Consistency

Consistency.
It is what Jake has been stressing this school year with our teachers and our students. Which is slightly ironic as we definitely are anything but consistent when it comes blogging. Oops!

The past couple of months have gone well at school. I, personally, am excited about where things are headed. The new English curriculum that I've been working on putting together has gone well. It is roughly based upon the TEKS (standards) of Arlington ISD. It has, however, been difficult for some of our students to adjust to speaking and writing so much in English. But, I think this is a good problem to have because eventually they will be accustomed to the amount of English they practice!

Our student population is about the same as last year at 162. We have quite a few new students, including a few returning students. We have accepted a couple of difficult students. Not they themselves are difficult but their family situations. One of our objectives as a school is to be a light unto our community and sometimes that means we have some dysfunctional family situations.
One of our freshman girls has just returned from a year long stint in rehab and counseling classes. She has been doing extremely well in her studies and relationships with others. We also have a former drug dealer we are trying to work with and get him graduated along with helping his family. While these situations and families can be difficult to deal with, we are confident that God can work through us and our teachers to change lives.

We have been blessed to host Jake's mom, Karen, the past 3 months at our house and at the Academy. Karen retired from teaching this past year and decided to come down on a visitor's visa. She has been such a big help getting together our K-2 English classes together. She also has been teaching our current K-2 English teacher on how to complete the lessons and how to work centers. A million thank you's to you Karen for being willing to leave your husband and home and join us here in Ecuador serving these kids.

From the Kindergarten class to Ms. Karen

1st grade

2nd grade

Unfortunately we haven't been able to take Karen around sight seeing too much because our car is still having issues. Actually, this past week we have found a buyer and accepted an offer which will be final next week. However, we did make a trip out to Guayaquil to visit with the missionaries that our home church, Woodland West coC, support. Two members of the missions committee, Hal Pendergraft and Ryan Dill, came to Ecuador (Guayaquil for 5 days, Tabacundo for 1 and 1/2 and Quito for 2 days) to visit and encourage the work. Although it was busy, most of our time filled with meetings, we enjoyed being somewhere different for a few days. Especially with the warm coastal weather.

Visiting with missionaries in Gauayaquil

Another thing we've been enjoying is our church family. The Tabacundo coC meets at Camp Bellevue, just down the hill from us. We generally have about 75-100 in attendance on Sundays. Recently we've developed some new ministries with the hope that we are able to develop more local leaders. We have instilled 9 ministries (Youth, Children's, Women's, Worship, Outreach, Counseling, Finances, Formation of Leaders, and Evangelism) with one or two couples who are in charge of those ministries. Jake was appointed one of the leaders of Finances and I am co-leader of the Women's Ministry. Jake has also been put on the rotations of delivering the message/leading class/giving the Lord's supper meditation. Today he deliver the meditation all in Spanish! We have enjoyed being more involved in the church.

Women's Ministry doing a cooking class. We made cheese empanadas and colada morada!

This week we are sad to say goodbye to our good friend and fellow co-worker Courtney Hard. She has been the case manager at the Children's Home for a year now and is returning back to the States on Wednesday. Courtney, we are gonna miss you so much. Please come back soon! As as your punishment for leaving us... this photo of you will be published, which is also still my desktop photo.

Something that we would like for you to be thinking about and praying about is scholarships. As Jake  is working through the school budget, we are finding that we are lacking funding. One way that would greatly help us are scholarships for our Hacienda of Hope Children's Home students. A scholarship is $100 a month. This covers all their tuition cost, food and uniform. Once we are able to fund all 18 of our kids we would like to reach out into our community and give scholarships to families who aren't able to pay the tuition costs. If you are interest in sponsoring a kid, please let us know!

Thank you for all your love and support!

P.S. If you have not already liked the HOH Christian Academy and Hacienda of Hope Facebook pages, you should! There are a lot of great pictures and information being posted.

Ecuadorian Flag Day

 Doing fire extinguisher training

Teachers during our Teacher "No-Talent" Talent Show

 8th graders making volcanoes explode

Kaiden Reeger, Justin and Jauna's oldest child, was baptized on October 13th. We are all so proud of her!

Maria being Hercules for her English class final exam.

Freshman students doing a little work on the soccer field during PE.

We've been donated 300 books from a couple at Livona coC in Michigan. It has been a HUGE blessing for our kids to be able to check out books from the school library!

Jake turned 39 in October!

3rd grade students working on their geography.

We had a Halloween Community Fun Night at school. There were over 200 people that showed up!

