Dec. 13: Wrestling & Service

Wrestling

Jamo at his tourney this morning. He earned 2nd place. :)

The boys helped out at a Caroling for Cans Girl Scout event today. They spent 4 hours helping 30 girls make crafts and collect canned goods for the food pantry. Good job, boys!

x

Dec. 6: IRIS Retreat

IRIS Retreat

More on this later- I'd like the boys to write this one.

Fun Fact: The boys had not seen sleeping bags before!

Dec. 3: Youth Group Silliness

Youth Group Silliness

So the kids were having WAY too much fun at youth group!! After we demolished a baked potato bar (toppings included chili, cheese, parsley, butter, sour cream, & broccoli), we had a lesson. The lesson ended with Pastor Lane leading the kids in a great rendition of  "The Twelve Days of Christmas". The kids got in groups and acted out all the parts! HILARIOUS!!!!

and a partridge in a pear tree....

4 calling birds...

9 ladies dancing...

Director Lane

6 geese a laying!

Later, Jer got crazy and did a spot-on impersonation of a street magician. Again, HILARIOUS!

moving a pencil with static electricity

RED! You see the RED! RED! RED!

Nov. 27: A Traditional American Thanksgiving....Sort of

A Traditional Thanksgiving

     We drove the 2 hours to Jim's parents' house in Oskaloosa on Thursday morning. We had to drive 2 cars because there were 9 of us! We got there around 9 and hung out with the relatives while cooking dinner. We had a typical Thanksgiving feast of turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn casserole, broccoli rice casserole, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, fruit salad, veggie plate, cold broccoli salad, cranberry salad, 3 dozen dinner rolls, apple pie, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and chocolate cream pie. There was an absolute ton of food and I have to admit that there was very little of it left over! There were 23 of us, but still!

At the boy kiddie table...

 and the girl kiddie table!

     We had our entire family (Jim, Krys, Lynney, Kayley, Jameson, Alex, Jer, Karley, & Kaydey) there, plus Jim's brother, David, and his wife Cindy, and their son, John. Jim's sister, Julie, was there with her husband Mark, daughters Sara & Amanda, Jim, Sara's husband, their kids Aubrey & Kayne, and Amanda's son, Xavier. Plus Mom & Dad. Whew! Jim's other brother, Larry and his family, did not make it out this year, since they live in California.

     What made this an atypical Thanksgiving is that we also celebrated Christmas. Once all the dishes and food were put away from dinner, we opened gifts. We celebrate Christmas now because Jim's mom and dad head to Texas for the winter, usually the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

Xavier & Aubrey

Jamo & Kayley

Kaydey & Karley

Kayley & Cousin John (also 16!)

Chicago shirts from David, Cindy, and John

California shirts from Larry, Maricel, Stephen, & Jennifer

I should probably mention that we went to my parents' house for Thanksgiving on Friday afternoon. Jer wanted to do some Black Friday shopping, so Jim took the boys to Wal-Mart for a little bit while the girls went shopping at the Williamsburg outlet malls. After that, we went to my parents' house and helped them prepare the meal. We had hamballs, butternut squash, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, dinner rolls, fruit salad, apple pie, and pumpkin pie. My brother, Dan, and his wife, Cathy, also joined us. We didn't get any pictures because my camera battery died. The new one. ARGH!!!! It refused to be charged, so we think my new camera is actually a battery sucker, because this battery is only a month old. (Remember the Starr's Cave debacle?) Anyway, many apologies for the lack of pictures of food or people. We had a lot of fun, even without the camera! :)

Nov. 20: Girl Scouts

 Girl Scouts

We meet with our Girl Scout troop every Wednesday that is not an early out. (Jim and I are the leaders along with Dori. We have 25 girls in grades 1, 2, and 3 at Richardson.) One of the badges we are working on, Fair Play, has a requirement for the girls to learn a game from another country. So, Jer & Alex taught them how to play “Sun and Moon”, a common children’s game from Egypt. The boys have been helping with the Girl Scout groups, and are ready to lead a group on their own now! Thanks, boys! Jamo can't help because he has wrestling practice after school now.

