Cutting Back

Monday Mr. Plattner (aka Kirk) brought his class to

cut back some of the plant overgrowth that had

taken over our little court yard area.

Sheldon (the one in stripes was the one with the vision)

Raymour and Nickosha where there to assist where needed

The wagons loaded with the plants that have been thinned out.

Mr. Plattner #1 was off at another site helping students clean out landscaping

Mr. Plattner #2 was sleeping

that left

Mr. Plattner #3 (pic. above) to supervise the clearing out of the court yard.:)

Meet Jenna

This is Jenna Inns. She arrived on Thursday and will be spending the next month hanging out with us here at CCCD.

Adventures With Jenna
Sunday Night after chapel I went home and Jenna went to her apt. Then I heard her call me because she had a lizard in the shower and wanted me to come get rid of it for her. So I walked over and picked up (to put outside) a little lizard on the way to get the big one out of the shower. When I got in there I knew it was not a lizard but didn't know what the big dark object that was making a shadow on the shower curtain was so I slowly peeled it back from the opposite end. As soon as I started to move the curtain a little mouse head popped up and over the top of the shower rod. The mouse then jumped up onto the shower rod and then off the rod and onto the floor. It ran right past me and I had a split second to decide to step on it or not as it ran past but I was bare foot so opted for trying to catch it another way. We lost it as it ran past Jenna and into the kitchen, but set a glue trap and the next morning were surprised to find 2 little fellas instead of just one!
Let the adventures continue.

Gazadas!

Thanks to these guys/gals

(the food prep class)

Yesterday I was able to enjoy on of these!
A Gazada!
YUM.... So Good.
I have been waiting all summer for food prep to start making these again:)

Its a Party!

Saturday afternoon Eteal came to me asking if I could come take pictures at the party

that night. I asked what the party is for and she replied "the kids"

okay it was a random party! and here are some of the pictures from that party

the party game where you run up with a balloon and sit on it to see who can pop it first.
the adults turn

the kids with there cake, ice cream, cheese balls, granola bars,

and ready to watch the movie!

Good times had by all!

Praise Report

The shoe people arrived today.

With all the shoes!!!!!

We Praise you Jesus.

They were asked directly in the airport if they had gifts and not wanting to lie

they told them yes and were moved to the "declare" line. They were told they needed

a wavier from the ministry of finance blah blah blah. The supervisor came and looked through all the suitcases and then let them go! No taxes had to be paid, No shoes were taken.

God is SO Good!

A Beautiful Afternoon

A Perfect Day for...

Blowing Bubbles

(Tajay)

Skipping Rope
Playing with side walk Chalk
(Britania drew me:)

And Loving on my kiddos

Tajay and I

Wadia and I

Enjoy your Day!

Shoes

I have a prayer request.

Monday morning we have a team of 6 arriving on the island who are bringing to us

140+ pairs of tennis shoes that have been generously donated to the kids here.

The possible problem is there is only 6 bringing all these shoes. That mean each person will be caring over 20 pairs of shoes. Customs is not always something thats pleasant to go through here on the island and my prayer is that they can smoothly get through customs with no problems, that they are not made to "declare" all these shoes resulting in paying a large sum of money to get them out of the airport, or that customs will just take the shoes.

Please help me to pray them through the airport Monday Morning.

Thanks and Blessings!

Elmer

Reading is one of biggest struggle a lot of these kids have. So working in the library I am constantly encouraging them to actually read the words and not only look at the pictures.

For the preprimary classes that come in with no reading skills I tried something new today with the level one class so hopefully I can keep it going and it will be successful and incorporate a little art into their schedule as well.

We started off by reading Elmer. Its a fun story and an easy read

(always good for those without a language yet)

Then we all moved over to the table to make Elmers
for ourselves

Cutting out Elmer the Elephant
Adding Elmers colors

about as far as we got before it was break time.

They took their Elmers with them to finish adding his color in class.

I would also like to welcome the newest CCCD Student

his teacher asked me to take his "new student"

picture to add it with the rest of his class

Welcome Drew Plattner to Ms. Craib's Class!

Happy Birthday

This afternoon Keri and I took the kids over to JDV for

Phoebe's Birthday Party.

Arriving a half hour late we were still about an hour early Jamaican time:)

Miss Phoebe standing very proudly by her birthday cake

that had her name on it! (she was VERY excited about that)

Today was Rosanne's 3rd birthday too!
The kids enjoying their meal.

Phoebe blowing out the candles

Caleb found himself some new shoes to have fun in.

Play Time!

This entire week has been rainy/stormy so I have been opening the library for the kiddos to give them something to do after school besides sit in front of a T.V.

The kids Love to read and play games. Usually the games are not played correctly as they make up their own rules on how to play them, but it keeps them happy and busy.
someone sent a woodkins ( I think that's the name) and the girls LOVE it. Its a little wooden doll (like a paper doll but made of wood) and you get to change its cloths using different pieces of fabric. The girls are all about fashion and love trying different styles.

I was sorting the cloths that came in on the sea container

and found these 4 "play" cloths. I took them to the school and

the girls found them in a bag today and so much fun in them.

Ronald McDonald and Snow White:)

I have my popcorn and orange juice and am ready to listen in on church!

Happy Wednesday!

Sunday Afternoon

What more can a girl ask for?...

I have Good friends, and a Veggie Tales Movie...

Life is Good:)

In a deep discussion with Truitt about "whats that?"

