There's Always Something Going On!

This is Courtney’s most beautiful picture she created after church one day.

We went to the Christian Potluck like we usually do every term  and here is a picture of Katie with Mrs. Alexander who started the Christian club here at the University some 6 or so years ago.  The Alexander’s have always been so sweet to us – they taught Todd his pre-med classes.  Bringing us treats from the United States whenever they went back and for to the island, fruits, and we would stop by their home or office sometimes just to say hi.  We would take car of their car while they go off island. 

I was visiting with her just before the start of the meeting – she was going to say a few words and I just had a feeling that the primary kids needed to sing a song!  I asked her and J.R., heading up the Christian club, what he thought about the idea and he thought it was a fantastic – so we did it.  I picked a familiar but beautiful song that all the primary kids knew and they did a fantastic job with their sweet voices.  Jase, Katie, Courtney, Emelia, Stuart, and Justus.

The song is called: I’m Trying to be Like Jesus

I’m Trying to be like Jesus

I’m following in his ways.

I’m trying to love as He did,

In all that I do and say.

At times I am tempted to make a wrong choice,

But I try to listen as the still small voice whispers,

(Chorus)

“Love one another as Jesus loves you,

Try to show kindness in all that you do.

Be gentle and loving in deed and in thought,

For these are the things Jesus taught.”

I’m trying to love my neighbour,

I’m learning to serve my friends.

I watch for the day of gladness when Jesus will come again.

I try to remember the lessons He taught,

Then the Holy Spirit enters into my thoughts saying:      

(Chorus)

I love this song.

The kids SDA school has had to do many upgrades to the school in order to achieve tcredidation from the Netherlands to be considered equal to the schools in the Netherland, US, Canada ect.  Part of those upgrades are included in these pictures I took with my iPhone.

Each teacher chose the best behaved children, boy and girl, from their class to appear in a durable permanent poster of sorts to be located in different areas of the school.  Both Jase and Courtney were chosen!  It will also be a fun way for them to always be a part of the school while the poster lasts.  We are so proud of them.

Here are the bathrooms closest to Courtney’s class with her poster.

Other upgrades of large posters boards and stencil at the top of the school.

Katie Cutting banana’s while standing on top of Daddy’s shoulders.  It was really hard for her to cut through that tough stem but she did it!  In the bushel that she cut down of the cute little banana’s which are the best bananas ever, They never have that old banana taste even if they look super over ripe, there was this Siamese twin banana!

Tropic bird sitting on its nest in a hole on the side of the wall along Zealandia beach.

I had to take a picture of the huge Easter selection of candy this year.  You may think that I am being sarcastic but I’m not. This is the largest amount of Easter candy I’ve ever seen on the island – It’s pretty awesome!

Courntey, while going to Tr. Cris’s Growing in Love after school group, gets to go on these really fun field trips sometimes.  This time it was a trip to the hospital to see all sorts of different people with different occupations working together under the same roof with the same goal in mind – to keep the Hospital functioning! Dr. Berkel was showing them around the hospital – a graduate from our very own University of Sint Eustatius. They went around to various area’s of the hospital to find out what different occupations people have here.  They went to the secretary’s office, the Hospital Directors office, the nurses station, The maintenance man, they ran into the dentist just leaving his office in the hospital (this is where his permanent office is), and they saw the x-ray room – this is something fairly new on the island since we got here.   Before if they thought you might have broken your arm or something they would send you off to St. Maarten to get an x-ray to see if anything was broken.  Now thank goodness they have a machine here and even a technician to read the x-rays and run the machine. Then they went to the mid-wife’s office.  She is the only mid-wife on the island, and there is no OBGYN. You can give birth here, but if complications arise St. Maarten is a plane ride away – kind of scary to me.  The also just got an ultrasound machine.  Women would have to fly to St. Maarten to get their ultrasounds.  The bad thing is that I know for a while there even though they had the machine they had no idea how to work it, so it was never used.  It could be different now though.  These are some of the tricky parts about living on a small island with only a population of 3200.
 None the less most of them do their best.

 The main lobby

Reception

 Nurses Station - new area just built in.  I wish I had taken a picture of the new staff lounge area - its all outdoors covered by an overhang and becoming really nice.  The whole hospital is open to the outdoors with big sliding hurricane doors in the emergency area.  I LOVE it.  I love how open everything is here.  I'm afraid we are going to feel a little claustrophobic when we get home.

 In the emergency area talking with the maintenance man.

