Earthquake

I just wanted to put up a quick note to assure you all that we are fine. The earthquake was approximately 573 miles away from us, and we felt nothing. Singapore is also very protected from tsunamis by the surrounding Indonesian islands. As I understand it, Singapore is one of the safest places in the world with regard to natural disasters. No earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanoes, flooding, etc.

We've had a wonderful Christmas season so far, and will update you a little more later, but I wanted to reassure you as soon as I heard about this! (I actually didn't even hear about the earthquake until this morning (Monday).

Escaping the City

In early November we had a five-day weekend and were able to go to Sibu, Malaysia to relax and escape the fast pace of city life. We went with two other couples from the school. (Bob is sitting by Betsy.)

Sibu Island

The island of Sibu is only about 20 acres and provided a nice, quiet get-away.

Leaving the mainland

Sibu Island Resort

Fishing house on the ocean

And in the background, the many islands of Malaysia.

The beach

RDA, horses in the city!

This is where Betsy spends her Thursday and Friday mornings, the Riding School for the Disabled.

"Working" Hard

Her day starts with grooming and saddling a horse in preparation for the riders.

Meet Rama

Warming up

After saddling the horse, Betsy takes him out to walk around the arena and get prepared for the activities of the day.

The arena

The riders are led through many different obstacles during the ride.

The Ride

During the actual ride there are three volunteers per horse, one leading (this is what Betsy does) and two making sure the rider is stable and not going to fall off. There are also two or three instructors for the whole group.

Good evening to you! Thanksgiving was good here, we had a good time of food, fellowship, and games at the Bailey's house (friends from church) they also had our Singaporean pastors over. We got to watch a recorded Monday night football game (Patriots vs. Chiefs), Bible Trivia, and Hoopla! We got home rather late.

Then on Saturday we had basketball games to play. The girls won the consolation championship (3rd place). While both of the guys teams lost the championship games and got second. We played well, but were simply up against a better team (especially the older boys). The younger team made a couple of runs that brought us within 1 or 2 points, but would follow it up by letting UWC score 6 or 7 to pull ahead again. It was fun though!

On Sunday I went to a chess tournament to watch one of my students. 2 or 3 years ago he won the Singapore National Chess Title. It was incredible to watch this caliber of play. There were 2 grand masters, an olympean, as well as Ino and a bunch of other really good players! It was incredible how fast their minds worked. This was especially evident when they would analyze the games after completing them! Ino ended up getting 3rd place. Ino has been a great asset to have at chess club each week!

Wow, the last day of November! I can't believe Christmas is almost here! We end the semester before Christmas, so we have two weeks of normal school, than a week of exams. Pray for me as I finish up different subjects before the break.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I can't believe it is already Thanksgiving! This past month has just flown by!

Two weeks ago we had a five-day weekend and were able to spend some time with fellow teachers in Malaysia. It was a much needed rest as the first days off since the year started.

The past couple of weeks have been full of basketball! Both the U16 and the Open teams have been finishing regular seasons, and then having playoff games. Last week the U16 team won the semi-final match to qualify for the finals this coming Saturday. Monday the Open boys played a tough Quarterfinal game and won with four points in the last 10 seconds. The semi-finals were scheduled for Tuesday, but the game was rained out! So we found a place that we could use a gym and played Wednesday. It was another close game, and this time we won on a jump shot with 2 seconds on the clock! So, both of the boys teams will be playing in the finals on Saturday, and the Girls team will be playing in the Consolation Championship. So Saturday will be another full basketball day. But, then the season is over, and there will be a little more free time!

It is hard to think of this as Thanksgiving, not only is it warm out, but it isn't a holiday here. Everyone is working like normal. But I do have the day off! This morning I went with Betsy to the RDA to watch her work with the horses and the kids. I took a few pictures and will post some later.

