Well what can I say?

Well what can I say? Other than.... I know it has been two whole months since we blogged!

Last time we typed was Spring Break when all the groups were down.

After the last blog, we did have one more group come down. Madison Academy from Huntsville, AL visited us with 25 people total. The group worked on finishing a playground at the Hacienda and also did all of the schools P.E. Classes that week.

Flag Football...

Our Cheerleaders...

And because I know how much y'all love pictures...here is a link to one of the Madison Academy student's website. She, Wanda, took some AMAZING pictures while she was here. You should check it out!
http://www.madisonacademy.phanfare.com/6471903

Since March we have calmed down with hosting groups and have gotten busy at school....surprise surprise.

Jake did have surgery on Easter weekend. Since then, he has been recuperating. Oh who am I kidding? He took several days off work and then was right back at it in no time! It would take something life threatening to keep that man away from his job! He is however, doing really well. I can say this because I am his personal physical therapist. We stretch and excercise his leg twice a day. He says he is looking forward to climbing Mt. Mojanda (the site of his injury) next March. Get ready Harding group!

We have also started winding down our school year and are preparing for next year. We have some major changes happening that we are excited about:

Our first change is our start time. We are starting school at 7:30am instead of 7am. Only half an hour....but that is a precious half hour of sleep! We also will let out at 2:45pm instead of 3pm. Jake has been diligently working on making our schedule more effective so that we have the same hours of classes but spend less time at school. Amen to that!

Our second change is that we have updated our school logo. The previous logo was very involved and seemed a bit infantile. So when Glen Laid was down with the Madison Academy group in March, we created a new school logo. We also decided to change up our school colors a little. They are now blue and green.

What do you think?

Another change is our uniforms. We currently have very formal uniforms, that include ties. We wanted to simplify a bit and make things easier on kids and parents. We also wanted to give the students a bit more choice and go to a dress code as opposed to a set uniform everyday. We aren't quite set on the exact colors and thing just yet as we are getting feedback from parents.

The biggest change we are making is to our English curriculum. We have currently been using a program called ACE (Accelerated Christian Education). In this program the students sit in cubicles, called offices, and work individually on workbooks. It is a mainly self motivated, self paced program. It was worked wonders for some of our students. However, as some of you teachers out there know, it is difficult to learn solely through text, copying and memorizing...and doing it while not talking and sitting in a cubical! So we are wanting to gear our curriculum towards something more hands-on, interactive and where the kids are actually practicing their English.

High School Learning Center break time

We are super excited about this change, even though it is a little scary for us. I will be working all summer long looking for and creating this new ESL curriculum. So, if there are any teachers out there that are wanting a change of pace...smaller classroom size, less politics, and a bunch of GREAT students... Think about coming down and teaching for us! I also would love some help on curriculum development…

Mother's Day activity with middle school

Another part of changing our English curriculum is that we want to create a dual language program in our lower grades (K-2). Our plan, if we can get enough teachers, is to have math and science taught in English, by a native English speaker, and all other subjects in Spanish by their traditional Ecuadorian teacher. This way, the students are more exposed to English and learn it quicker. Hopefully in the future we can have this same set up in all grades.

English practice with Kindergarten… Dr. Seuss and Cat in the Hat.

Those are the major changes so far. Here are some of our exciting events, past and future:

Easter week we had themed chapel.

Two weeks ago we had a talent show. We were super impressed at the amount of student who wanted to participate... Including several students (3rd graders!) who sang solos.

June 1st: is Day of the Child (we have just about any Day of the.... You can think of...mother, teacher, worker, water, pudding cup... Just kidding about that one). We are having a half day May 30 to have a day of playing games, different activities, and just plain old fun to celebrate the children.

June 19-21: HOH Christian Academy along with Emma Graciela, in Tabacundo, are putting on a show...High School Musical. Auditions went underway Tuesday and parts have already been doled out! Practice begins Thursday.

 July 16th: Last but definitely not least, our first set of graduating seniors will get their diplomas.