Jer explaining how to play "Sun and Moon".

Nov. 19:IRIS Presentations

 IRIS Presentations

The boys made their IRIS presentations tonight at youth group. It was very interesting, and they did a really great job! The kids all really seemed fascinated and asked really good questions.

Alex:

In school, there are 50-60 kids in a class, and the teacher moves from room to room. There is no air conditioning. They have year round schooling with short breaks in between the semesters. Each semester is 13 weeks. They get off school for Muslim holidays. 90% of the students at school are Muslim.

Alex showed us a map of Nigeria & the surrounding countries. The flag is vertical stripes with green-white-green. The green is for agriculture. People do a lot of walking or riding motorcycles.

Alex discussed the bombing of Christian churches in Nigeria. People are afraid to go to church because of this. He told the true story of 3 ministers who were captured by some Muslims. The Muslims asked the clergymen to deny Christ, and 2 of them did. The Muslims killed them, because they knew that if the clergymen were asked to convert, they would lie about it and deny it later. They let the minister go that did not deny Christ. I believe there is a lesson there for all of us.

In Alex’s family there are 4 kids. One brother wants to work and not go to college, 1 sister is in college, 1 sister is admitted into college to study estate management. Alex wants to be an accountant. They have 2 cats & 2 dogs. They own a Toyota van just like ours.

The traditional way to greet an elder:

Jer:

He shared map of Egypt. Aswan (his town) produces 90% of the electricity for Egypt. Cairo, the capital of Egypt, has 12 million people. Aswan has blue water in the Nile, because it is purer than other places.

He gave everyone a bookmark made of papyrus. The kids were very excited by this.

Jer tried to explain why they all have different last names in the same family. They each have 4 names, including their father & grandfather. Women do not take their husband’s name. I would be known as Mrs. Krys at school, to show that I am married.

94% of Egyptians are Muslim, the rest are Christian. 99% of the Christians are Orthodox like he is. He is not recommended to take communion outside of his church. You should go through confession before communion. Women cover their hair for communion. You do not eat anything for 9 hours before communion. If you are late for the prayer time, you can’t take communion. His church actually has 2 sanctuaries, 1 above the other. The lower church is for families with kids, and the upper one is more calm and for mostly older people. The church service is 3 and a half hours long, and is kind of like an open house. The beginning is a prayer service that begins at 6:00 am!

Kids go to an international school or private school for the best education, but they are expensive. Most kids go to public school because you only pay for the books. It is cheap. 30% of the kids at Jer’s school are Christian because the owners of the school are Christian. Most schools have more like 10% Christian kids and the rest are Muslim. The kids are more tolerant of each other at his school. His best friend is Muslim, and the kids all get along pretty well.

Nov. 16: Our First Real Snow

 Our First Real Snow

The boys were very excited to have snow at last! This time the snow stuck to the ground! They were in business class when they saw the snow out the window. Alex raised his hand and said, “It’s snowing! Can we go out in that?” Their business teacher, Mrs. Whitlock, was kind enough to allow the boys to go outside and play in it during class. She also made a really nice video of them which I am hoping will post here. (I tried it on Facebook and it wouldn’t load). Boys being boys, the first thing they did at home when it snowed again was to write their names in the snow! Luckily, they wrote their names with their fingers on the table! For some reason, I thought this was hilarious….

 We had to teach them how to get dressed for the weather. They didn’t want to put on gloves, or hats, or mittens, etc. We did manage to get them to put a long sleeved shirt on under their coats, and we had snow pants for them. (they didn’t see the point in these). We got some of Jim’s boots for them to wear, so they wouldn’t get their shoes soaking wet and freezing, and they had trouble with this as well.  I had to teach them how to do the toggle kind of laces, because they had not seen these before. They also tried to put their boots on barefoot!!! Meanie mom that I am, I made them go put socks on! Once they were prepared, we finally let them go out. They played outside for quite a while. They tried to sled and throw snowballs (wrong kind of snow), and ended up playing football! It didn’t really matter what they did- they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.