Thank you to our former Sunday morning Bible class at Woodland West who put together a care package for Jake and I. Included in the package were Halloween decorations we used for our community event.

We have a guest writer....

Ok...
The guest writer is Jake...
Here we go!

So it is that time of year again.... 

I have seen many of you talk about the new school year and the many changes with your children or schools.  We just went through our first two weeks of school here at the Hacienda of Hope Christian Academy.  We also have endured many changes this year with the school. 

Let's see...we changed uniforms, the class schedule, English curriculum, lunch schedules, and built new classrooms (thanks Venture- James Cochrum).  We have a new assistant principal, Bible/chapel coordinator, and 6 new classroom teachers...(breathe)...

 Of course, change can bring new emotions also: fear, excitement, panic, hope, etc.  We have experienced all of these with these changes from the ending of last year to the beginning of this year.   And after all the excitement, we still have 160 something students as we ended last year and we are a Christian school like we were last year.

  For once in my life, school and education is about more than just the education; it is about your relationship with God and the overall effect of the school.  I say for once in my life and that is not entirely true, I have always tried to reach out to students and families in my roles as a teacher and administrator, but now I am learning how to actually put my words into action...

BUT no matter how much you try to say, show, or do there will always be detractors on the other end.  In some cases, those people are the ones closest to you.  It is not always popular to make changes and at times doing right and loving as God would do is not always popular.  With the different detractors we have in our life, I have one thing now to say: 

Better Days Are Coming.... 

Do I believe this?  Of Course!  It is not about how many students we have, it is not about if our school is ranked number 1 for English or the best private school in our sector, it is not about our sports teams winning every game. IT IS about all of our teachers and students praying as a class to begin the day. IT IS about visiting our families around the community to pray and give food and items to them. IT IS about our teams competing with a Christ-like attitude...
Now will we miss a few minutes of class instruction to start the day by praying? Yes. Will we miss a day or two every month or two to visit families? Yes. Will we win every game we compete in? No. But we can have an effect on our community by the way we win and lose...

Better days are coming:  With our attitude and focus on a relationship with God. I would argue that our students' academics, attitude, and accomplishments will take care of themselves.  We are still a young school and are determined in being a Godly school.
Two Bible verses that we share at school come to mind with this journey:  Colossians 3:23-24 and Romans 12:1-8

Basically: we are here to serve the Lord, use our talents for the Lord, and our culture does not define who we are as people. 
We live in crazy cultures, but our service is for the Lord.  All aspects of our lives can be about God and the effects He has on our life.  Tanya and I have had many detractors and set-backs, but continuing to work for the Lord is the goal.  Serving the Lord gives us those days in heaven, those Better Days are Coming....


Like I mentioned, we have had many changes.  Below are some pictures of the newly constructed classrooms, new logo, and new uniforms.   We are excited to have enough space now for each teacher!   Thank you again for your support and prayers!  We appreciate and love all of you!

Happy Anniversary!

One year. It has been one year TODAY since arrived in Ecuador.

I woke up today thinking... Wow! How crazy to think that it has been a whole year since we have been here. Time flies and rests for no one.

I promptly greeted my husband with a "happy anniversary!" and the response I got? "And we still have no water!"

I want to write a blog post about how amazing this year has been, how so many things have happened, progress made, memories that will never be forgotten and relationships formed. And while all these things are true, it is not what we feel today or even lately.

As a "missionary" we feel like we have to report and present only what is good and encouraging. But, I am going to be honest with y'all in this post.
It has been hard. We are exhausted. We are stressed out to the max. We are frustrated...everyday...several times a day.  And I feel like these words aren't nearly strong enough to portray our feelings.

Sometimes it is little things, like the city turning off the water supply so our cistern is low. Which means we(our personal house and the school) either have no water or we go into drought mode and conserve everything. And yes, I consider no water as a "little thing".

Or medium things, like the fact that we purchased a lemon of a car (a 26K lemon, because cars do no depreciate in value here) and can't get it out of the shop. We (Twickenham) have/has spent thousands of dollars in repairing it just so we can get it to a point of being able to sell it. The best part about this is the fact that it was finally to a "good enough" point this last week but I got into a fender-bender that put it back into the shop. That in itself was a frustrating experience! The other guy came to a complete stop in the middle of the highway, after going 90km/h, because of a dog crossing the road. And lemme point out, that here in Ecuador, there is ALWAY a dog crossing the road. So, now we get to pay for our car repair plus his.

