Big Things in Small Groups

Every Sunday night we have small groups with our students; it is a great time to study God's word and to get to know our students on a deeper level.  A couple of weeks ago I asked our students to share their testimony with the group, so far we have gotten to hear 2 of our students and it has been awesome!

The first student opened by saying "I am special" I think this was a great reminder that all of us were made as part of God's plan.  What an uplifting attitude to have about yourself and your Creator-that he makes us all special.

Another student shared about his experience in the Haiti earthquake of 2011. He was visiting his 2 best friends when the earthquake hit, he survived, unfortunately his 2 friends did not. Again, this student feels God has a plan for him because he survived and he knows he must do great things for God.

It is such an encouragement to see the strength and courage that so many of our students have.  Many of them have overcome many hurdles in their lives.  I am overwhelmingly thankful for each and every one of our students and that they are all here to learn more about God and their purpose.

"I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord's people." Philemon 1:4-7

I hope this encourages you to share your testimony and faith with others so they may see every good thing comes from Christ!

Trees and Flowers and Parrots Oh My!

Last week we took our preschoolers on a field trip to the Botanical Gardens.  We all piled in the van and truck and drove through town to reach our destination. The kids had a great time on the bus pretending to drive in their seats and saying "my car done beat you back!" AKA "my car is faster than yours!"  We were able to have a nice time walking through the gardens using all of our senses as they have learned about in school.  We got to smell a tall cinnamon tree and look at the fish in the lily pad pond, and listen to the St. Vincent Parrots squak and even say "hello".
Our only incident was when we asked all the preschoolers to stand on the roots of a tree to take a picture...They all stood their smiling and having a good time. When the kids began to break from their poses I noticed one of our boys was facing towards the tree "relieving" himself, I guess it was better than him wetting his pants :). Little boys will be little boys, and it was a somewhat funny too. All in all it was a successful day!

Dancing Queens

As most of you know I teach a dance class once a week to approximately 15 girls in the community.  Every week seems to have its blessings and challenges; as does everything in life.  Sometime the girls come very early to class or show up late, they always have a lot to say, which some weeks makes for more talking than I would like rather than dancing.  But every girls leaves with a smile and seem to be filled with joy from the art of dancing.  

I mostly teach ballet and a little jazz.  The girls are learning the technique of ballet and then I try to teach them a dance every week...this is their favorite part.  They also get really giddy when I let them "free dance" or to play "freeze dance" where they get to dance while the music is playing but have to freeze in a position when the music stops. 

Recently my dance class was TREMENDOUSLY BLESSED by Columbia Dance Academy (CDA), from my hometown Columbia, MO.  Before I came to SVG I taught at CDA for 5 years.  I cannot say enough good things about this studio.  It has such a wonderful family feel and a close community. Jeanne Szkolka, owner and teacher, was my childhood dance teacher.  She and others at the studio were so supportive and excited for our move to SVG, and very excited for me to teach a dance class here.  When Miss Jeanne and others found out that none of my girls had any dance clothes (there is no dance supply store on the island and secondly these girls would not be able to afford those things) they decided to have a clothes and shoes drive. 

Words cannot describe the girls faces when they saw the shoes, leotard, skirts, etc. I don't think their smiles could have gotten any bigger.  They all enjoyed picking out and trying on their very own shoes and dance clothes.  Everyone got a pair of tights too, I told them they didn't have to wear their tights every week if they didn't want to because where we practice has no ac and can get pretty hot and sticky.  However, the next week they all showed up with all their dance wear and put everything on.

I can already tell they are taking the dance class more seriously because now they feel like real dancers with their clothes. 

My main goal of this dance class is to show each girl the love of Christ, and I am so very thankful for everyone from CDA who donated to my class and for showing them love as well.

I am reminded when the children came to Jesus and some of the disciples tried to stop them. But Jesus said to them, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children"...then he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them."  Mark 10:14-16.

Even though supporters my be thousands of miles away, thank you again for taking these girls in your arms, placing your hands on their heads and blessing them!

Our New Rommie

If you are deathly afraid of spiders I would suggest you DO NOT watch this video.....

Promised Pictures

Okay I am now able to finally upload pictures to the blog again so here they are!

The students working on the preschool ceiling

5:30am in Kingstown celebrating 9 Mornings!

Some of our students got called on stage and sang a song

Steel Drums...Love

Caroling around the community on Christmas Eve

Christmas dinner with faculty and students mmmmm

Students opening their presents

Clowning with Pip and Squeak (Mom and Sis) in the community, the kids loved their balloons

Salt Pond

Mom and Cal enjoying the black sand beaches

On our way to see Dark View Falls...had to cross the bamboo bridge, felt like we were on Indiana Jones, don't worry there were no alligators below us

Elephant Ears

Riding in the boat with Speedy at Wallibou Bay (where parts of Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed)

New Years Eve Party

Boat ride through the Grenadine Islands

Girl's Night

This post is a little delayed...to start off the Christmas break we decided to have a girl's night!

We decided it was time for a night with just the girls so I had the woman faculty and students over for facials, manicures and chocolate! The guys played dodgeball...we had WAY more fun :).

The girls had a great time getting their nails painted by Sis Angie, a teacher at WISE, she has completed nail school so she is excellent! I made a homemade facial mask, we all felt our skin was extra smooth afterwards and believed we looked younger (or so we told ourselves).

