The Birthday Girls!

Shion is a bit excited to be visiting Bethany and Juda and playing dress up. She is such a silly little girl.

Bethany and Shion share the same birthday with 3 years difference. Shion is the daughter of our dear friend Junko who is one of our Ai no Kesshin volunteers. Happy Birthday Girls!!!!

Juda's favorite occupational therapist!

Ms. Leah is Juda's favorite therapist. They have so much in common. They are both adopted and they are both from Asia and they love each other so much. Leah was often asked while on field trips with Juda if she was his mother, ha ha ha. She is his OT, Occupational Therapist. We have never figured out what occupation Juda has and maybe that's why he needs therapy, ha ha.

Shawn, Tristan and Juda, the Three Amigo's, or is it Three Peas in a Pod, no matter, they are all buddies. Shawn is definately the shy one of the bunch.

Juda and Tristan enjoying there last day together. Tristan is moving to California. We plan to see him and his family when we go to see Andy in Dec.

We say GOOD BYE to the Travis Family!

This week we said Good-Bye to a very special family, the Travis'. We first met them in Juda's class at school, Tristan is one of Juda's classmates. We had almost two years of enjoying their smiles and wisdom and sometimes tears over various trials in life. What a special family they are and we will miss them.

Bethany will be 6, or is it 16?

Bethany asked the BIG question. "When people get married what do they say to each other." I said "Are you talking about their wedding vows, their promises to each other that they make". "Yes, what do they promise", she said. "They promise to love each other when they are healthy and even and especially when they are sick, they promise to love each other forever and ever." (Here comes the BIG question) "How will I be able to love somebody forever and ever, how will I know I can promise that". Wowwwww! Remember that she is only 5, going to be 6 in two weeks. Remember that she is our first girl, I'm not used to these kind of questions from my boys, even at their big ages, well, okay maybe Andy has asked that one before,ha ha ha. Sooo, I gave her the example of how much she loves her daddy and me and how much she loves her brothers and that the love she will have for her husband will be so much greater and of course as I'm telling her this I'm reminded of the love I have for Tom and how I am so blessed to have such a wonderful Godly man who loves me too. Thank you Lord for children who cause us to think a little harder than we'd like and bring us to remember the love that we have, what a joy. My dear friend Mrs. Chestnut told me of a poem titled, "I'm drinking from my saucer because my cup runnest over", that is exactly how we feel these days, blessing upon blessing we are receiving.

Happy Mother's Day

I enjoyed my "Mother's Day" for the 22nd year now. Bethany, Juda and I enjoyed church at Goya Baptist as her preschool class performed and sang for all the mommy's. Then...we enjoyed Curry Rice prepared and served by the men of Goya Church. It was delicious. Later in the afternoon we went to the park to enjoy the nice breeze along the ocean and let Bethany and Juda ride their bikes. Bethany had a bike accident and scrapped her knee up. That wans't exactly how we wanted to end our wonderful day spent together.

Starting to teach English

On Saturday we began our first English classes for some of our neighbors children. Here are the youngest scholars, Shimon and Yuuna. Part of teaching English is playing together, and that is the part that Bethany and Juda enjoy the most. Our other three students are 17, 15 and 11 year old boys. They speak good english and just want to have an opportunity to practice. So we played pictionary and boggle. Each week we will meet for an hour on Saturday mornings and converse in our native tongue, all the while picking up a few Japanese words/phrases ourselves.

Saying Good Bye to Monica

This is some of the mom's from Ai Sei Yochien, Bethany's Kindergarten. The other American lady beside me in the picture is Monica. We all went to lunch to farewell her as she and her family are moving to Jackson Mississippi in a few weeks. Her daughter also goes to the yochien. Monica was very good at trying to speak japanese to the ladies and they love that and welcomed her into their world. Most of these ladies attend English class that I teach on Friday's at the Yochien. I hesitate to say "I teach" as they teach me more Japanese than I teach them English. They already know a little English from highschool, although for some it has been a while since then, ha ha ha. But, they are able to use their English on me. We have a lot of fun together, some are christians, that is so exciting to get to talk to them and hear their testimonies, that is what we are going to work on this school year, as the school year for japanese school just started a few weeks ago. Rika is behind me in the red shirt, she is my #1 Ai no Kesshin volunteer.