What Does It Mean?

Because I have such an AMAZING social life. I am sitting here spending my Friday night grading papers. I'm so confused. I have egg cookery projects to grade for my milk class (last semester was on eggs) For this project they were to find 6 egg recipes and supply pictures for those recipes. I am trying to grade them but when I get recipes like this

4 oz macaroni

salted water

4 hard boiled eggs

3/4 lb runner beans

I pint cheese sauce

Z oz grated cheese

Cook the macaroni and salted Water until tender, then drain well. Slice the eggs serving some for garnish put alternate layers of macaroni, sliced egg and cooked beans in a firesprinkle with cheese for about 20 minutes, till heated through and well browned on top. Garnish with sieved egg yolk sliced egg white and runner beans.

How am I supposed to grade these when I don't even understand what they say? Any suggestions?

I LOVE being a teacher!

Have a great weekend. I love you

Blessings

Erin

My Jamaican Day

So it all started when my blessings down here got me sick so Monday night I finally gave in and took NyQuil so I could sleep. Thus Tuesday Morning I didn't hear my alarm and slept an hour past it (I'm blaming the meds) So I hurry to take a shower and when I am covered in soap the shower water goes off with out reason. I know the power was still on because I could hear my fans continue to run but for whatever reason the water was not. So I waited and FINALLY the water came back on after trying to shut off the water and turn it on (multiple times I'm sure it didn't do any good but it made me feel better to be doing something). I then finish getting ready, I still feel sick but am going to go through with my regular routine. So I am doing my morning dishes when the water (being finicky) again stops randomly then comes back on full force again getting me all wet in the process. After this water situation happens about 5 times as soon as I am done with the dishes I must go change my cloths because I am now saturated with water being blasted with it every time it came back on with a surge. Once I am finally able to leave my house I head down the hill to do speech therapy, but once I get through with my first student I no longer have a voice and this makes speech therapy a real challenge. I continued to try and work with the kids but with no voice I was not able to voice the sounds for them so most of the just looked back at me like EH? Praise God for Jamaica days and that He is able to drag us through them!

Blessings

Erin

Olympics Here We Come!

So last Thursday Mr. Peter and Mr. Dennis showed up with a new board and paddles (aka a ping pong table) and informed me of their intentions of training 10 of my kids (5 girls & 5 boys) with the goal of taking them to Taiwan to the deaf Olympics in Sept. 09!

Seriously.... I had to try my hardest not to laugh when this Mr. Peter was explaining his plan to me. It just seems so unreal and random. He is not looking at all the deaf all over the island but since he lives in Mandeville he is focusing on my kids to train.

The kids in "training"
The future Olympic hopefuls?

working different drills with Mr. Peter

The Cheerleaders on the sideline.

Have a great week. I love you

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

So Unworthy...

The next Usian Bolt

(with his fly undone!)

After 5 days in the states then a weekend at JDV then with it being a national holiday (Hero's Day)on Monday. My kiddos arrived back today with the start of school. I am so blessed by each one of them. I lost count of how many came up and informed me of how they were praying for me, gave me hugs, wanted to know how my time was in the states, and made me cards.... How blessed I am!

Have a great week!

Blessings

Erin

My Time In The States

For the 5 days I was home I was with my family. and that sums it up for the most part. Here are some pictures of my family.

Grandma with her kids

Jerry, Sharon, Dad, Becki
Grandma with her Grand babies
Kristen, Me, Kyle, Tom, Stacie, Kevin, Keri, Ryan

Grandma and her Great Grand babies

Mariah, Maddie, Peyton

Grandma and all her guys who wore suspenders in honor of grandpa

Grandma and her girls

Peyton "putting up her dukes"

to protect herself from all the trouble makers in the family

Singing... there has always been singing... for as long as I can remember and it has not changed now that Grandpa is with Jesus. We sang at the funeral, we sang at the meal after the funeral...

(uncle paul and stanly wearing bibbies in honor of Grandpa)

Then after the funeral meal we all went back to mom and dads house for more family time and singing. What a blessing to get to see so many I love and to celebrate Grandpa's life and his victory in Jesus.

Blessings

Erin

One Year Ago Today

I arrived to live full time on the island I love and now call home. Over the past year I think I have experienced just about every emotion possible (along with many new experiences), and I am happy to say I am still going strong. I know without a doubt that I am where God wants me to be, and also that He has been working continually in my life. I also know I am not the same person that arrived on the island a year ago, and I pray that the person I am now is a much better person then before. I honestly cannot put into words how I feel about the last year but I daily feel humbled and blessed to be chosen for this calling. I want to thank you all for your prayers, support, love, and everything else you do for me and those I love down here. Have a great week.

