I’ve learned the hard way more than once not to mess with caterpillars here. I’ve taken on hanging caterpillars. I’ve naively handled fluffy caterpillars. So when I saw this red, spiky caterpillar, I kept my distance, but couldn’t resist snapping a photo of the interesting creation.
This is part two of the Joint Learning Session highlights.
At the closing class presentations, Joshua was King Hydrogen. His class learned about the periodic table and presented a play based on the periodic table.
This is Joshua in his classroom on the last day of JLS, showing me the explorers bulletin board.
Jonah’s class focused on Magellan. He was so excited that his part included pretending to die.
Every academic year is kicked off with a Joint Learning Session (JLS) that when homeschooled children and the children who attend the mission school have “school” together. The focus is normally on a historic theme. Below are some highlights.
This is a photo of the school population during JLS. We had a record number of students this year. Pictured are all but one of the students, the teachers and the staff. I’m in the photo because this year Jonah has returned to the mission school called The Greenhouse. He and Joshua will both attend and I’ve started as the Assistant to the Principal and PE Teacher for this school year.
There was an option to complete a Science Fair Project over the summer months and display it at the first ever Science Fair. Jonah decided to do a project.
The students learned about three different artists during this Age of Exploration theme based academic session. Joshua had his self portrait displayed.
Jonah had one of his nature paintings displayed.
While playing a game we call Hide the Buddies, David found two RER tickets. When we lived in France we got around by public transportation. We became quite accustomed to riding the bus, RER (commuter train) and the Metro. The tickets are dated June 16, 2010. Since they were Massy to Antony tickets, we knew they were from our commute to Joshua’s speech therapy appointments. It was a fun find and reminder of our days in France.
In 2008, we asked if anyone who receives our newsletter would like to commit to pray for Joshua and Jonah when he/she brushes his/her teeth. We called this group of prayer warriors the Toothbrush Team. One of the member’s of the Toothbrush Team has faithfully prayed for the boys since 2008 and noticed that the photo card to remind her to pray for them hadn’t been updated since 2008.
The boys now have a new photo for the Toothbrush Team. If you are on the team and would like a new photo card, please let me know. If you aren’t on the team, but would like to join, please let me know.
Thank you for praying for all of us!
I’m continually amazed at the ingenuity of the children in our neighborhood. They will make all kinds of creations to play with from anything they find outside. Our guard’s son, Geovanni, builds cars out of sardine cans, flip flop parts, strips of rubber and other items he finds. He has created a whole fleet of cars, some complete with a steering wheel.
One day our guard was sharing with me that Geovanni was asked by a man staying near their home from France to build a car for him to take with him to France. He paid Geovanni for the creation 2,000 cfa (about $4). Geovanni was ecstatic! Jonah heard the story and asked Geovanni to build him one and that he would pay for the car. Geovanni proudly presented Jonah was a yellow, steering car of his own. Jonah loves to drive his car with Geovanni and other friends around our neighborhood.
Pictured above is Jonah’s yellow car.
Here’s a close up.
We have tomatoes! It’s not a bumper crop, however, I feel victorious that at least the tomatoes did grow and now we get to enjoy the small harvest.
Before we left the USA in 2009 to start this new missions life, I (DeAnna) thought it was impossible to not only have partners that want to be on our team for monthly living finances, but also the huge amount for French language study. I also thought it was impossible for me to learn French. I studied German in High School and at University of Central Missouri back when it was called CMSU. During my German studies at CMSU, I was at a higher level in the language and just wasn’t getting it. My professor during my final oral presentation told me he would pass me if I promise to never take another German class. I agreed, changed my minor from German to Recreation and thought learning a second language was done in my lifetime. It also shows God’s sense of humor that more than ten years later I was preparing to spend one year in intense language learning as a student, wife, mother, foreigner and missionary.
Although we studied just outside of Paris, it was an extremely hard year for our family, for our marriage and individually. It was not a vacation! We often refer to language study as Humility 101.
The saying “can’t see the forest through the trees,” has described many times in our lives. During language study we couldn’t see the forest because of all the language learning/steep living learning curve trees, not being able to stand up for our son who was being ridiculed in school by his teacher, not being able to stand up for our youngest who was being hurt at school by a fellow student, not being able to express ourselves, shopping at a store staring at cans of products needing to shop by the picture, not knowing the metric system for measuring and temperatures, etc…
You know how it’s said that hindsight is 20/20. I think we’ve all experienced this in our lives. I also think hindsight sheds perspective on past situations. We’ve been finished with language study for four years now and have had the 20/20 hindsight and a better perspective on our time in France. What we appreciate and/or miss about our time in France.
I had a long story I wanted to share, but as I looked at the pictures I thought they speak volumes and I didn’t want to take away from that. We bought a lawn bowling set and the boys took it outside to introduce their neighborhood friends to bowling. It was a fun to watch.
On August 16, 2012 we awoke early to drive to Hershey, PA for Jonah’s outpatient amputation surgery. In some ways it feels like a lifetime ago and in other ways it feels like only yesterday. Just thinking about it all makes my heart beat rapidly, my palms sweat and my stomach ache. I don’t know if there will ever be a day when I don’t have physiological reactions when I think about it. We are thankful for the physical healing that has taken place in Jonah’s body.
There is much fall out emotionally stemming from his amputation. We would appreciate your prayers for Jonah, Joshua and our family to overcome the emotional battle triumphantly.
If you know anyone going through something similar, I wrote a small electronic book about Jonah’s experience, titled 9 1/2 Fingers.
D squared + J squared = Anderson 