I thought I would send a picture of Samson. He is such a funny puppy! Although yesterday was one of those days where you say "Why do I have a dog?!" He loves to sneak in the back door and run through the house like a crazy dog! Yesterday when he did that, he ran through the kitchen and punctured a can of Diet Coke (aka Coca Light) with his toenail and coke is running everywhere, and he runs through it making wonderful sticky doggy footprints all over the house, then he runs back to the can and begins drinking it. Oh that is just what I need....a puppy on caffeine!

But most of the time I love him and am thrilled that he is mine!


This picture is one of those times...as I looked out the kitchen window and he is laying outside munching on a mango. He ate the entire thing - I did manage to get the seed from him before he chewed it up and tried to eat it too. He is such a funny dog!

Back to school! I am happy to be back at school today. A break was good, but I was ready to come back!

I posting some pictures from the celebration that took place in Comayagua. The festivities start on Thursday evening, when the Catholic church begins the drama portraying Jesus, beginning with the Last Supper with the disciples and goes through the crucifixtion and resurrection, with a small part of the drama being performed each day.



Thursday evening families and businesses who are going to make a "carpet" work on them through the night and into the next morning. Then the Procession begins and they walk on the "carpets" that have been made. The carpets, as pictured above, are made with colored sawdust. Some of them are made with a sort of stencil, as
you can see here. It is very interesting, and they were so beautiful!







This picture of Jesus is oneof my favorites! The man who made it was very proud as he showed us the picture he used to create this carpet.


I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

We had a half day of school today. WOO HOO!!!! Who was more happy, us or the kids? I think the teachers! We were having lunch and a meeting after the kids were dismissed and Annette had to tell the high schoolers to go home because we were going to have a meeting. They just like to hang out here all the time. :)

Here, with the Catholic church, they focus on the crucifiction, and then it's over....they leave off the resurrection. So the focus of devotional time today with the students was the Holy Week and Easter celebration.

The highschoolers watched the Passion of Christ. The little kids had devotions with Katherine and she talked about Semana Santa (Holy Week) and Easter. And then with 2nd through 6th grade for our devotional, Celestino dressed up and he was Jesus. Katherine and Annette were from Ruach News and they were interviewing him. It was really neat and the kids loved it! It was funny because a couple of times during the Interview "Jesus" would say excuse me and open his cell phone, say "hello" and then "Spiritu Santo" (Holy Spirit)....it was great. He talked about his life, and being crucified and the resurrection. Then they opened it up to questions from the kids. Some of them said silly things like "Jesus, are you really Celestino?" A couple of kids actually asked questions about him really being alive. And then Lucy asked some questions which was a way for Celestino to give more information.

And then Annette had all these boxes of coloring books that were in Spanish that told the story of Easter. So every child got one of those to take home today.

Now we are off school for a week. We are planning a trip for two days to Tegucigalpa for some fun and relaxing time next week.

I am looking forward to seeing the festivities that take place in Comayagua. They call them "carpets" and they color sawdust and make pictures on the streets in central park and then there is a parade. Although the parade is walked on the "carpets", so I guess you need to be sure to see them before they are walked on!

Happy Tuesday! We had some very welcomed cool weather this weekend! Saturday I woke up to a rainy, cool day. It was one of those days that was nice to be able to be at home with nowhere to go! It was cool, and a nice laid back day. Something I certainly needed! And enjoyed the slow time and loved the cool weather! It was cool enough for fuzzy slippers and long-sleeved shirts!

The sun came out the next day, but the days are still a bit cooler than last week. And from what I have been told, they are much cooler than what is typical for March. We are all thankful for this weather!

Let me tell you about my class today...well let me back up a minute. Yesterday after school we were talking about how the kids all seem to be out of control. Part of it we are sure is that they do not have all of their paces, we don't have goal cards and goal check reports and those things that keep things in order and on task, but even so it seems we cannot keep a handle on the kids. This morning when I arrived in my classroom, before all the kids came in the thought came to me that we really should pray for order in the school. So I just prayed in my classroom for order and that there would not be any unruly spirits or confusion, but order and peace in my classroom.

The first part of class went very well. The kids are getting better about not getting out of their seats without permission, I had much less talking between the students and the day was going really well. During our morning break, I worked on pulling some verses from my Children's Bible (actually it is Joshua's Psalty kids Bible!) ....so that I could begin talking about Holy Week. Last week when I asked them what we celebrate during Holy Week I got information about going swimming and taking vacations and that it is "Maria's birthday"....so I broke it up into sections so I could tell the whole story, starting with Palm Sunday and ending with the Resurrection of Jesus, and have part of the story each day this week.

The kids came back from break and we finished up the game we were playing...

Anthony asked if he could go to the bathroom, and as he left the room my door slammed shut.

Now that shouldn't be a problem, except that the handle on my door is broken. If it latches it cannot be opened. When the outside handle first fell off, we were able to open it by putting the handle to the door and wiggling it around to get it opened, but it has now fallen off on the inside as well. I have had duck tape over the latch inside the door so that if the door shuts it does not latch. Well today when it closed the latch came through the tape and there we were. Trapped inside the room.

