God is good!

It is hard to believe that we are already into the third week of school. I feel really good about the year so far, as I have been able to improve on the way I run my classes and to use the things I learned last year to help me out. My elementary computers classes are going well, much better than I was fearing. Thank you for your prayers for me.

One of the new things I have added this year is a website for each of my classes so I can keep students and parents better informed on upcoming assignments. The last few days I have been taking pictures in class, so I even posted those pictures. If you would like to see the students in my classes, you can view my profile by clicking on my name on the right, then select the different class pages.

On the home front, we had one of Betsy's friends from the RDA over for dinner. It was neat having him here and being able to talk with him. He asked a lot of questions about where we are from, and enjoyed looking at pictures of eastern Washington. We enjoyed hearing his stories of life in Singapore. Please pray that we will continue to have opportunities to share Christ's love with him.

Betsy is continuing to have troubles with her sleep cycle, pray that she will get all the rest she needs, and not feel like she's just being lazy as she sleeps all day. Right now she is beginning to come down with the flu. Pray that she will get the sleep needed to kill this flu bug quickly!

Thank you so much for all your prayers, continue to pray for us through this pregnancy that God will use the next 22 weeks to build us closer to Him and closer to each other; and that we will be prepared for the child He is blessing us with.

A view of our condo from the top of nearby government housing.

The walkway heading to school

This condo is right next to ours; it has been interesting watching it grow from a hole in the ground to the 8 or 9 story building that it is now.

Here is the top half of the new condo. This picture was taken from our building.

Dinner is almost ready!

Our own home

Monday marked the beginning of a "normal" year. Summer vacation is officially over. Our last guests (at least for a couple weeks) left.

This past month has been wonderful, yet crazy. My parents were here for the last two weeks of July (much fun, glad they came), then three days after they left some friends who are doing missions work in Papua New Guinea and Australia came to stay at our place while they work on getting their missionary visas to Australia. They left on Monday, thus, for the first time in a month our house is lived in by only us! It was a wonderful month, we were glad to have the guests and to have the home to be able to provide for these people, but at the same time, it is also nice to have our home and privacy back. We will be enjoying this as much as possible while we prepare for another member of the family!

Love you all!

A New Year Begins

Well, two days of school have now passed. So far the year has been great.

My schedule this year is:

1. Prep Period - It's nice having this first thing to kind of get settled for the day.
2. Algebra 1 - This is an 8th grade class, with a couple of 9th and 10th graders. I'm looking forward to teaching middle school again this year. 18 students.
   
3. Calculus - This class doubled in size to 8 this year. I'm looking forward to teaching it again and improving upon last year!
4. PreCalculus - 16 students this year (up from 11). Again, it will be nice to improve on my teaching last year.
5. Computer Applications - This is a 9th grade class with 14 students right now. I really enjoy teaching the computer classes as they provide a different atmosphere than the Math classes and the students tend to enjoy them more.
6. Elementary Computers - This is my scariest class! I am teaching each grade from K-6 once a week. Most of them I'm not too worried about, Thursday scares me though!
   
1. Monday = 2nd & 3rd, 19 students
   
2. Tuesday = 5th, 15 students
   
3. Wednesday = 4th, 16 students
   
4. Thursday = K-1st, 23 students - This is the one I am most dreading, not sure what I'm going to teach, or how I'm going to keep them under control for 50 minutes! Pray for me.
   
5. Friday = 6th, 17 students
7. MultiMedia - 9 students. This should be a fun class, hopefully will learn a lot about the students as they create many different projects.

All-in-all I really like my schedule, and I'm excited to see how God works in my classes this year.

Little Whittaker Update

We had another doctor appointment on Thursday and got a few more pictures to share. Everything is looking good so far. Please continue to pray for a healthy pregnancy and for good rest for Betsy.

A praise, we were able to get all the details worked out for our insurance and from here on out all the doctor bills will go directly to insurance for 100% coverage!


Little arms and legs

Head Shot

The whole body

As you can see from the picture the doctor didn't adjust the due date, still set at February 19.

Summer is over

Sorry this post is a little late. The last few days have been somewhat hectic:

On Friday, Danny reported back to duty at school for a weekend retreat (staff only), while Betsy took Mama and Daddy to the airport as their two week visit had come to an end.

The retreat was a great time of learning about my coworkers and building connections with them, but it was also hard being away from my pregnant wife. I was grateful that Betsy had things to keep her busy with the other wives here (they went to the zoo).

The last three days have been normal preparation for school, I can't believe the kids arrive on Monday!

Yesterday we also had some friends who are traveling through Singapore arrive. They will be staying at our place while they get the paperwork finished for their move to Australia. It is fun having them here, but we didn't get much of a break between my parents and them!

Tomorrow we go back to the doctor for another checkup and another look at our child. Betsy is 12 weeks pregnant now. The morning sickness has pretty much passed, but she hasn't been sleeping very well.

Love you all lots, thanks for your prayers!