Friends, Graduation, & Farewells... All Mixed Together

Friends, Graduation & Farewells …. All Mixed Together

At the beach again! Tr. Debora’s sons Julian and Jaziel invited Jase to have a guy’s day with them.  First hanging out at the beach eating hotdogs and snacks, and then off to hang out at their house for the most part of the day!

Orville, Jase, Jaziel, Julian.

Jase & Sharique

It was a day off of school for Jase and Courtney so we picked up Mae-Rubya and joined them in the morning at the beach! 

I wanted to get a picture of the girls at the Community Centre where they do Judo, and have in the past done Ballet, music concerts, and many other activities.

It had been a while since we had a picnic at the beach so I thought it would be nice to get some friends together and have one.  Anike, Debbie, and I got together, with all of our kids plus Emelia and Stuart Beckett – at the time they were leaving the island very soon and I thought it would be nice to have them along and so Meg could get moving work done – and we hung out at the beach for hours.  It really was a long time.  From about 12:00 to 5:30 on a hot, hot day.  Loads of sunscreen and a little bit of burnage it was a fun time for everyone!  My camera died after two shot – But I guess you get the idea!

Super cute picture of Courtney with Tr. Anna when it was Courtney’s classes turn to do the assembly.  Courtney was asking the students at the assembly questions to a story that had just been read.

So long and farewell to the Wolsey Family.  They were excited to move on to the next step of this crazy med student life, but there is always a little sadness for everyone who leaves here.  They will be missed!  See you on the other side.

And on this same day was graduation day!  A Graduation for our wonderful friend Saad!  So Todd and I were very honored when he asked us to join him for his graduation. 

Steve Beckett, J.R. Erickson (Not related! Got a few of these pictures from him though! Thank You! - camera battery died! Electronics don't last very well here), Saad Qidwai, and Todd.

             Saad and Dr. Odongo - ICM Teacher               Saad & Mr. Gerard Berkle- Island Governor

                                                                                           Acting Dean Gardner in the back.

          

Mansour, Saad, Todd and Ahmed Nasser!

It’s a small simple ceremony and if I’m correct they have another one in New York when you are finished rotations.  There were speakers, handing of certificates, food, and just visiting.  But I suppose it gives you a little bit of a finished feeling. I know the kids are really excited to see Todd at his graduation end of next term.

This day actually would have also been Todds graduation day but we are really happy with our choice to take the program a little slower.  Todd was able to absorb information from his classes better, you have to understand how intensely compressed and fast paced the program is here, and it’s a lot of self teaching, and we were able to enjoy him being less stressed out *wink*! The kids are also able to finish out their school year here with their friends, Jase is soon going to have a graduation himself from grade 6 at the end of June, and we get to spend a little fun in the sun for a little over half of the summer before we return to Canada.  It’s a pretty good deal.

Saad has been a wonderful part of our life here on Statia, one of Todd’s really good friends, and the kids just love him – really.  We wanted to spend his last day on the island together and having all the fun we possibly could! 

We took him to Zealandia beach where there really is nobody there most of the time.  So you can almost have a huge private beach all to yourselves.  We were lucky enough that the water was reasonably calm that day so we were able to enjoy some swimming.  But first we played a grueling game of Fox and Geese.  I use to play this as a kid at home in the snow and played it with my kids when they were little in the snow.  You would make specific tracks in the snow to mark out where you were allowed to run.  Then you would make a fox den in the middle of all the circles and someone would be the fox and have to try and collect all of the ‘geese’ into the foxes den by everyone running around in the circles.  It was hard playing it in the snow with all of your snow gear on but it was almost harder running on the loose sand in the heat! 

Daddy was the Fox!

 It was some serious fun and got us all warmed up for a nice cool dip in the ocean.

Saad was always so good with the kids, letting them splash him and jump all over him and wrestle!

Out for a little body/board/skim sorta surfing stuff.  You use what you got!

Katie wanted me to take a picture of how far out they were in the water at Zealandia!
Can you see her?

After getting home and showering we told Saad that we were pick him up to come for dinner, well we decided that it would be really nice to take him out for a last Statia dinner at the restaurant of his choice – which was the Blue Bead.

The kids had made Saad some gifts of congratulations on your graduation and goodbye until we see you again someday!

Pic 48 - 56

Katie Made Saad a large supply of bracelets for him to take home and wear them as he needs.

Courtney drew him a beautiful picture that says, "Courtney made this."

Jase made him a very nice card.

It was an amazingly beautiful night!

Then later after our nice dinner we went for a walk up to round hill to look at the constellations in the sky!  It was beautiful!

The light is a star pointer light and isn't double like that (thats just the picture the camera took)- its a very powerful laser with just one beam. - We bought it from the Wolseys. You have to be very careful because it can burn your eyes and go blind, and even cut/burn you open! But its amazing for learning about the stars and being able to point right at a star with it!

This next day – Saturday – was a very busy day of goodbyes, and service!

Our first goodbye was an early morning farewell to the Beckett family, a family who has shown a lot of love and service on the island, to their friends and to the Church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). But like I said before - onto the next step for the life of a Medical student and their family.

Courtney, Emelia, & Katie

Jason, Zay, Jase & Stuart

Niz with the girls

Goodbye in the airport

The service was rendered to us from the Hunter Family!  We were actually going to cancel there offer to come (seriously who does that?!?!),  because we thought that we had a lot going on that morning, which we did,  but forgot to let them know and boy were we ever glad that we didn’t cancel!  We all got to it and started the work in the yard!  It was awesome at how fast thing were going with all of the help – it was really a wonderful blessing, and we were and are so thankful!

Part way through our yard work we were scheduled to say goodbye to Sharifah, she start the same time as Todd did with the pre-med. It was nice to be able to say one last goodbye to her!  She has always been so sweet, and so wonderful to the kids spoiling them with little gifts!  As a going away gift she gave the girls these cute bracelets and Jase a neat boat Magnet.

Sharifah lived at Kermits place, and this is also where we got Dusty from – these are his brothers and sisters and one might be his mom too!

Back to the house to finish up some yard work.  Tony saw us all in the yard and passed by bringing a big box of swirly popsicles to cool us off! It was a really nice surprise and so very thoughtful! We have some pretty amazing landlords! We were so very thankful for the Hunters kindness as they wanted to lend us a hand saying that we do so much for others they wanted to do something for us.  Isn’t that how the world should go round – what an amazing world it could be. Those 3 - 4 hours literally saved Todd and I a good two days work!  Thank you Hunter Family!

One more time to the airport today to send Saad off.  And like the Hymn says, “God Be With You Til' We Meet Again.”

Saad holding the newspaper that says, "Islamic Foundation bids farewell to Khatib Qidwai." He was the leader of the Islamic community while on Statia.  I'm sure he will be sorely missed by them.

Todd gave Saad his CTR ring - stands for Choose The Right. To help him remember us and to always choose the right!  Todd said Saad chooses the right better than he does anyway! :)

Lots of love for Saad before he goes.

Jase was really very sad when Saad had to leave.  They would talk all sorts about Bakugan, and Pokieman stuff and Jase absolutely loved it.  Saad was a really great friend to Jase. I'm pretty sure its safe to say that Jase loves him like a brother.

And our crazy girls can't get enough of him either!  We love you Saad!

We have seen so many people come and go it’s hard to believe that at the end of next term, August 2013, it will be our turn.