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

How would you do?

My question to you is how would you do if after church your minister/pastor handed you a test to see how much you are really getting out of the services? That's what we do down here at New Life Church for the Deaf. Every so often Pastor Damian will give us tests over the topic he has been preaching about. Tomorrows Test is over the book of 1 Thess. specifically chap 5. I was looking forward to taking the test tomorrow (I had been doing my studying) when Damion came up and asked me to edit the test to make sure everything was worded properly. Since I edited it I won't now take the test because that's cheating seeing the test and fixing it before I take it:). There are 25 questions to tomorrows test ranging from short answer, to multiple choice, and then true false. Here are a few of the questions...

Who wrote the book of 1 Thessalonians?

List 5 general leaders of a church?

What happens if our church has no leaders?

Write the Bible verses (from memory) 1 Thess. 5:16-18

I am now back home safely (praise God) well close to home I am at JDV staying with the Huber kids while Chad and Pam took a much deserved Anniversary weekend away. As soon as I get home I will try to get pictures up of my time back in the states Have a great weekend. I love you

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

Back to the States

Just a quick update.

Thursday night I rejoice that my grandpa was called home to be with Jesus. So today (after a lot of quick plan making) I am flying back to the states for 6 days to attend the funeral and spend time with my family. Praise Jesus for the wonderful promises He makes and that when our life is done here on earth we have our heavenly home waiting for us.

I love you

Be blessed and blessing

Erin

ACWR Touring Pictures

Monday Morning about 10 Chad, Kirk and I left for another ACWR Touring. Because of my responsibilities at the school this was the first one I was able to join them on. Our first stop was at the Jamaican Christian School for the Deaf. It was neat to see another deaf school on the island outside of CCCD. And its nice to meet people with the same goals and passions as you since we all work in deaf ministry.

Two Students at JCSD
Pre-primary students at JCSD
After we toured JCSD we then went to Blossom Garden a children's home in MoBay. It is one of two orphanages in MoBay that accepts kids 5 and under. I have been to this orphanage many times and it is one of my favorite places to serve. I love getting to hold the babies and spend time with all the kids there. Its never easy leaving but I praise God for each opportunity that I get to go and visit. They asked us not to take any pictures while we were there so we respected there wishes. Next we were off to Pastor Buckner's home to visit a while with him and his wife. While visiting the Buckner's I received a nice collection of bug bites all over my legs (15+ in about a 1/2 hour!)
Tuesday we got up and started making our rounds again we started off with Falmouth Infirmary (another place I have visited many times and just love!)
This Amazing Women was Boiling cloths at the infirmary to stop all spread of sickness

Chad lead devotions at the falmouth infirmary

Then we sang lots and lots of praises to our Great Lord. This man accompanied our singing with his harmonica (he did a great job too!)

We then drove to one of the primary schools we support, and it also happens to be the same primary school that Usian Bolt went to growing up. So the head mistress was more then ready to share Usian stories with us. (If you don't know Usian Bolt he just broke records in running in the 08 Olympics and brought a lot of pride to the country)

One of the class rooms at the primary school

After we toured the school some students came in and we all sang some songs together.
From the primary school it was decided that we should try a "short cut" through the bush of Jamaica to our next stop. So we gave it a try... and even though we asked just about every passer by if we were going the right way... and even though we made a few wrong turns.. we got to see some of God's beautiful creation!

Our road through the bush of Jamaica

Our road becoming a little wet but we still made it through (3 or 4 times trying to find the right road:))

Then at times our roads became like this... I don't know that you could even call this a road any more it looks like a creek to me... This one we didn't try to go through because we couldn't see an end to it.
Once we finally made it back to civilization again Chad called Mr. Jones ( who we were supposed to be meeting so he could show us how to get to our last stop) and he kept saying meet me at the sign post office... Well we were so confused we were not sure if we were getting it right with the patois he was speaking so we were looking for a post office sign. When we asked him where this sign was Mr. Jones replied in St. James... well St. James is a Parish (county) and there are MANY towns in a parish so we were still completely lost. Thankfully as we drove by this Mr. Jones flagged us down.

The sign post office
Mr. Jones then lead us up the mountain to the Robins Nest. This is the 2nd orphanage in MoBay that accepts children 5 and younger. This children's home is owned and operated by an American women.

The view from Robin's Nest on top of the mountain.