This evening we will be going to some friends from church to celebrate Thanksgiving. He recorded some football games, so we'll watch football and eat turkey and pumpkin pie! It won't be the Thanksgiving we are used to, but it will be fun. We will definitely be missing our family though.

Please be praying for us in this holiday season as we are spending this time away from family. Most times it isn't too bad, but occasionally it hits us.

We love you all!

Raining in Singapore

Well, the rainy season has arrived. For the past few days there have been around two hours of pouring rain, thunder, and lightning. Early this week as I was leaving school I got to the exit from the school to find a small pond, about 20 feet across, and as deep as 5 inches. I didn't want to go all the way back to the other side of the campus, so I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants and waded across. It is nice to have a warm rain and be able to do that.

Thanks for your love and prayers!

Bush for 4 more years!

It has been a crazy week here. Betsy and I have been tracking the race by listening to Rush Limbaugh online in the evenings. We actually sent our ballots in a couple of weeks ago, so it was just a matter of watching what would happen. It was weird not being able to see any results til Wednesday morning, but it also meant I didn't have to stay up late to see the results! By Wednesday night when we went to bed, it wasn't official. But this morning the first place I went was the news page and saw the great headline of Kerry's concession! We continue to pray that God will be working in President Bush and in our great country!

Update in Pictures!

OK, here they are, some more pictures for you all! The first couple are from our International Night, a great time of food and fun! All the families were to bring two dishes from their home culture. There was food from EVERYWHERE! America, Italy, Sweden, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, etc! It was great, we love to eat and try new things. I couldn't believe how many people were there for this thing. It is really a pretty large community of people when you get all the parents and students and staff together.

After the food, we had a show with performances dealing with different areas of the world, I have pictures from a couple of our favorites included. More about them later.

Yesterday we went to Sentosa island with our small group from school. We played some MiniGolf, and hung out at the beach, it was a beautiful day! We hadn't been to Sentosa yet, but it is only a ten minute walk away from our house. We will be going often!

Thank you for all your support, love, and emails, we love getting them! Feel free to leave comments here as well, though you won't necessarily get responses then!

Baseball at International Night

The program started out with a tribute to America's great pasttime with "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" I loved joining in the second time!

As a side note, we had a couple of great series this year. Was great to see the Yanks blow the lead! (Sorry Grandma, couldn't resist one more jab!)

Korean Drumming

The show ended with a group of Korean students doing a drumming concert, they drummed on the tables, and on overturned garbage cans! It was a great performance, and it was neat to see these normally quiet students get out in front and show off their culture!

Danny & Andrew

This is Andrew, the Computer guy at ICS. I'm enjoying having him around to do all the computer things so I don't have to and teaching me some things I don't know yet, and he enjoys (I think) having me around to help occasionally.

Aaaaah, nice to be in the ocean again!

Need I say more?

The Southernmost point in Continental Asia

We find it interesting that this little island is considered the southernmost point in continental Asia. It is connected to the island of Sentosa by a bridge, which is connected to Singapore by a bridge, which is connected to Malaysia and mainland Asia by a bridge!

The beach was a beautiful place with a bunch of room to run and play, and plenty of sand to share! There was a group of kids there that dug a hole about 7 feet deep in the sand! And I was able to play frisbee with a couple others from the school. It was fun to be able to really throw the disc full power, though my arm was sore by the end!

A beautiful end to a fun day in Sentosa.

We ended our time in Sentosa by going to a laser and fountain show, it was pretty cool. The whole island was lit up with lights. A fun time!

Let us know when you are coming and we'll take you for a visit!

Quarter One Complete

Well, last Friday ended the first quarter of school. On Wednesday I finished turning in grades for the quarter. I can't belive the time has gone so quickly! My students did fairly well, with only a few Ds and no Fs!

These last couple days have been great as God has been working on me to better use my time. I have been able to keep up with my grading and not have a ton of work to do here at home. As a result, yesterday Betsy and I were able to go on a date!