I found the recipe on Pinterest, if you don’t know what Pinterest is then you need to! I love it. The recipe is:

1/2 tablespoon Local Raw Honey
1 1/2 tablespoons Organic Oatmeal, ground ( I always grind my oatmeal in my coffee grinder, but you can also use a food processor.
1/2 tablespoon Organic Milk

Place honey in a microwaveable bowl and heat on high for about 10 seconds. Add the oatmeal and milk to the warmed honey and stir well. Let the mask sit for a minute or two. This will help it thicken up. Apply to clean face. I usually put a thin layer on my face and then I go back over it with another layer of the mixture. Leave mask on face for 30 minutes and then wash off. It takes a little bit of effort to wash it off. I just use a warm washcloth and wipe it off in sections. Apply your favorite moisturizer once the mask is washed off.

Now you can have your own girl’s night and treat yourself with a facial and some chocolate, I suggest Lindor truffles; there were a hit at our party!

Showing off our face masks

All of our Christmas nails

Preschool Revelation!

For any moms or teachers out there....I found this idea on Pinterest on an easy way for little ones to glue and thought I would give it a try today during craft time in preschool. I am pleased to say it was a success!  I was not running around like a chicken with its head cut off like I usually do; trying to put glue on kids papers or trying to stop their little hands from wasting an entire glue stick. Instead I was able to sit back and enjoy watching them create all on their own, it was lots of fun and the preschoolers were very proud of their collage creations!

To see what I did you can visit http://tjartroom.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/introducing-glue-sponge.html?showComment=1351801425340

Hello Again!

Well hello everyone I have been missing you in the blogisphere! Please excuse my month long hiatus. I will be the first to admit this blogging thing is still new to me and it seems like if there is lots going on I tend to leave it to last (I am trying to break this routine). This past month has been very busy, full of fun, blessings and new friends. So this post will probably feel more like a newsletter than a post.

We ended our first semester at WISE with a bang! Our WISE students, preschoolers and my dance class did a fabulous job preforming in a Christmas program for our church and community. I felt like a proud mamma to all of them J.  You can see some video of the program under our video tab.

EK and I celebrated Christmas early with each other. Neither one of us felt we needed much as far as Christmas presents go so we were able to spend a few days at a local resort for some rest, we were so blessed to get a great deal at a local price. It was nice to experience a different part of the island and it was a relaxing Christmas present to us.

 

It was our first Christmas ever away from home with friends and family so we were worried that we might not get the usual Christmas spirit, but boy were we wrong! The WISE Student Council coordinated with all of the WISE students and faculty to go caroling around the community on Christmas Eve. This was my first time ever caroling. The students are all blessed with musical talent so they all had a blast finding people on the streets and in their homes to entertain. Please look under our video tab to see some of their songs. Later, one of the women we sang to told the director of WISE that our caroling “made her Christmas.”  It is so heartwarming to know that God can use all of us in simple ways to impact others.

We had a fun filled Christmas day too. We enjoyed a deliciously catered meal along with presents and games with our students.  We introduced them to the white elephant gift exchange (or gag gifts) they sure had fun stealing presents from each other!

My (Maddie) mom and sister flew down to visit us the day after Christmas. It was so so so nice to have family around and for them to see the work we are doing here.

We were able to see a lot of the island while they were here. We went to the Owai Salt Ponds with all of the WISE students, I think it was the most breathtaking view of the ocean I have ever seen. It is on the Atlantic side of the island where the waves crash angrily against the shore. However, there is a circle of rocks that God seemed to strategically place so the water creates a calm crystal pool which was perfect for swimming.

My family, EK and myself also travels to Dark View Falls which is a serene place with two waterfalls. We were surrounded by jungle and the constant sound of the flowing water, my mom felt it was necessary to sing “How Great Thou Art” which was very fitting for our surroundings.

My mom and sister were able to take part in their own ministry while they were here; clowning! You heard me right, they have their own clown act as Pip (Callie) and Squeak (Mom). They were a hit everywhere they went. We went into the community one day to pass out suckers, or “sweeties” as the kids here like to call them, and they also make a variety of balloons. We didn’t have to walk far because the word quickly spread and soon they were surrounded by children on the street; all in unison saying“Miss, Miss, Miss, I want a balloon!” They also performed for our WISE New Year’s Eve Party. They made the students laugh with their skits and puzzled them with their magic tricks. It was sad to see them go but we definitely made a lot of great memories!

We have had TWO HUGE BLESSINGS, I MEAN HUGE, already in 2013. The first is our college was able to buy a truck. WISE was first blessed by churches and individuals who donated so WISE was able to have funds to buy a truck. Then the challenge became finding a nice used truck on the island, not as easy as you would think. However, God provided as He always does. WISE now has a truck that should last for many many years. This will help to transport plenty of people at a time (because it is legal for people to sit in the back here) and it will help with transporting materials needed for construction that always seems to be going on as the school grows and makes needed improvements.

The second blessing came in the University of Missouri Christian Campus House. A group of 20 people came from Columbia, Missouri to help serve at WISE for almost two weeks, and they have been mighty busy. They replaced the entire ceiling and repainted the preschool in about 5 days and they continue to work hard every day with no complaints but with a servant’s heart and joyful attitude, again what a blessing! I have enjoyed getting to know the MU students and it’s nice to have people from my school (MU) makes it feel like a piece of home. The group also treated all of the WISE students and faculty by making us homemade lasagna, salad, garlic bread and even brownies and ice cream for dinner. All of our tummies were full and happy! You can visit their blog and follow their journey in SVG at http://cchmissions.tumblr.com/

We appreciate everyone’s continued prayers for us, we feel them all. We pray that your 2013 is getting off to a great start and that you feel the love of God surrounding you every day!

* sorry there are no pics in this post, for some reason I could not get them to upload...but will post some soon!