A busy student

One of our Bible College students, Sister Nikki, has so much going on.  She is a mom to little Marni, age two.  She commutes from off campus and waits to catch a bus, which can be tricky lots of days.  She attends classes, is extremely bright, and then after classes rushes off to her accounting job downtown.  Her son naps next to her while she gets her new business off the ground.  And then I can't imagine all she does after work - studies, playing with Marni, and tidying house.  Pray for her as she is doing so much and growing so much and we are so proud of the growing love for the Lord she has.  

She invited all of WISE to be a part of her open house last weekend for her new business.  What fun.  Even the news was there! 

If you visit, we have to have her show you her beautiful office.  It is in an upstairs that give the most fantastic view of the 3 oldest churches in St. Vincent.  Thanks, for letting us be a part of your special day, Sis Nikki!

Caribbean Thanksgiving

I was a bit nervous about making most of the Thanksgiving meal.  Last year Maddie helped do half.   This year we had several visiting teachers and all staff families were coming and another family in the community.

  

When I went to shop for a turkey, they were $65 US!  I picked it up and put it back 3 times and then decided chicken would be just as appreciated.  3 days before Thanksgiving a turkey was left on our doorstep!  Thank you, Lord, and sweet friends.  We all got to enjoy turkey.  And we has so much leftover to share with our neighbors who had several families visiting her and don't often get enough to eat.  And there was still enough leftover to share at the Bible College too!

The girls enjoying friendships.

Baby Jordan was out!

The kid table.

Friends.

And fun fellowship.

Our tablecloth with all of signing what we were thankful for. 

Convention Time

Last week thanks to such great staff and grandparents leaving us travel money we got to go back for the first time in Nov to the Missionary Convention in Kansas City, MO.  Brr...the cold weather was freezing to us (even though it was 60 most of the time).  The kids were so excited to take the 4 airplane rides. 

The booth, kid convention, and catching us with cousins and families is always the best times.  We had our annual WISE board meeting.  And also we were so encouraged by fellow missionaries and seeing old friends.

And then there's the plane ride home.....Cranky from 2 straight days of travel that no matter our plans always include missed flights, long waiting times, and exhaustion.

So happy to he HOME again!

Thanks, River Tree, gang!

This is our first group with our new students this year.  And this is the first time we have met most of these people.  I had met Kay several times in Haiti and loved her there.  They support Sonlight, the mission we love and worked with in Haiti.  And they asked about coming here too for an adventure.  I am not sure they are getting an adventure as everyday they are loving on people and serving all day long, but here are a few pics of all they are doing and how grateful we are to have them this week!

Praying with some of our preschool moms and making prayer bracelets with them.

Pictures or how our kids as missionary kids corrupt our students.  While the others were praying and teaching, our kids showed our student Ribinson a path to the river to play a bit.

First "WISE got Talent" Night

For fellowship Sis Becky helped organize a talent show.  It was hilarious.  Hopefully you can see all the fun had.

And here are the judges tallying all the scores up!

Halloween in St. Vincent?

As a missionary there are just some things you are going to miss out on.  For example, they don't celebrate 4th of July here, Halloween, or Thanksgiving.  Now, you can make your own turkey dinner, but just showing up at houses to get candy and show your costume isn't going to work.  So, a few months ago our Syrian friends asked us if we would want to join their Syrian community to go trick or treating.  We were excited for our kids to experience this as we have always lived on the mission field and the kids have not gotten to do this since they were born.  

My Syrian friend gave our youngest a hand- me-down costume.  But the other 2 we just had to scrounge for::)  Here we are with our friends who invited us.

So, the way you do this is you all meet at this house.  They are all from Syrian located in St. Vincent now.  And then we walked to each of their houses as a group and the person from that house would run ahead and pass out bags of candy.  Most of it was homemade donuts or cakes.  

Here is the group walking about 50 of us.

Here we are ready to go.  Now, though their language was different, the treats were different, and we were the only non- Syrians.   Yet, despite all this we so enjoyed being included and getting to experience a fun night of fellowship with friends.  As always experiencing something in a different culture is foreign, but something we are enjoying and thankful for!