It was exciting! We went to one of the malls and a Mail Boxes Etc. store where we were able to turn in our ballots for the election. UPS and FedEx provide free mailing of ballots back to the states! It was wonderful to be able to cast our vote from so far away and to feel comfortable that it will actually make it on time!

After dropping off our ballots we wandered the mall for a while, then went to the Pizza Hut for dinner. As we were heading home from dinner we passed by the World's Largest Fountain and a sign that said there were daily shows from 8-10 pm so we decided to wait the half hour to see the show! Unfortunately as we sat there we saw scaffolding and figured it wasn't going to be down in time for a show, but we were enjoying just relaxing from the hustle and bustle of the day and waited anyway. At 8 we heard an announcement telling everyone that there would be no show for a couple of weeks while they were doing repairs. I guess we'll have to go back later!

So, we decided to go home. That was an ordeal! We knew where we needed to go to get a bus, but we couldn't get out of the mall in that direction! And as we tried to walk around the outside we ran into construction blocking the sidewalks! Eventually we ended up a half mile away (we tried to cut through a building and ended up in an underground mall) at a mall Betsy recognized and knew where to go to get a bus. It was an adventure!

All in all a great evening, seeing God's blessings!

Thank you for your prayers!

Day 2 of consistency!

Tuesday night we were invited to go to the Young Life fundraising banquet with one of Betsy's friends from Bible Study (and the mother of one of my students). It was a great time and it was neat to learn something about this great organization. Pray for wisdom as we consider our involvement.

Last weekend we went with Stephen & Rachel to a park behind their house and were able to play a round of disc golf for the first time since moving here. (Disc golf is like frisbee golf, and a hobby that both of us have been enjoying for the last couple of years.) There are no official courses here like in the states, but we can still just pick a tree here, a sign there, the light post, picnic table, etc. It was great to be throwing our discs again!! And it was great to be out in the greenery!

Thanks again for your prayers, love you all lots! We'll try to post a couple more pictures this weekend.

Wow, where has the time gone?

OK, it has been a couple weeks now, and much has happened. First of all, I'm sorry I haven't sent anything out in the last weeks. Hopefully I will do better now, I'm trying to make this part of my morning routine.

The past two weeks have been pretty good. Though the first part of October both of us were sick. I was still able to go to school, but had a pretty tough day. Then during the weekend was able to recover.

Basketball season has continued and both our younger team and our older team have won their games. We are looking forward to continuing to win and to being about to play in the tournament at the end of the year. Last night the older boys beat the Australian International School for the first time in ICS history!

It is hard to believe, but tomorrow is already the end of the first quarter! Nine weeks of school have already passed! Please pray for me to be diligent in my grading these next few days and to be prepared to turn in grades next Wednesday.

Thank you so much for all your prayers and support!

We love you lots.

A day in the Rainforest

Stephen and Rachel, our tour guides!
On Sunday the 19th we went to a national reserve with Stephen and Rachel, Steven teaches with Danny. It is a protected area with about 8 miles worth of hiking trails through the rain forest and around a reservoir. We hiked about 6 miles of the way through, it was BEAUTIFUL!!

This picture is on the top of a ranger tower about 80 feet up. We were a little nervous about going up as it was beginning to rain and we could see lightening in the distance, but Stephen is the adventurous type and dragged us up. We were glad, it was a great view in all directions.

It was nice to be able to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city and be surrounded by green. We even got far enough in that we couldn't hear the city noises!

Then at the end, trees. . . road! We walked along the road a little ways to the bus stop, looking forward to getting home and resting a little bit. . . Stephen and Rachel went to a different stop to take them home. I looked in the book and directed us to the bus we needed. We got on and I took a little nap, only to wake up in Yishun (the north part of the island) instead of HarborFront (the south, near our house). We had gotten on the correct bus, but the wrong side of the road! So, we got off, walked to the MRT (train) station, and took the 45 minute ride back home!

