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......

field trip were we stopped for lunch

Leadon, Abeja 

Darrell, Caleb

Whitney, Nella, Abeja

                         
                                                 Renel being crazy

 Renel, Darrell and Rebeka

 Darrell and David

                                                               Natalie, Lori
                                                        me, Sarah, Amanda

                      our school at the Christmas program

                                Christmas Banquet

Ryan playing on his ukulele and Ben playing the key board they are both very good.

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