 The Dentist. We've seen him a few times and he has been so gracious with us.  He's seen Katie at his home while they were renovating his office for an emergency tooth ache, and he did some work for us for free one time - he is a really great man.

 Walking between the kithen and too the x-ray room.

Midwife's office.

The group.

The front of the hospital.

Friends for Ever! Jase, Courtney, Katie, Niz and Zay!

Dinner with the Farrells!

Todd had a little bit of free time to do some fishing! Of course he has to fish the monsters out of the water!

And a bunch of other little fishes to go with it!

Joel, Josh, Todd & Saad.

This is what he does every time he catches a barracuda.

You skin it real good, and filet it completely off of the bone.  That way there is really no chance of getting ciguatera poisoning. It really can take quite a while to get this fish all carved up.  Our Rasta friend Jan (Pronounced Yun) Always wants the heads and bones of the barracuda to cook up and make soup out of it.  Each time Todd warns him that he could get really sick – Jan just says, “ Ya, ya its no problem Todd! How’s my babies?” Meaning our kids.  So Todd tells him, “The kids are great. Well if I see you tomorrow then we’ll eat our fish!”

During this months of Tr. Cris theme of occupations and what you want to be when you grow up, she has asked a few different people around the island to share information about their occupation and she asked Todd if he would come in and talk with the kids about him going to school to be a doctor!  He led on to me that he wasn’t very excited to do it, but my goodness when he got in there to speak with the kids I really believed he loved it!  The kids just melted his heart and some of the things they said were so cute and they were quite well behaved!

He first talked about the hard work he had to do in class to study and try his best to get good grade and never give up.  And he talked about eating healthy to grow our bodies big and strong.  Not to eat too many sweeties, and cakes, and goodies, and sodas and to make sure to get lots of exercise. He talked about different parts of our bodies, bones, and muscles.

He talked about their heart and the sounds it makes and went around to all the kids with his stethoscope so they could hear their hearts – they thought that was pretty awesome!

…and then the sphygmomanometer! (blood pressure cuff)  Oh my what a name I had no idea! And the teachers and the kids just laughed! And he somehow got on the topic of healthy natural body eliminations, bowel movements, and urinating – believe me it was very well presented and led into – some of the kids were a little grosses out, but its good for them to be able to talk naturally about their natural body functions to get help if they ever need it.  But this one little boy Aiden was so cute saying, “Guys its totally natural, its not gross – really.” And he said it in a few different ways and occasions – it was really cute.

All in all he was talking with them for over 45 minutes and the kids just loved him, and stared at him with curiosity and I think they thought he was pretty cool!  And lets be honest - its not very often that children at this age will interact with a white man and reach out to touch his skin.  Its just the way it is around here just like at home it would be very rare for my kids to have interacted with a black man.  Such is life. He did a fantastic job!

One Sunday morning we get a knock at the door.  Todd and I are still in bed, but Jase is up to get the door, and it is his sweet friend Zay.  He came in all ready to go to church!  I had completely forgotten that Jase had asked if he wanted to come with him to church this Sunday – and so had Anike (Zay’s Mother) and Zay had made up his mind and walked down from a friend house he had slept over the night before.  It was so cute to see how excited he was to come and check out church with Jase! Jase led him to his closet and they found some clothes for Zay to wear. (Jase has seriously gotten huge)

These boys are so cute together and Zay is like Jase’s little brother! I think they had a wonderful time a church together and they walked home hand in hand.  It just melts your heart.

In the just about 2 ¾ quarter years we’ve been here we have never seen the beach look like this!

There were some incredible ground swells that brought up this much sand.  This is always the time of year – around Easter time – when the beach is brought back in full force. Back in the day there used to be massive huge beach all the way across the whole lower town but since the Jetty had been built it comes and goes however there is always some bits of beach to hang out on.  But this was amazing and fun!

Todd and I went on a little date one morning walking some of the beaches and checking out ruins and came across a spot the archiologists had been digging up.  It was kind of a neat find for me.

At recess one morning a little boy in Courtney's class found a little baby goat in the grass just outside the school play yard.  The mother wasn't in sight so Courts teacher, after waiting hours to see if the mother would come back, took the baby goat home to nurse him back to health until she could return it back to someone who had goats and could add him to their herd.  His name is Donnie and he is so cute, and the good children in the class each took a turn feeding him at times.  Donnie would walk around the classroom, and just like babies he pooped and peed!  But the kids thought it was sooooo fun having a class goat for a month or so until Donnie could then join a herd on his own!