This is Neil (one of the orphans) whom I instantly fell in love with and he clung to me the entire time. It broke my heart to have to leave him. We were both not very happy and crying when I had to go.

another little boy at the children's home.

I was blessed in so many ways through this trip and I praise God for each stop and opportunity that He gave me to learn and grow. Have a great day.

I love you.

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

ACWR Touring

I was reading in St. Luke before our touring and was reading about Jesus sending out the groups of 2 to go and preach. At one point Jesus says "Blessed are the eyes that see the things that you see.... for I tell you many desire to see the things you see and hear the things you hear."

And that's how I feel totally blessed to be the one who gets to go out and meet others serving, to meet God's people and learn there stories it's.... indescribable.

I have just spent the last hour plus putting all the pictures on from the tour and writing about our adventures and then using my HORRIBLE computer skills I went and deleted it all while I was trying to edit it. So... I will try again later. Have a great day.

I love you

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

Enjoying Fall in Jamaica

The great idea to have a wiener roast was brought up so that's what we attempted tonight. We picked a nice rainy night and so had to improvise cooking over a little grill instead of a camp fire.

But we all came together making all the must haves of a typical American wiener roast, hot dogs, baked beans, chips, pumpkin bars, then later smores and hot chocolate. What a great night full of fun and fellowship.

Sitting around after supper

Roasting Marshmellows

Sharing Smores

Drinking Hot Chocolate

Have a great week! I love you.

Blessings

Erin

Please Pray for My Family

As I sit here on my living room couch I have just finished talking with my family who sits up at the hospital with my Grandpa who is ready to go home to Jesus. I sit here and know that Jesus sits right beside me, and that I must sacrifice this for HIM. Its so hard to sit here while I know what is going on back home and that I cannot be there to join my family. Please keep them in your prayers as we go through this time Rejoicing with Grandpa that he soon gets to go to his heavenly home that he longs for, and for Comfort for my family as we must say goodbye (for a time) to someone whom we love very very much.

Blessings

Erin

A Beautiful Day & Pudding

On this Friday God has blessed me with a beautiful day and a class to teach on milk.

I try to get creative so I can do more then just stand and write notes about milk for them to copy. I get board of teaching it so I am sure they get bored of listening to it. On Wednesday I taught about the uses of milk, one of which was to make puddings. So today we made some Jello instant Pudding.Mmmm...
These kids are supposed to be learning the proper technique for restaurant cooking not just home in your kitchen cooking. So before we got started we had to go through all the proper procedures of washing our hands (some of them wanted to go to the dorm to clip finger nails too but I didn't have the time with them to go to that extreme), put on our aprons and cover our hair, clean all our surfaces, make sure we had all the proper ingredients (aka milk, and pudding mix... check!), and to make sure we had all the utensils it takes to make instant pudding.

The kids took it very seriously one reading the directions, one adding the mix, 3 each pouring in one cup of milk, and another whisking it together. They were happy to do something other then take notes and of course were more then ready to eat their creation after it had spent its 5 min. in the fridge. Happy Eating!

Have a great weekend

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

Good Afternoons

I love my afternoons. Keri goes down to the school now to work with one of our special needs kids and this gives me an opportunity to hang out with the boys for a little each day. Today the boys decided to...

fix my walls with shovels and sticks
we tried to catch a lizard but didn't succeed.

Truitt yelling CHEESE!

Then we finish our time with a service by Drew. He always starts off with Good Morning Everyone (and it could be morning noon or night) then asks us if we like to sing before starts his performance. Today's consisted of a song about how Drew loves to sing with a little David and Goliath, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Holy Holy Holy, and something about mountains all tied in. Great fun had by all.

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

The ABC's Revised

Yesterday as I was working with some of my speech therapy kids, I am trying to assess where each of them are academically, and with their speech. A simplistic way I test them academically is I have cards with the ABC's on them I mix them all up and then ask them to simply but them in order. Yesterday this is a revised version a 13 year old boy gave me:

ABCDEFGHILFKJRPOQNMSTUVXWZY

He then looked at me asked me if its right that he was finished. I honestly didn't know what to say. 13 and he didn't know his ABC's. Then my next challenge was an 18 year old boy whom I gave the same task to. He didn't mess up the ABC's to the extreme as my first kid but he really struggled with the letters between k-p! So as of now my goal by the end of the term is to teach all my kiddos the ABC's.

Here are so random pictures from today

The seat of choice for the kids is on the bucket of the tractor
Truitt playing with some of the boys after school

Game Time after school with the kids.

Have a great Day, I love you

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin