Science Fair

Ahh... Science Fair... I love Science Fair!! Well... I Love the NIGHT of Science Fair! :)

I teach ALL the Sciences for Grades 5 - 12! So.. that was 51 students to get ready for Science Fair and grade all the Research Reports, Papers, Displays, Projects... it was a lot! I got them all ready as EARLY AS POSSIBLE! and... overall... they did well. :) ... and I was glad it was over! :) THEY WERE TOO!

Marthon Brasilia!!

WOW!!! Chris and Casey set out in January to run a Marathon!!! So they started training... every Saturday, Casey, Chris, and Megan would get up at at 5am and go running!

They trained... and trained HARD!! It was definitely a lesson in discipline for them all!! They promised when they had actually run 40 km in practice... that Casey & Chris would run in their Sunga's! (Brazilian Speedos! -the most common bathing suit for me, and most of the men wear them to run in also!) SO... they did!!! And it "Just so happened" to also be when Megan's Parents were in town for a visit!! Megan and Casey are NOW married (July 11th)!! But.... can you imagine... wearing your sunga in front of your Future In-Laws that you had only met twice before!!! That's courage!!! :) So... Chris and Casey got to the park on that Saturday...wearing... well.... VERY LITTLE!!!!! :) (...the pic was in the reception video also!!! LOL!!)

On Tuesday, April 21st... Chris, Casey, Megan, and Scott (Student who joined in!) ran 26.3 MILES! Chris finished in 4 HOURS and 45 MINUTES!! That... my friends... is a LONG TIME to be pounding the pavement!! The actual course had many hills! They had practiced on flat ground. They did so good... What an encouragement! Chris was able to incorporate much of wht he learned into SMASH messages! :) Talk about Perseverance! :)

SMASH RETREAT 2009!

...::: BULLET PROOF :::...

Proverbs 4: 20 - 27 - Above all else Guard your hearts!

~How to Guard your Life, Mind, and Hearts...

and how to stand in the gap to help protect your brother as well ~

A week before the retreat... we were so PUMPED! It was gonna be AWESOME! God was going to ROCK it OUT AGAIN! We had an INCREDIBLE Speaker coming from Rio. The same guy we had last year! ... then ... The DAY BEFORE THE RETREAT... Our speaker called, and said he had to go to the States for a family emergency... oh no... what are we going to do??? Are the kids all going to cancel??? Will they think this is just another SMASH night??? They will be so disappointed...... Can *WE* (the Smash leaders) actually pull off an ENTIRE weekend retreat... and make it powerful enough to rock our kids' hearts??? We aren't equipped... We have all the other details worked out... but We aren't prepared... what are *WE* going to do?????

Knock, Knock, Knock.... HELLO?!?!?! HELLO!!!!!!

IT'S NOT ABOUT Y-O-U!!! IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU!!!!!

IT'S ABOUT ME... I AM YOUR LORD AND SAVIOR... THIS RETREAT IS ABOUT ME! I WILL *STILL* ROCK THEIR HEARTS... IT WASN'T ANY SPEAKER THAT WAS DOING THAT ANYWAY... I AM! AND I WILL STILL BE!!!

IT'S ABOUT ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...so we humbly said... "Yes, LORD!! Please forgive us!" ... and we spent the next 24 hours ON OUR FACES getting ready to hear what HE has to say!!! Then... we just jumped out there and did what He said! It was incredible!!!! :) The LORD IS MIGHTY TO SAVE!

The most powerful moment was Saturday night. We had a praise team there to do music, and they had left their equipment up at the front. Well... during free time, the kids started playing "AMERICAN IDOL" with the microphones! A couple got on the keyboard, some on the guitars... and they were all just singing and having fun. A bit later... as more kids started coming in... more joined in... and then they started singing praise songs. Jonathan grabbed his guitar and played without plugging up. All the kids came in, stood arm in arm, Singing LOUDLY praises to the KING! Singing at the tops of their lungs!!! It was the most powerful night!! It lasted almost 2 hours! The kids didn't want to stop!!! They didn't care who was standing next to them... how well they sang... tears streaming down their cheeks... raising hands to Jesus! It was so powerful! You could feel the Holy Spirit so thick... just kids... praising!!! No fancy band, no fancy music, no words put up on Power Point. ..... Just hearts ..... I am forever changed...