All in all, a great day!

Turtle

Lots of turtles were swimming around in the reservoir, not as big as the sea turtles in Hawaii, but still fun to watch.

Monkeys

There were a whole bunch of monkeys around the trail, curious about us as we were about them! (Actually, I think they see a lot of people and were more interested in the flash from my camera!)

The jungle canopy

See You at the Pole

As many of you know, "See You at the Pole" is a gathering of Christian students around the world at the flagpole of their school on a Wednesday morning in September. This is our school's version. We don't really have a flagpole, so it was just on the basketball court. In all, we probably had around 80 students K-12 at the pole. It was a great time of worship and prayer.

As you can see, the students are not in their traditional uniform. This day also happened to be picture day for the high school, so students were able to wear free dress for the day.

Algebra 2

Here is a shot of my first period Algebra 2 class hard at work. Thought I would give you a look at what the class looks like with kids in it!

A weekend in Malaysia

On Friday, August 24 Danny went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with two other teachers for an AP (Advanced Placement) conference. There were about 30 teachers from schools throughout southeast asia learning how to prepare students for the AP test. Danny went because of his Calculus class. The students hope to be able to take the test and then to skip the first semester of Calculus in college.

It was a great weekend, but the 5 hour bus trip each way made for a long weekend. He left school at 3:15 on Friday and returned home at about 9:00 pm on Sunday, time to go to bed and get up for the new week! Pray for strength and endurance in this long week!

Time flies

WOW, I can't believe it has already been almost a week since my last post! Things are going well here. My ankle is almost back to normal. Yesterday we had our first real basketball game. The boys played pretty well and we were able to get a 53-49 win. Should be a good year!

Betsy started volunteering at the Riding for the Disabled today. She had a great time.

Tomorrow night we have our small group meeting here in our apartment, we are excited to have a bunch of guests over, but there is also a lot to do around the house!

Thanks for your prayers and support!

Injury

Well, I'm updating a little sooner this time. . . Yesterday while walking home from school I misjudged a step and twisted/sprained/rolled (I'm not sure what the right term is) my ankle. It isn't real bad, but there is pain, and it made for an interesting day today as we had chapel. . . This means that I go up the 50 stairs for attendance, down 75 to chapel, back up 75 to my room, down 75 for lunch, back up 75 for 4th period, down 50 for 5th and 6th, back up 50 for 7th period, down 75 for basketball practice, and back up 25 to do some work in the teacher's lounge. That is a lot of stairs! Thankfully I didn't also have to walk up and down the 70 stairs in front of our apartment as Joe Beeson (the principal) was able to give me a ride to and from school. Now I have the weekend to recover and should be fine by Monday.

Other news, we have a guest for the week! A missionary with YWAM is on his way home from Papua New Guinea and needed a place to stay for a week, so Joe asked us if we could house him. We are glad to. His fiance is staying with another teacher from the school, so we don't see much of him, just in the morning and the evening. It has been fun talking to him some about PNG and the experiences there.

A pray request for this weekend is the work I need to do. Midterm progress reports are due Monday afternoon, and there are a lot of papers to deal with. Pray that I will be diligent with my time. Also, pray that my ankle does heal correctly and quickly!

Thanks!!!

Cotton Candy Sunset

Sunset

Orchids

Betsy with her beautiful orchids!

BUSY BUSY BUSY

It is amazing how quickly we can get busy again! I planned to update this each weekend, but now two weekends have passed without an update. I need to learn to do simple posts every couple of days instead of putting forth the effort of a lot of posting each week. Will try to do that in the future. Until then. . . Here is the update!

I've broken the post into little pieces, and at the bottom I've posted some pictures, enjoy!

Classes

My new computers class has been going well. I am enjoying the somewhat freeform teaching where I don't have a book to follow, but can choose the topics that I feel are important. But at the same time this means a lot more work as I attempt to create assignments that will help their learning and not just keep them busy! Pray for wisdom in my assignment selection.