So while we have all these exciting things going on, Jake and I have one more exciting thing for us personally. On the 23rd we will be fly out for a three week trip to the States. WOOHOO!
We will be staying in Huntsville, Alabama for the first week and talking business with our employers and some our bigger supporters at Twickenham. We will also make a short trip to Whitehouse, TN to visit our first supporting congregation. After that, we make the trek to Arlington, TX, where we will spend the majority of our time with friends, family and home congregation. There will be two side trips to OKC and to Canyon, TX for more church meetings and fellowship. Boy do we feel popular!
It will be great to see so many people, but by no means will this be vacation time! Vacation? What's that?!? There are always so many things to do and contacts to make, especially since we are still technically fundraising....hint hint hint. We are however, looking forward to it greatly and it will be nice to take a step back from school (of course Jake will still be calling them everyday....boundaries I say!)

I believe that is all...until the next blog update...which hopefully isn't two months from now.

A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words

We have had a lot happen since our last post and there is too much to type. Since a picture speaks a thousand words, this post will mainly be photos. Besides, I know some of y'all only look at at blog for the pictures!

Jauna, Courtney and I got to go out for coffee and bizcochos with our beautiful new sisters in Christ. We talked about "what happens now" that they have been baptized and they also received beautiful silver cross necklaces to remind them of their new life.

In the beginning of March we celebrated Carnival with the Hacienda kids. We played with water balloons, spray foam and buckets of water. It was so much fun running around with the kids but we were definitely very cold and dirty by the end.

Spray foam is awesome!

Jake gets Maria Beatriz with a buck of water.

Jauna, Jenny and Courtney

We also played Carnival with our school kids during an area wide sports day in Tabacundo. First, I'd like to say that both Jake and I were completely impressed at the behavior of our school, students and teachers, compared to all the other schools in Tabacundo. They all sat together and were well behaved, so we rewarded them with a large foam war after everyone left.

Ms. Silvana (4th and 6th grade teacher) started the foam war.

As you can tell, they loved playing with Mr. Jake.

A random picture to show you how hard we work in class…

This month we had a guest speaker come and make a special presentation on the "choking game".

Ken Tork was in Ecuador on a mission trip to work at the Cayambe Church of Christ. When we heard of him and his story, we did a survey on our staff and students. After finding out what a large percent of our students have either heard, know people who have participate or have person play the "choking game", we knew he had to come speak. Ken gave a very moving speech about loosing his 15 year old son to the game and about the dangers of playing. You can find out more info on the "choking game" here: For Kevin's Sake

 Kevin talks to our teachers.

We hosted our first American group of the year. 

We had 12 people from Harding University/Harding Academy.

HOH Academy hosted after-school sports camps:

Karate

Dodgeball

Soccer

American Football

Volleyball

They also painted and organized our new school Library.

We are excited about all of our books!

Anthony is pretty excited too.

Some of them helped out in the Learning Centers.

They also painted and organized our new Teacher's Lounge.

Our students liked helping too.

 The guys helped build a new drainage system in the parking lot. This will be a BIG help since we are now in the rainy season.

The group lead our chapels all week.

Little kids chapel really enjoyed the puppet show.

On Wednesday we took a hiking trip up Mt. Mojanda.

Unfortunately on our hiking trip, Jake took a bit of a tumble. While sliding down and after doing a complete flip, his foot caught on something and caused his knee to snap. We took a trip to Quito to get an MRI and survey the damage. Turns out, Jake completely tore his ACL, damaged his meniscus and has some bruising on his bones. We have been seeing several traumatologist and getting various opinions and prices as to what to do next. In the next couple of weeks, we will be scheduling arthroscopic surgery in Quito. Please keep Jake and I in your prayers as it is a physically difficult time for us and as Jake is in pain.

Despite the knee injury, as you know, the show must go on. This week the Hacienda hosted a group from the LCU Education department. They took three afternoons out of their schedule to teach some of our classes.

The students enjoyed hands on lessons on various topics.

This week our Learning Center supervisors and monitors are doing ACE training to get re-certified. 

Here is Jill and Jhoe working in their offices.

So, as you can tell, we have had another busy time. Later this week we have a third group working up at the school, Madison Academy. Those pictures will come later. Until then… enjoy this last random picture.

Yummy!