Easter Sunday 2009

This Easter was really nice! I took the opportunity to dress Caleb up and take a Million and One pics of him! :)

Our SMASH kids also did a musical presentation of "Mighty is the Power of the Cross" by Chris Tomlin. It was really remarkable!! I always have fun putting these things together, and the kids are always great to get involved!! :)

Reflections: The Cross is so Powerful... Can save a dying man, make me new again, and wash us White as Snow! The Cross itself has no power... no honor, nothing to be worshiped.. it's just wood. BUT... it's a symbol of what Power, Honor, and MIGHT our God has! He sent His ONLY Son... Sent Him to Die... a Sinners Death, sot that he could TAKE ON SIN, and by doing this... Paid our DEBT! Our lives COST HIM DEATH. And through and by HIM ALONE can we Truly LIVE! ...Are you TRULY LIVING??

Caleb Update!

I haven't put up a Caleb update in a while. I need to take some new pics too! Here are a few pics, most from December, some from March.

He's GROWING! :) YEAH! He has grown a Whole Inch since January! Still kinda funny that he has one pair of 18month shorts that he can STILL wear! He wears some 24 month shorts all the time. All the shirts, while would still fit him, are too short! So, he's basically in 4T everything. But still have to roll the cuff of the pants. 3T's still fit him fine, and he still wears these.

So hard to believe my 'Little Punkin' will be 6 in August. That's just crazy! He is doing so amazing in Kindergarten! He's READING now! So incredible! We just finished reading month, and he/we read 72 books. His teacher required that for every book WE read, HE had to read. So HE read 36! That's so great! Of course... his classmates read more than he did, but March was pretty crazy. Many nights we would get home around 9pm, with Caleb asleep in the car. We tried to 'catch up' on his reading on the weekends, but they are equally crazy. In fact, our lives are so 'on the go' that Caleb is constantly asking "where are we going next? Are we going to someones house? What do we get to do now?" ... He's BORED when we're home! :) We try to reserve out Family Time, and are successful at that most weeks. We LOVES hanging out with the SMASH kids and with our other families. He gets so excited to go play.

His 'Best Friend' is Nana. A precious girl from Zambia. He loves her dearly, and so do we! He LOVES CHICKEN HEARTS! ICK!, I know! But... he loves to go to the Churrasquerria, which is Brazilian BBQ (as in Grilled meat). It's very inexpensive, especially for all you get. He'll tell you it's his favorite place. He gets TONS of Chicken Hearts! It's a big Brazilian favorite here. It's just what it says... Chicken hearts then grilled on a skewer. He calls the restaurant the "Pineapple Man" place... because another TREAT they bring around is Grilled Pineapple rolled in CINNAMON! It's incredible!

He's learning more and more Portuguese so he's getting better about answering to their questions instead of just standing silent. He loves to play with any and all kids. If we go to the Playground, he'll just play and play with whoever is there. He so amazingly adjustable!

Sorry this one is sideways.

His favorite thing to wear to church is his Sweater vests. I here is a pic from Thanksgiving in one, I need to post another pic! They are so great. I bought 2 at a massive clearance last summer, and got them for $2.99 each! He loves them!! Everyone always tells him he looks so cute in them!

