This is me and my ramblings...: January 2015

Goodnight!

Well tomorrow morning please the Lord I will be of this island for the first time in 5.5 months. Wow can't believe I have been here that long. Well the truth of the matter is...is that I will only be a 2 hour boat ride away from Grenada on a really small island that is part of Grenada called Carriacou. I am rather exited but can totally see a crazy weekend ahead! We are going to have a crusade night or revival nigh and then a one day vbs. And if you thought that far we will have tomorrow (friday) of of school. So I was busy this week trying to double up on lessons. Which half the time was sorta a struggle for several reasons. #1 since Christmas vacation my kids have not really caught up to the normal speed not sure why..I did change up the schedule then and that helped some. #2 week two into coming back into school one of my kids missed almost a whole week of school so this week was also catch up week for him. So anyway I will be glad to get into the normal routine again..although i don't know if that is happening any time soon because i believe this is the trimester for all manner of change such as field day, independence day ect. But oh well. One rather sad thing that happened since school started is that Cyle on of my boys moved to a next school that has a preschool because his younger brother is going there and his parents want Cyle to be able to walk him home and watch out for him since they both work and are not home before them so that was all and sudden. Like the first day of school he was there and then the next day his mother comes during teacher chapel and tells us he is transferring and we didn't even get to say goodbye because that very same day he didn't come to school because he was fitting for uniforms at his next school. Oh Janisa Nolt was here for a week it was fun to get to know her, and I know the people that served with her last year really enjoyed it. One of my highlights while she was here was going to Mout. Carmal falls and climbing to the top of the waterfalls!! it involved a lot of grabbing onto vines branches and such like.. and then we went to a point were the waves would come crashing into this little hollowed away place. A place were you just have to praise God for how awesome he is..anyway Amanda and I decided to stand were would get wet when a big wave would come in little did we know it was going to be a extra big wave so instead of getting slightly wet we got drenched!! But it was a lot of fun! Cyle did come then to see Janisa so I got to see him..(Janisa was my class' 1st grade teacher last year) Well I guess there isn't much else to tell....Just as a prayer request..Pray for the Carraicou trip for safety, that lots of people would come out, that Satan would have no power over the island, that we would reach many people and that the truth would sink into there hearts and not just their heads, us staff and we witness and our own spiritual safety. Well goodnight i will put some pictures on and then go. Love Crystal

This past sunday the church went to sing at a handicap children's home well not all of them looked like children but it was a lot of fun they had out their tambourines and what ever all out and were clanging away in a very orderly fashion while we sang,and even sang a few songs for us it was really cool then after that we went on a little walk/hike and got a really nice vew.

three boys that use to go to the Laura school waiting for their bus the boy in the middle is Shane.

OH YA!! score!!!! rat in the trap! I was in my room and the other girls were up stairs when it snapped..it is really loud so we all hear it..

Happy Birthday Nella! She is one flurry of action. Shes is def. my drama queen.

Celina and me

we took the revival pastor and his wife up here we were birding and we got to see the Grenada dove a endangered species.

have i showen this pic. of on here yet we found this dead among tons of ants after we bopped. he is around 5'' long!! and could be the one who stung me. I am very scared of these creatures there bite is horrid!!!!

Well at last pics from Mout. Qua Qua!!! fun times!:)

Ben, Wilmas dad, Jared, Uran

me, Wilma, and Leanne

mud mud mud and way to much mud!

Mervin and Conrad

Good morning!!

It's been a long time since i have updated...Just in my defense though i did have a update typed out but my computer had issues so it was not saved and not posted and so i was left in the lurch..but any way things are going good here we are currently on the last week of our three week Christmas vacation.So i am ready to get back to school and have a schedule. I must say I am getting rather bored and missing my kids...

Well here are a few highlights from the past little while...

Nov. 19 - Pastor John and Miss Rachel left for the states it was very sad to see them go :(

Nov. 29 - Youth day at a point called La Tampa, played games and Thaddeus and Rose nicely consented to cooking a pot for supper!

Dec. 3 - Chris' come back from their trip to the states...it was so nice having them back again. You really feel a lot like a family down here.

Dec. 5 - Field trip with the whole school. It was a good day but i found it a kinda stressful. We went to the Chinese farm and then the petting zoo the same places that we went to on the lady's day a while back.

Dec. 7 - went to a pretty cool falls. It was just us youth and Thaddeus and Rose

Dec. 9 - I had a Christmas party with my kids up at our house. We cut out cookies, baked them, and then decorated them. played games, ate our packed lunches, opened gifts, and then played some more till school was dismissed. fun day but would not want to do that everyday that is for sure!

Dec. 11 - a big half day of practicing for the Christmas Program...and then the Christmas Program it self in the evening. The kids did great!!