Pictures

I LOVE getting to see for the first time each semester as I can usually hear his squeal from across the court yard before I see him running at me full speed to tackle me in a Hug:)
Sankeer and I

Some one sent these new skipping ropes down and the girls just LOVE them. If its play time and I have not brought them down with me one of the first questions (signs) I get is "skipping rope?"

My sweet little Paris and I last night before she fell asleep on my lap.

Matthew, one of the new little guys, is a sweet boy and is having

NO Problem fitting in with the other kiddos

Daymar

whenever he sees me his first sign is "picture".

He is always wanting his picture taken

Two of the orneriest little boys. Damion and Tajay

trying there best to play nice and share the skipping rope.

Another Great Day!

Today was another busy day down at the school. In the afternoon I supervised the older kids while the teachers had meetings. In the morning I was all over and helping teachers.

I took pictures for a class and the kids all know me but their teacher is new so have known her for 2 days. She is deaf and knows what she is doing but has not "earned" her way with them yet. Multiple times on our way to take pictures she had to stop to "correct" Damion (an ornery little guy that I just love) for not paying attention, not obeying, talking in line, etc. We get to a place the teacher likes and the pictures are taken we are all done and she can't find Damion so she is looking around and finds him picking flowers (that he is not really supposed to be picking) and he brings them over to me to put in my hair:) He is such a sweet boy under that orneriness, and brings me flowers regularly:)

The flowers that were brought and he then instructed me to put them in water... so I did.

After school My two little buddies came over to hang out for a while so their mom and dad could go get groceries with out all 3 kiddos and giving me a chance to hang out and catch up with the boys:)

Meet the Newbies

With the start of every year we get new students and we lose students:(. It usually takes me time to realize those who have gone because of the time it takes to get everyone to school, the newbies I know right away because you know when you see a kid that is not your own (yet)

and on that note I will introduce my new kids.

Wadia Grey
Sheldon Clarke
(please pray for this little guy he is here on a "trial" run because he has so many disabilities)

Matthew Tagoe

And these are the transfer students all from Browns Town school

Whitney Galimore

Theo Treasure

Odene Harris

Channin Wilson

PRAISE JESUS!

MY KIDS ARE BACK!!!!!!

all is right in my world again:)

pictures soon come ya hear!

Happy Labor Day!

Boys Yelling... Check

Baby Screaming... Check

Yep !

Plattners are back

Yay!

Let the Chaos begin!

Tomorrow all the fun starts up again. I leave early tomorrow morning to drive to MoBay to pick up the Platters from the airport and bring them home.

My kiddos should also start coming back to school tomorrow as classes start on

Tuesday.So EXCITED!

Today in church people where not happy with the sign name that was changed for me so it was changed again to... idk. Everyone had an opinion as to what it should be so a different one was announced to the church ( an e going back over my head because I had a pony tail in) but then when Pastor Damian used me as an example in church I was back to my original sign name. Force of habit I know but I had to smile. This seems to have become a bigger ordeal then needed.

Simone goes to Kingston this afternoon for surgery at 7 a.m. Tuesday morning
I can tell she she is getting nervous as more questions are coming in:

"how many in are brain head?" (how many brains do we have)

"I just ask u how pain headache where from?" (where is the pain coming from)

"I ask u when fluid out I not remember?" (will the surgery take my memory)

Thanks for helping me lift her up in prayer.

Have a GREAT Labor Day!

Day of Prayer

Yesterday we had our day of prayer to start off the school year. How great would it be if EVERY school started off their year with a day that the entire staff comes to together for HOURS of worship. How greatly things would change if the year was given to the Lord instead of trying to keep HIM out. Yesterday was filled with singing praises, sharing testimonies, listening to Pastor Waugh sharing with us how Daddy is watching us from heaven and is desiring that we come and ask him the desires of our heart. How God desires a relationship with us wanting to be our best friend the one we RUN to in all circumstances. Then we spent hours in prayer. Lifting up our students, staff, board members, MoBay, Kingston, JDV, KP schools, sponsors, and other requests that where brought forth through the day. A very very very cool day. This was my first prayer meeting as last year I was not here when they had their day of prayer. They put me to shame as they praised and worshiped with their ENTIRE heart. They cried out to the Lord knowing He would hear their cries. At times the prayers were so personal as hearts were laid out before God that I felt a little like I shouldn't be there listening. Praise God for His daily Provisions and getting us to this point.

Thanks Thanks I give HIM Thanks for ALL the JOY in my Life.

I am SO BLESSED my soul is at REST O Lord I give you THANKS!

Whats In A Name

Today my sign name was changed for me and its a little sad. I have had that sign name since I have started signing but now that Eteal is here as a teacher and has the same sign name one of us had to change so others were not confused. Since she is the deaf one she kept hers and mine was changed. For those of your who don't know what a sign name is its a way to identify a person(their own personal sign) without having to spell their name out every time you use their name. Mine has always been an E off to the side of my mouth (originally given to me in the sign of embarrassed because I used to turn red real easy). All my kids, staff, friends, know me by that name. If I spelled out my name to them 90% wouldn't know who I was talking about (most of them spell out Emily or Eric when they try to spell my name:)but if I used me sign name then they all know. And now it has been changed... I know it should really not be that big of deal but it kinda is knowing my name has just been changed to a name no one yet knows me by (the E sign over my heart). Now I need to change my mindset to recognize that as my name as well.

O the Joy of Signing!