We are letting his hair grow. We did the Buzzed head thing for the past year and a half, but we're letting his hair grow again. I'm doing pretty good with cutting it myself. We tried to take him to a haircutting place, but they just ended up tapering with the Shears, I can do that! This time, I cut it a bit too short, but it's still cute! Chris is still wearing his hair BUZZED, and now has a sharp looking beard! (I cut his hair too!) :)

His teacher, Ms Amanda, is simply Amazing! She is helping him mature and doing a great job. AND... I especially love that I can also call her my friend! :) She sends him home with homework papers, and cute projects to do. He loves her dearly... although he does get a little distressed at all the "WORK" you have to do in Kindergarten! He told me one day, "I want to go back to preschool... we have too much work... and too many PAPERS in Kindergarten!" ...Welcome to LIFE, Son! :) :) ... you know Caleb... I want to go back to Preschool too!

I'll try to post more Caleb pics soon! I'll have to take a ton, so you can see his new haircut! There are some on Facebook, posted by others. Check it out! :)

New Background and Updates!

I have updated the Blog!! YEAH! And I found this CUTE background! :)
So... if you've been here recently... so sorry! But I have added 4 new posts (the ones dated for March). Thanks so much for following this blog and reading my posts! I pray they provide encouragement and maybe even a little smile! :)

Please continue to pray for us, and let us know how we can pray for you!

Happy Birthday DAD!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY DADDY!!

Happy Birthday to the Best Dad a girl can have!! :)

I love you so much!

Thank you for your Model of a Godly Man! Thank you for all you have done for ME, for US, and for CALEB! Thank you for investing in a relationship with Chris, and leading him with great advice and awesome support. Thank you for loving Caleb - in a way like no other. Tractor rides, Baseball, and (what was that about the "Back porch?") HaHaHa! :)

We love you so much!!!

We hope you have a FANTASTIC DAY! Can't wait to see you!!

MARCH MADNESS!

Ok... well... around here... March means much more than Basketball! In fact, I don't even know who is playing in March Madness... well... I know Memphis is/was in there somewhere. That's all I know. I am thankful that we aren't inundated with news and the economy here. We feel it, believe me, but because we can chose what news we read (ie, MSN or Yahoo News)... our lives aren't immersed in it. For this, I am thankful!

MARCH MADNESS around here means Reading Month! :) It's a fun time of celebrating reading. We spend our Fridays dressing up as whatever goofy theme, and reading Dr. Seuss books. Then we also have DEAR (Drop everything and Read!) What a great thing to have in a day! Drop everything and read for 15 minutes! Teachers included!!! I think I should write this into my lesson plans! :) :) The last day of reading month is always an adventure. The idea was to "TONE DOWN" the event this year, but it still ended up to be some great craziness! We got SOAP SOCCER! Which is a huge Blow Up Soccer Field, covered in soap! So you "slip and slide" all over the thing! :) It's so much fun! Then we over course, covered everyone in water and had a huge water fight! :) Mr. Bose dressed as the Cat in the Hat, Chris and Daniel were Thing One and Thing Two! IT was a great day! and a Great month!

BUT... I HAVE to share this... One of my precious ones... (you know they all are! ... but this one especially!!) told me that God has shown him so much through Reading month! The Lord used Reading Month (and triple points for Bible books read!! :) ) to get him BACK IN THE WORD!! He was able to couple his Bible reading with other Christian fiction books to really get excited about the WORD again! ...I almost jumped out of my skin! God is SO GOOD!! Please pray for this fella... I so desire to see him in the WORD like he was last spring, when God ROCKED his heart!!

Celebrations!

Kinda funny, I think... in an Ironic sort of way...

Our Anniversary was on March 7th! 12 years! WOW! 12 years! That's amazing! Sure thought he would have 'traded me in' by now! ... you know for one of those Newer, less Flawed models! :) HeeHee! 12 years.... Wow... God is amazing!

... but that's not the Irony! :)

Our Anniversary was March 7th - so... some would ask... 'so did you celebrate with an AMAZING night of dinner and romance'... ummm... no. 'Did you celebrate with a weekend away?' ....ummmm... no. But what we did... we think is still pretty spectacular! We had SMASH IN THE STREETS! So we spent all day preparing for, 2 hours actually serving, 2 hours fellowshipping, and then taking all the kids home. Then crashed! BUT... it's what we're here for... "It's just what we do!" (as this is now our standard line for the questions about why we drive kids all over town, why we spend nearly every weekend with them, why we take them to lunch, why we 'sacrifice' for them. *totally not a sacrifice!!)