Dec. 12 - last day of school...we had a big party up at the court...with organized games and then a pizza party and then sent the kids of around 12;30 or so....

Dec. 13 - Staff Christmas Banquet = lots of fun and food!! It felt very much like family and it helped me not feel home sick. Limes youth girls decorated and Marvin's and Chris' organized it. It was at Chris' because there place has a fence around the property and a gate. Because if we did not have that we would have got people stopping by all day asking for food or just intruding. we had a very nice time playing games, talking, eating..and so on...

Dec. 13 - Natalie's parents and her two youngest siblings came to visit her.

Dec. 14 - in the afternoon after church we went caroling to all the people we wanted to sing for that was driving distance away.

Dec. 16-17 - Ryan & James, and then Kendall's the next day left for Christmas.

Dec. 20 - we split up and handed out tracks and invitations for bible conferences and crusades coming up..

Dec. 21 - caroling again most of them with in walking distance though.

Dec. 22 - Live Nativity....every year the Mennonite churches do a skit of the nativity st the mall in Grand Annas

Dec. 24 - Lori and me went to town and being Christmas Eve things were buzzing like nothing I've seen before by the time we left..And then in the evening we (Limes youth and LaBorie youth with Chris') caroled at the mall. Afterwards we went to Limes for a snack. Jared Mast my uncle flew in that evening to visit Leanne so i got to go to the airport and meet him!

Dec. 25 - MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Us girls got up earlish and walked to the beach since public buses don't run on Christmas or boxing day which is observed down here. Since it was so early the streets were deserted down here holidays are a bigger thing down here...gifts are not really a huge thing but other traditions are upheld some of there would be to give there whole house a makeover including repainting their houses, upholstering furniture, making new curtains ect. def. not every one does that but most every one does something.... and Christmas eve. is one big party for everyone. so anyway things were pretty much empty. It took Lori and I about an hour and 20 min. to walk to the beach. The rest got there a lil earlier because they can walk faster. The beach was nice and quite just people from resorts were around. So no Grenadians walking by throwing out comments or trying to sell you stuff. We made sand snow men since we figured that was the only way we would be building snow men this year. It was fun watching the passerby's getting a kick out of them and taking pics. of them I guess we should be surprised to see them on line somewhere now... We were able to catch a ride up with Chris then around 11:30 and then we spent the afternoon talking to family and doing our own little things..we opened gifts that we gave each other and then around 5:30 we had Sarah, Lori and Rachel Brown over for the evening. It was so nice Rachel had called us earlier that week and invited us up to her place for a meal on Christmas but we already had planned this out. But she really wanted to cook for someone so she brought her meal down to our place...So we got a meal out of the deal....She had beef (yumm it was way past time to have tasted that stuff again) sweet potato and jello and all other manners of goodies!

Dec. 25 - We had a meal and games in the afternoon with the church people down at church. Some of the local boys came around too for the games.

Dec. 26 - Today i did not go to the beach with the other girls although it would have been fun because they invited two Grenadian girls along who go to our church...I actually went with lot of the limes people to hike Mount. Qua Qua because Jared was still here and he wanted to do something with me while he was here. Lot of the other Limes people are having company to so Wilma and her dad went along and Ben, Marvin and one of his boys Conrad, and Uran were there as well. It was a lot of fun the guys vied for first to the top and it sounds like Uran and Jared made it in 23 or so min. while it took us girls and Marvin and Conrad around 40 or 45 min. The mud though was really bad so we went bare foot. in some places we would step into mud that went up passed our ankles... and then the trip down was like sit down and slide or try to make it all the way down without falling completely into the mud which is rather admirable if it can be accomplished. It also started raining when we were at the top so we were wet as well as muddy. We went to a water falls close by and the guys all jumped in. the and us girls got most of the mud that i feared for a little was permanently attached of of our legs and dresses. By the time we left the sun had dried us up somewhat.
Ya Kendall's came back from there trip. the Evangelist was suppose to come in that evening too but there was some issues so he came the next day which was Sunday and he was to preach that morning and then have two sessions in the evening.

Dec. 27 - The Guys came back it so nice to have everyone around again. The evangelist and his wife came in the morning as well...came in time to get a little nap in and then preach that morning. We as a household had them over as well as James and Ryan for Sunday lunch we had Rotis, cabbage salad, sorrel juice and coconut pie. was nice catching up with guys on their trip and talking with the pastor and his wife. By the way the pastor is Merle Burkholder. We had two sessions then again in the evening separated my an hour in which we ate a supper of compiled sandwiches,snacks and brownie from different house holds.

Dec. 28 - ta da! finally caught up....Today i am writing my update and then going to clean and move things around in my computer..so which me patience...by the way i want to get some pic. from Leanne so i may not posed this for a day or two...

picture time:

a mosquito i smashed......