Then there are the big issues. Issues with school budget and school affairs.
Things like not having the monies to hire more teachers but going on faith and doing it anyway because we know we need to be legal and to provide our kids with the best education we can.
Things like being rejected by the Ministry of Education for a tuition raise (since they dictate what we can change for monthly tuition) for reasons that could have been avoided had we known.
Things like knowing we are still not completely legal on some school items and that there will always be a threat of shutting us down until we are.
...

As you read this, I don't want you to be discouraged about the work happening here in Ecuador. I wrote this so that you could get an partially understanding of the things we go through and the honest state we are currently in.

I think we all go through these times where it feels like we are just barely able to tread water. I remember seasons of our married life where it felt like the waves just kept washing over us. We would get pounded over and over by different struggles and problems and it was hard to keep our heads up. When I think back on those times, I think about how God was there with me. He wasn't the Coast Guard who came in and swept me up from the water. He allowed me to stay in but was my floatation device. And I endured and came out, better for it. Because the funny thing about struggles are, like water, they polish and refine you.

Isaiah 43:2, NIV: "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; he flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

So, it is our one year Ecuador anniversary and we are a bit down. But we will not lose heart, for we know our God in Heaven is with us. We know He called called us here, is with us and will use these experiences to polish us and for His glory.

2 Corinthians 4:17, NIV: "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

Pray for us.
Also being thinking about financially support the work here.
We are now at a point where our personal needs are fully funded, but as the next school year is upon us and with much needed changes occurring, we are realizing the need in our school budget. In the near future you may be seeing some opportunities where you can help further the work in Ecuador, whether by direct support of our school budget, student scholarships or technology funding, so please be prayerful and mindful of that.

1-8

Has it really  been a month since we have returned from our trip to the States?!?

I was going to type "words cannot describe how busy we have been this month"... but I think that words could describe just how busy we have been. And I will attempt to do just that.

1.) When we got home from our "vacation" we had a few days of unpacking and getting our house put back together after our cats (Chancho and Pata) destroyed it.

2.) Then we welcomed our White House, TN/Orange, TX group. 
The group, made of 7 teachers and 4 other professionals, worked and loved on our school kids. They read children's books, Bible stories, and did English activities. Some of the group members also painted the once stark white classroom walls. We also were able to take our older students on a service project to visit some poorer families in the community. The groups were able to help in some homes, delivered food and clothes, sing some songs and pray over the families. It was a great time of encouragement for us and hopefully a good opportunity to learn for our students.

3.) After the White House/Orange group left, we greeted our friend Diana Foster from our home congregation for a week. Diana visited us to check out the school and see what all the commotion is down here in Ecuador.

4.) We had Kindergarten graduation. The kiddos were super cute!

5.) We had a great time celebrating the 4th of July with all the gringos. The Campbells had us over their house to grill food and shoot off fireworks. It was a grand time being with fellow Americans and celebrating our freedoms.

6.) On the 12th we had a wedding on our lawn for a new couple at church. They recently got baptized at church and decided to get married also. It was a beautiful wedding that we (the ladies at church) had the privilege of putting together. We made flower arrangements, bouquets, and a 5-tiered fondant covered cake.

6 & 1/2.) We had a couple girls, Delaney and Danielle, stay the night at our place. They are both doing LST in Quito and wanted to spend some time in Tabacundo, learning more about the school and Hacienda.

7.) On the 13th we said good-bye  to some good friends, Wayler and Mariana Frances, who moved back to Costa Rica. Wayler was one of the local evangelists and Mariana was the Hacienda and school accountant. We had to send them off in style, of course, with a special class time at church. We gave them a plaque, a book filled with memories and prayers, and of course had cake.

8.) The next day we had three ladies come in from Florida and the First City Church to help with our first ever high school graduation. We are so proud of our students. All 6 graduating seniors have all been accepted to university. We are also so thankful for Lisa, Michelle and Denise for helping us and hanging out with us. And thankfully, I didn't have to bake the cake!

So in a nutshell, those were our big events. In between and even during those times we had curriculum writing, budget working, schedule making and even some time spend with our Hacienda kids.

Making S'mores with the Hacienda kids and ASHLEY MOORE (Shoutout!)

Eating Aladdin's shwarma while Leonela is getting her hair relaxed. (Look ASHLEY MOORE...another shoutout!) 

It has been crazy this month.
I think Jake and I will take the next month off of hosting people and doing big events.
Starting in August we will get busy again with teachers coming back for training and Jake's mom coming down. Karen, Jake's mom, will be here for almost 3 months to set up our Kinder, 1st and 2nd grade English program.
This next school year is coming upon us soon...almost too soon! I am not nearly done putting together our new English curriculum. Keep us in your prayers!