So... why would our anniversary be different? Our Anniversary was spent with OUR KIDS! (minus 'the real one' - Caleb had to stay with friends!) What a great day too!

So... the Irony continues.... My Birthday was March 19th. Guess how we celebrated.... ummm... yep! SMASHin'. We had SMASH unplugged that night! :)

Chris and I did get a nice 'romantic' dinner AND a movie! Thanks to the Lancasters who let Caleb spend the night! :)

SMASH in the STREETS!!

Our SMASH in the STREETS event was incredible!!

We hit the Streets, divided into 3 cars and the Subway... with 17 kids, 5 leaders, 2 drivers, and 100 Sack Lunches!!! We made up sack lunch bags with a ham & cheese sandwich, chips, cookie, chocolate milk, and a beautiful bookmark paper with these verses on them:

Isaiah 55:1-2

Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy, and eat! Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not staisfy? Listen, Listen to me, and Eat what is Good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

John 6: 35

Then Jesus declared. "I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to Me will never go hungry; and He who believe in me will never be thristy."

The kids were impacted by what we did. Our car saw every extreme. One fella was so moved, he tore a piece of his sandwich to offer it to the girls as a gift. Another fella offered them food/supplies from a big trash bag of "collected" items from dumpsters. (half rotten). One guy was not nice, one was sleeping, one was totally in shock. Our lady was smiling from ear to ear! We went to the park, as well, and fed the popcorn vendors and ice cream vendors. These people work so hard for so little!! One family was there and the kids were so excited! The mom was overly gracious! :)

The other groups all had amazing stories! The Subway group talked to a guy that asked them to PRAY with him! One of the other car groups saw a large grouping of people in cardboard boxes out behind some dumpsters. So many needs around here!!!

How amazing our SMASHer's Standing in the GAP for these people! :) Awesome Experience!!

Then we ended the Awesome night with some PIZZA and fellowship! :)

Waterfalls & Rainbows

In March, we went to the Waterfalls again. There are actually many different waterfalls around Brasilia, but this one is probably the most "commercial." There is a big hut with a snack/lunch bar, music, a pool, and a couple of slides that are in the center of the "park". The path to the waterfalls is off to the side, and a little bit of a hike to get to the lower part. To get to the top, it is a pretty good hike up. Chris and the men, and the kids all went to the very top. We had a lot of fun, even though it rained on us for the first couple of hours. Then, we ate lunch. The sun ended up coming out just in time for everyone to have about an hour of play, then we headed home. It's a 2 hour drive one way on some really bad roads with random Speed bumps in the middle, so the drive is long. But it's worth it once or twice a year! :)

The most amazing thing however, was on the way home. There was an INCREDIBLE HUGE BRIGHT Rainbow!!! In fact, there were TWO! I have never seen TWO if you look very closely at the partial pic of the rainbow, you can see the very faint shadow of the second one about a centimeter to the left of the bright one.... you see it?? We actually see a good many rainbows in Brasilia during Rainy season, but I have never seen a FULL one that couldn't even be captured in one view of the camera!

I have never seen a FULL Rainbow this amazingly BRIGHT before!!! The pictures don't even do it justice. So... the SCIENCE GOOBER in me got to tell my car about prisms and the separation of the colors that make up light and their different wavelengths. :) In Physics, we got to really talk all about color and light and rainbows. We even got to talk about why our sky is blue and how it's really not reflection, or "colored" at all, but that the particles in the atmosphere allow the light to SCATTER and the higher frequencies of light get trapped first - which is Violet and Blue. Our eyes don't see Violet wavelengths as well, so our eyes pick up the Blue wavelengths. (in face, most animals and birds most likely see Violet!) :) ...AND... we only see the Blue with the "background" of black (SPACE!) and that looking down at earth from space, there is no "blue sky" ... AND... (sorry! :) ) in a city with SMOG, the reason you don't see Blue, (or much less of it) is because there are MORE particles in the air to SCATTER the light, so more wavelengths are trapped... making the sky almost Gray/White. (White is not a color, it's the combination of all wavelengths). ...Sorry for the little Physics lesson there... but it's COOL STUFF!! :)