Anthony came back and came to the window and I told him we could not open the door. I saw another teacher, Miss Sandra, so I told her through the window that it would not open. She is familiar with the door because we share the classroom. It was stuck and stuck good. I tried for a while with various objects to get the metal latch to move and I had boys on the outside trying to help. Some highschool boys came and took the glass slats out of the window so that they could lift the screen and climb into the room. With one highschool boy on the outside and two inside they were trying to get the door opened. While all this is going on my class is screaming and running around and absolute chaos!

Finally I said to one of the boys, why don't we just take the door off the hinges and remove the door. So that is what we did. We all cheered! This ordeal lasted 20 minutes. Well I had set aside the last 30 minutes of class to talk about the holiday, so that didn't happen today. I finally got my kids back under control and then it was time for them to go to Spanish.

I was talking to some of the teachers about this later. We have all felt over the last couple of weeks that there is some serious spiritual stuff going on with the kids. We have a school with great kids and many of them sincerely love the Lord and want to serve Him. We have had nothing but obstacles since school started. And things have been so out of order and chaos ruling in many classes and in the Learning Center. Here I am trying to teach my kids about Easter and the true meaning of the holiday and we get trapped in our room. Coincidence? Some might argue that, but I don't believe in coincidence. I also won't give up. Tomorrow the first thing of day we will talk about the holiday and cover what I had planned.

There is also a lot going on with the kids here in the school with Harry Potter trading cards...an obsession with some of the kids. I have caught some of them buying and selling the trading cards during class and they have their school notebooks covered with Harry Potter stickers. We also have the Pokeman craze that we have all seen in the U.S. before. Some might say they are just toys or cartoons or movies...but they deal with witchcraft and demons and getting powers from evil sources. How can I say this is good? I have talked to one of the boys about it several times. He is a 4th grader. I don't tell him he is wrong or that he should get rid of them, that must be his decision, but rather I talk to him about why I don't like them. We had talked about it last week, and today he brought it up to me. So I believe that the questions I raised to him are stirring in his spirit.

Again, I don't think any of this is coincidence. There is so much going on in the spiritual realm, if we could only see and hear what God needs us to be aware of.

We have a school full of kids who God has big plans for in His Kingdom. Please continue to pray for our school, our kids and our teachers. And please remember my student, Alejandro.

What a day! What a week! This week I started my kids with one of their PACEs, just out of order. Two subjects you can do them out of order, so I can hang on a day at a time for a few more days, but still our order has not come in yet. The problem has gotten worse. The warehouse in Tegucigalpa does not have all their shipment from the U.S. yet, they are still on a container floating in the ocean somewhere....which is holding up part of our order. Today Annette found out that they will go ahead and ship part of our order, but guess whose PACEs are the ones that are floating in the ocean....yep 2nd grade! So a lot of my PACEs will not come in with this shipment. We are certainly struggling. And parents are getting upset, it isn't Ruach's fault, and now we are finding out it isn't entirely the fault of the workers at the warehouse in Teguc because their shipment they ordered from the U.S. is late as well...so here we are. Nothing we can do but just take it one day at a time!

I had a rough day today with my kids. This morning I had 4 of my students cheating. This is the first year that they have scored on their own. Each grade has score keys, but 2nd grade is the first time to teach the students how to score their own PACEs. I guess the temptation to cheat was too much for some of them.

The first boy who I caught, I took him to the office to speak with the elementary school principal. And after that I talked with the whole class about cheating, about honesty, that if we cheat when we score we are lieing, we need to be honest....and after my speech I caught 3 more students cheating. I know I wore Miss Denora out today too, her having to speak with each of the students about this. When I told her I had found the 4th student she said tomorrow....so tomorrow morning she will talk with her. We were running out of time. A rough morning!

By the end of class I told the children that I love each one of them, and I want them to learn, and that after the morning we had had I actually felt like crying. I said I left my home, my family and my friends because I want to be here with you because I love each one of you. They all got very quiet. I was frustrated, upset and sad at their behavior this morning.

Well I have a lot of work ahead of me tonight. I need to look up all the spelling words and vocabulary words that each of my students are learning. Part of their work in the PACE is that they must translate these words into Spanish, so they have understanding of what they are learning. It takes me a long time when I don'tknow all the words in Spanish. So I have made myself a list so I can look them up tonight and I will keep a notebook for myself of all the translated words. I am learning right along with them!

I did have a neat thing I will share. This week we have all been extremely tired. All the teachers by the afternoon we are just wiped out. This morning I was reading the verse from my daily calendar (Thanks Diane Pierce!!!) and today's verse was Jeremiah 31:25 I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint. This morning during the time that the teachers have devotions before we begin our day with our students, I shared that verse with them. It was a word of encouragement that we all needed!

Please continue to pray for our school, for our PACEs to arrive as soon as possible, and especially for our students.

Please pray for Alejandro. He is very intelligent but has behavior problems. He is filled with rage and I have seen it on several occasions. Please pray for him and for me to have the wisdom to know how to deal with the rage and with this little boy who has so much potential. He doesn't have to live with this rage in him.

I will end with THANK GOD TOMORROW IS FRIDAY! We all need a restful weekend!