Calculus is continuing to move on! I finally got my own copy of the text so I don't have to do a bunch of photocopying, thank God for ebay and being able to get out of print books for a reasonable price ($44 apiece instead of $120 for a new one!) I am struggling some with the class as I haven't taught it before and have a lot of things to relearn well enough to teach them! Pray that I will be able to explain difficult concepts in understandable words.

My other classes are relatively normal, I've taught most of them before and am not having much trouble with the actual math. But, I am having to work on my communication techniques. While all of the students can speak English, many of them are very slow in comprehension, especially when trying to explain technical terms from Geometry and proofs. Pray that I will be able to speak slowly and clearly enough that they will understand me, and the same for them so I can understand them!!

When it rains it pours!

Danny after his first true rain storm. It started raining just as I began my 10 minute walk home. By the time I got home I was SOAKED!! (I also found out that my briefcase is NOT waterproof! Don't worry, nothing damaged.)

Basketball

Early on in the year I was approached about helping with the coaching of basketball. I love basketball and played all through jr. high and high school, but I was a lot nervous about being a coach as I don't feel my knowledge of the game is quite that good, especially when it comes to analyzing a situation and helping my players to understand what they need to do. But, because of the need, I agreed.

I am coaching the U16 (Under 16) team which is similar to the JV teams in the states, while Jason Goode is coaching the Open (varsity) team. Jason pretty much runs the practices, and will be with me on the bench for the U16 games, telling me what to tell the kids, and basically teaching me to be a coach! I am looking forward to the learning process!

So far things have been good. We started practice the second week of school, but only practice twice a week. Our first games were this past Saturday. We played in a tournament to see where our U16 matches with other U16 to decide what division we will play in. We won both of our shortened games, so we will be playing in the upper division.

Pray for wisdom for me as I coach, and as I have this opportunity to interact with the students outside of the classroom. Some of my players are not Christians and I want this time on the team to be a time that they can see God's glory! One of those non-Christian players is BJ. Pray for him as he broke his wrist in our first scrimmage and will likely miss the first half of the season. Pray that he will keep a good attitude and see God working in him through this time!

Coach Whittaker

My first game as basketball coach! I am coaching the U16 (under 16) team. Jason Goode (sitting beside me) is my assistant (which means he tells me what to say as I have never done anything like this before!)

Chess Club

Today I started the chess club at the school. I'm looking forward to it as most of the kids in the club are middle schoolers, and I don't have any of them during the normal school day. Today was just a time to get to know them a little and play some games. As we meet throughout the week we will do more learning times. One of the great opportunities that we have here is that one of the high school students is a champion player (I think he actually won the Singapore national championship!) He is hoping to actually run the club and teach the kids some of the important aspects of the game. I think this could be a really good thing, and I'll be able to learn from him too!

Pray that Ino will be able to teach as he wants and that through this time God will use me to impact these kids' lives!

Soaking

AAAAH!!! That feels good, we spend time most every day cooling off in the pool. It feels good after all of the sticky sweat during the day!

Our path thru the jungle

The path we take to go to the store or to ride the MRT (Mass Rail Transit) It is about a 10 minute walk to either one.

Mount Faber Lodge

Here is our building, 8 floors with 4 levels of housing (some apartments are multi-floor) We are on the fifth floor.

One week complete!

Well, the first week of school has come to an end. . .

It was a great week! My day consisted of:
15 sophomores graders in Algebra 2
16 freshmen graders in Geometry
0 sophomores graders in Algebra 2
Lunch!!!
11 juniors graders in Pre-Calculus
3 Study hall students
4 seniors graders in Calculus
2 Study hall students

My 3rd period Algebra 2 class was on my schedule at the beginning of the year, but many of the tenth grade families moved out of the country, and thus the class wasn't needed. Thus for this first week I have had it fairly easy, only four class periods! That will change this coming week though as I am taking over a ninth grade computers class for another teacher who has way too much going on!

