Still Her Little Child

I'm so proud of my kids they do such a great job! Every Friday we have a "special" chapel in Nov./Dec. Everyone has chapel together then a group does a special number. This week the kids acted out the song "Still her precious child" The song is SO good and SO powerful. I know the video is not the best and I apologize for that, but I had to shrink it to fit it on the blog. Also if you look really really hard (they are standing right in front of the windows, and with the light coming in you can't really see them) there are two kids signing the song as it is being acted out. Enjoy!

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

Girls Night In

Last night after a long day some of the girls came over for a girls night in. We chatted, they watched cartoons (to help them relax), ate, they did my hair and we de-weaved Sabreke's hair. Praise God for Girls Nights!

Today

I was walking down to the school and as I was on my way a car pulled in so I stepped off to the side let the car pull in, park, then I continued walking. Well I guess the car wasn't where it wanted to be because as I was talking to Jen, all of a sudden she yells Erin watch out! and from the corner of my eye I see the car coming at me(backing up). My reflexes threw out my arm (I don't know if I thought I could stop a moving car with my super human strength or what) and it thumped against the back window before the car bumped into my hip. The car was not moving that fast and my arm thumping the back window alerted the driver that he had just hit something so he slammed on the breaks honks his horn (in a friendly way) and I kept walking. Sheesh... the one time I am not completely focused I get hit by a car. Happy Black Friday to me:)

Wishing you a...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Please Pray for the Plattners

Tomorrow.... (Wednesday Nov 26th) the Plattner's leave the Island to fly back to the states for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Please keep them in your prayers as they travel. Thanks!

Plattner Picture Fun!

Because they don't really have a lot of options I got the honor to take the Plattner's O8' Christmas picture. These are a few of my favorite. Hopefully none of these were their top pics, otherwise their Christmas pic. is already out:)

Drew sticking out his tongue and Truitt playing peekaboo
Spike wanting to join the picture

Spike wanting to be the picture!

So much fun!

Have a great week.

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

Love

My greatest lesson here has been about Love.

To Love....

without dissimulation
without fear

without expectations

but to simply love with my whole heart because that's whats truly needed.

The Challenge

So one of my weekly challenges is trying to get my cloths on the line before the ants totally eat my feet. This week I failed horribly at the challenge. I usually do alright and avoid all ant hills this week I don't know what happened but I could not even finish hanging up my cloths there were so many biting me. These ant bites feel more like bee stings and these ants are very smart and tricky. The first place they go is in between your toes and bit so then you are trying to squish them and get them off, but when you accidentally step on an ant hill ( like i did that day) there is nothing to do but run to the shower and spray off as many as possible, they were Everywhere...legs, and hands too. Not cool. I hope to have better luck next week.

Enjoy your weekend. I love you.

Blessings

Erin

The Past Week.

We have 3 weeks left of school, this week was a study week, next week is exam week, and the following weeks things are used to finish up in class, grades are collected, and the Christmas program gets put together.

Right now all the groups are practicing separately for the Christmas program so the school is daily "thumping" with Christmas music as the students practice.

Since it is a study week there is not a lot that goes on and to keep the kids busy we have been decorating for Christmas. We started with paper snowflakes, HUNDREDS of paper snowflakes were made and I still have kids daily coming up to me for more paper and scissors.

Some of my snow makers
Snow falling in the library
(sorry I know its not a very good picture)

The goshen girls have been working with the kids to make Christmas cards for the infirmaries in mandeville to give to the residents.

Kids making the Christmas cards

Felicia, and Marah

This morning as I was sitting outside enjoying the warmth of the sun while my laundry was washing a little boy came up to me and asked if he could make my hair beautiful. I have been rather frustrated with it lately so I let him have a try. When he was all done he looked at me and proudly told me "Erin... you now look like a person!" I don't know what I looked like before but I am happy to let you know I now look like a person.

Enjoy your weekend.

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

Kingston Hair Show 2008

The cosmetology girls game back SO excited today. All day yesterday they were at a hair show in Kingston competing. C.C.C.D. ended up getting first and second place at the hair show. Letricia came in first doing Sashida's hair (the colorful one) and I don't know who did Yaniques but her hair came in second. They have had this hair in for a few days now and I don't know if they have slept or How they could have slept in it.

The pictures don't really give the hair justice BUT I wanted to share them with you. I would say each girl has at LEAST 10 strands of fake hair woven in with their own hair and I am sure it is a LOT more then that. Especially with Sashida's and all her different colors. Don't you wish you could have a little hot pink, blue, yellow, or green woven in with your hair?:)

the back view

Blessings

Erin

Pray for the Hubers

Please keep the Hubers in your thoughts and Prayers as they fly back to the states Wed. Nov 18th. Its going to be a long day starting that morning and not getting back to Indiana until about midnight that night. Thanks have have a most WONDERFUL joy filled day.