So.... as I'm thinking of the SCIENCE behind these Rainbows, I'm just amazed at our CREATOR, SAVIOR, and LORD who thought up the complexity of these beautiful creations! How HE made light in its Perfection. How HE made this Earth to have perfect levels of the atmosphere that protect us from so many other parts of the Light that are not visible, that would cause us harm! We think UV rays are so damaging, well... we only get a VERY SMALL FRACTION of them, the rest are absorbed & reflected by our Ozone layer. How HE created everything with complete perfection beyond even our Scope of understanding! THEN... I get ANGRY at the very Science that I love that isn't fully capable of recognizing OUR SAVIOR! How can it be? Other than, of course, that God 'has confounded the minds of the Wise!' How can they DENY HIM??

Spring Semester Update

Well, we're now fully in the "Swing" of the Spring semester! I have been relieved of one class, and it was replaced by a tutoring session of accelerated 6th grade math students (only 2). It's only 2 days a week. Chris is in the big middle of the budget for the next year. He has been really working hard on this one.

We had a week off this week for Carnival Break! How wonderful! We went to the waterfalls on Monday with some other friends. It was nice! Thursday and Friday are inservice days, but not preparations for students. Very nice to have some extra time off! AND SLEEP! :)

Please pray for us:
*The BUDGET!! We will be losing a lot of students this June due to embassy transfers. We are praying for students to replace them.
*SMASH - We are praying for our kids not to lose focus during these months ahead. We are thrilled to have a committed core group of about 15-17. But we pray for the additional 10 to become more committed. Not to treat SMASH as a social hour, but as a place of Spiritual Guidance and refreshment.
*Upcoming SMASH Retreat! We are very excited about planning our 3rd retreat! Please pray for us and the kids!
*Our continued discipleship.
*God's continued Direction and Clarity to be known.

BIG PRAISE!!
*We are so thankful for our time on Tuesday nights! We have Piper and Pizza! :) A small group of staff are now meeting together on Tuesday nights to listen to John Piper and eat Pizza. We have been so blessed by the AMAZING Refreshment of a Pastor that speaks with true authority from God. Around here, it is incredibly difficult to find spiritual refreshment!

International Fair 2009

Our annual International Fair is always a lot of fun and a lot of work. This year was no different! One of our parents (in orange) gave us incredible Nigeria outfits. We gladly showed them off! :)





Chris was the Passport Agent again, and I worked with our newest staff member, Ms. Downing with the Junior High. The Junior High is assigned Africa and we made a pretty incredible HUT for our doorway.




Caleb and his kindergarten class was assigned New Zealand. They learned all about it and even had a special guest speaker. He is dressed as a Sheep Herder. The students were split and half were Sheep Herders, and half were Maori Tribe Natives. It was awesome!! He's getting so big! He knew all the answers during their presentation! *Proud Mom & Dad!*









Every year it remains so Amazing to me that God brings our Mission field HERE!! We are so blessed to be in the middle of such an amazing International community. On this night, we are surrounded by 20 different countries, 20 different cultures. All united with one purpose, in celebrating and supporting our students. Students who are enrolled in a Christian School!

Jr High Field Trip

My Junior High Earth Science class got to go on a field trip! We were studying Freshwater lakes and ponds, so we went to visit our lake. Too bad we can't go to the Beach, as our current section is on Oceans! But we had fun at the lake.









Here are a few pics from our trip.

Random Pictures from around BIS

Here are some pictures that my Photography club took around the school. Enjoy!