The lunch here is great, there is a company that serves meals each day for the students, it has been fun eating at the "canteen" and getting to try some local foods at a great price (S$2.50 equivalent to about $1.50).

My Calculus class has been interesting. . . I have four students, but only four books and no teacher's edition, so until we can get another one ordered, I just have to photo copy pages! And, the school is fast out-growing its campus, so we had a bit of a struggle finding a room that we could have class in!

Pray that Joe Beeson (our principal) will be able to find a campus that the school can move to next summer. Finding school building can be a very difficult thing and Joe has already been looking for many months, but nothing is available. There is actually a campus that is unused right now and would be ideal for the school, but the government doesn't want to lease it out. Pray they change their minds!

Also, the school is still looking for teachers/advisors for this year: Spanish, Newspaper, Yearbook, and ESL. Pray that the right person will come forward to fill those roles.

Pray for me as I take over this computers class and try to develop a curriculum for it.

Pray for Betsy as she continues to try to find the niche God has for her. We are confident He has a plan for her, and want to be patient for His leading.

Thanks again for all your love and support!

The view out my window and a few students playing basketball after school.

A shot of my classroom, I am in here most of the day, if you look closely, you will see a couple disc golf discs, and some Mariners players!

First Day of School!

Well, this is it, the first day! Things have been going well so far, I've had Algebra 2 and Geometry so far. This is a free period, later I have a Pre-Calculus, Calculus, and Study Halls.

Pray that it continues to go well!!

PICTURES!!!

OK everyone, the pictures you have all been waiting for! You will probably want to scroll to the bottom and work your way up as the posts are placed from newest to oldest.

Enjoy!

Love you all!

Our first guest! We were going to leave him alone, then realized he was eating the leaves! He took a tumble to the next floor down!

One of our new houseplants, we bought some used bookshelves from people who are moving and they through in four plants for free!!! Betsy is excited to have orchids!

Yesterday our shipment finally arrived! 13 tubs of clothes, books, photo albums, etc. We were so excited to be able to begin setting up our home! (Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the new arrangement, I guess that will come later!)

Here is Betsy at the Orchid gardens, the school sent all the new teachers on a tour of the city and this was one of our stops, BEAUTIFUL flowers, but she is the beautifulest!

This is a major symbol here in Singapore, a mer-lion!

The business center of the city/country. The highest buildings here are over 900 feet tall.

Here is the drying method of choice by most locals.

This is a very common sight here in Singapore, construction is a constant!

And here is the rest of the view from our balcony, the harbor (part of it) It is kind of interesting watching all of the loading and unloading.

This is the view looking out from the balcony. TREES!!! It is also a protected area, so those trees won't disappear for a new building. And, if you look real close in the upper right-hand part, you will see our ocean view!

Here is the view from our deck. Our own pool! We are told the pool gets very little traffic from the 84 apartments in our complex, we will make use of it!

Here we have the kitchen/dining room. Not huge, but lots of counter! The washing machine is also in this room, no dryer here, everything is hung out to dry. The inset is the dining area and the table that came with the apartment.

Here is the master bedroom, it came with the furniture you see here, bed, nightstand, and vanity. In the inset pictures here are the built in cabinet/closets. And the continuation of the room toward the master bathroom and the master balcony!

OK, jump forward a few days and this is our new apartment!! We moved in last Saturday (the 31st). Here is the living room, with an inset picture showing the rest of the left-hand wall and the doors to the master bedroom and the kitchen.

Looking out our window on a rainy day. Notice all the green scattered amongst the streets, this is a very beautiful city. Also notice the raised MRT (Mass-Rail Transit) line. There is a great public transit system here with the trains as well as busses.

Jump ahead a couple of weeks. . .
When we arrived in Singapore we were taken to this building where we would be staying until we found our own place. 38 floors! We were on the 14th floor.