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

A Stormy Week

It seems like it has been rainy/storming a lot lately. I am not complaining because I LOVE Storms. I think they are very relaxing. The rain can get a little old but... once again I have no complaints because it helps so many. Since it has been rainy/stormy I have had Ample time to get stuff done around the house for example this weekend I....

Put together my Ikea bookshelf/bed frame/under the bed storage...

(O' the possibilities, and now hopefully momma is now happy my mattress are no longer on the floor)
Put up my 2 Christmas decorations my lights and...

My Tree

I know it seems early but I have only a month here to enjoy them and get use out of them. and since they don't have thanksgiving down here I don't feel As bad getting them up so early.

Here comes the rain!

Have a great afternoon. I love you. Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

The Heavens are Praising

One Massive Birthday Party

Yeserday (Friday the 14th) we here at CCCD KP had the birthday Party for Aug-Nov Birthdays.

From what I have gathered this is supposed to be a monthly/trimonthly accurance that with everyones business has been not happening as planned so I got the opportunity to get it started again! Because it had been so long since we have had a birthday party here everyone was invited all staff and students.(I'm sure you can just IMAGINE the Chaos)

The food prep class was in charge of making the cakes, then Charity (one of the Goshen girls) used her cake decorating skills to both teach the food prep a lesson on how to decorate cakes, and make the cakes for the party look really nice. Hilary, Charity, and Michelle, (Goshen girls) along with Herbert (dorm father) trying to get all the candles lit.
Up front we had a boys side and a girls side. we all counted to 3 then at the same time the boys and girls both blew out the candles. This is the boys celebrating the blowing out of the candles. Michelle (another one of our Goshen girls) is holding the cake.

As many girls as possible gathering close to blow out the candles. Jen (who is holding the cake) is a visitor that has been staying with us for a while. She is here helping Marc with some work.

Little miss Paris Guthrie celebrating her 4th birthday.

After cake and ice cream it was on to games. The little kids played pin the tail on the pig (that's what we have here on our farm) While Charity and Hilary (Goshen Girls) helped. The Goshen girls were in charge or games and did a great job.

The group picture of all the birthday kiddos except Allesha Edwards who fooled the kids into believing her birthday was in Nov. when it really in Jan. so she could be in the picture and try to get a gift bag. ( she is a very sneaky little girl) We had 44 students birthdays to celebrate but only 35 where here at the party.

Have a great weekend. I love you.

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

I Have Been...

Introducing the Woodford County Journal (WCJ) to the people of Jamaica. My mom sent the papers down on the sea container and ever since the kids and I have been enjoying them.

Catching up on the news with my Tuesday morning library class

(non of them read 3/4 don't have a language yet so... we just looked at pictures)

Brittania saw me caring around my stack of papers and asked if she could look at them

so I took a break and we went through some papers together

We had some time left after taking notes in my "Milk" class so the class caught up with the happenings around Woodford county

My class enjoying the WCJ

Then of course I had to join in on the "Fun" since I had taken all these pictures of my kids and the paper I sent them to my sister with the request that she picks one to send to the paper. (If you don't know or have never read the WCJ there is a small area where pictures are put in of people all over the World with their WCJ). And then of course if the picture goes in the paper I get my free WCJ mug! you can't beat that.

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

An Observation

If you look closely this bottle (like many U.S. products in the grocery) has a large label on it that says U.S.A. product for Export Only. This gets me thinking what short cuts and things are they leaving out of these products that wouldn't pass in the American market? I guess its nothing to severe since its now been over a year and after eating lots of food for export only I am still alive and well. Have a great week. I love you

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

Sea Container

Sunday Night Chad and I drove into MoBay so we would be ready bright and early to start distributing the sea container... then we got the call that we would not be able to get the sea container on Monday so we...

Hung out at the MoBay campus with all the rain there was a huge build up at the lowest point of the campus and it knocked down about an 80' solid piece of block wall foundation and all. God is truly POWERFUL!
Since we didn't have the sea container Monday we went visiting. First we went to the Falmoth infirmary and this man was cutting down the bread fruit tree with a machete.

The bread fruit that was then picked up to be cooked

The residents watching as they cut down the tree.

Finally Tuesday afternoon we got our passes and were able to collect our sea container

Unloading and Reloading trucks to make our first delivery in the rain.

It was brought to my attention that I was standing in a puddle and that it was very quickly getting deeper.

Our first delivery at St. James Infirmary

My friends who always greet me with a hug and a hello when I go to visit the infirmary.

Once we unloaded at St. James and loaded up again we were off to Hopewell and Pastor Bucknor's home

Unloading the truck in Hopewell. This was a challenging delivery as you can see the first level was at the top of the truck. there were lots of steps to go up to put the donations away.

Ron chatting with Pastor Bucknor

Once we delivered Hopewells we were off to Brother Bob's New Beginnings

Dropping off supplies at New Beginnings

I praise God for allowing me this experience. I met some great people and had some fantastic conversations. But after a week in Hot Mobay I am very thankful to be back home in cool cool Mandeville. Have a great weekend. I love you

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin