hill, half way up we just could not get up the rest of the way so we half rolled half slid down the hill were we all 17 ladies and baby clambered out and trudged up the hill while the bus sauntered merrily up the hill in victory were then we all clambered back in! Anyway here are some pic. of the day.....(brace yourself there is a lot of pics.)

 we went to a petting zoo. it was also a nice secluded resort.

 different kinds of fruit and such like jazz..Natalie is rubbing of on me you wouldn't have heard me say jazz before ;)

 finally stepped onto a nice yard....it was so nice!

 armadillos

Wilma holding one. She is holding its tail to keep it from squirming around.

 Jalane holding and feeding the monkey Ginger.

 our guide

 thought this was pretty funny

 Amanda holding a hamster

 a snake and i actually petted it!

possums taking a nap in there pen

 Miss Rose and Miss Rachelle

 sail boat...

 house mates: Natalie,Amanda,me

 LaBorie girls school teachers: Lori, Natalie, Amanda, me and Sarah in front

 a old building that we stopped at to eat lunch. i had fun imagining this as a school. thought this will do nicely!

 ladies around the van

 we took a tour of a Chinese run green house. it is a non-profit organization that helps struggling farms in Grenada.

 as this pic. was downloading i was thinking how 3 kinds of people are represented here...Miss Rose..Grenadian, Pastor John...white, our tour guide...Chinese

 my first time trying guava it was pretty good

 Patstor John with pugg as he called her..this was a very interesting beach it had very fine black sand

 breading grounds for mosquitoes

a very stinky place called mangrove ya i don't remember much about it but its a swamp were they grow stuff in...and it stinks to high heavens. 

 my meal that evening it was amazing! pasta with shrimp, mussels, and oysters

     Sunday: we had a very good church serves with the theme still on children and a very good message by Kendall Fox on children as well. I was very blessed to be at church today it is really hard to come away from church here and be depressed let me tell you! :) that afternoon Amanda who is the cook this past week invited Miss Abigail and her children over for lunch and then for the afternoon until the afternoon activates..Miss Abigail is Rebekah mother..Rebekah has two brothers Shane and Andrew. We also had two tween girls over for lunch who were at church. Anyway then in the afternoon we went up close to the fort and sang at a poor house and then went up to the fort to watch the sunset. and i finally got some exploring done as well!

 three little cheese balls wanting there pictures taken! Rebekah Fox, Chisti High, and Josh Fox.

 you will see some stellar sunset up here!

 watching the sunset and watching this cloud dump rain. its rather neat this same cloud had shaded us this afternoon while we were singing out side. That evening we youth brought whatever from our house and combined a pizza at our house and had fun playing games well kinda of.. two of the kids here came by and were kinda crying because there older brother not much older then them was beating them up. Natalie then was talking to him and she said that he kinda had a weird look in his eye and he asked if they were scared of him and Natalie asked him if they had a reason to be and he kinda shrugged his shoulders and said ya..so the two stayed at our house for a while because there mother was gone and wasn't getting back till late. Its so sad what you see here sometimes...

One more thing...its a prayer request..me and Lori were just talking today and we realized that our 90 days of grace are almost up and we still do not have our work permits!! so that is not cool so i am asking you to pray hard that Lori and I could get our work permits in time!! Thank-you in advance!!

~Sincerely Crystal