Back to School

This month has been a whirlwind at ICS. The month started when the staff left for our annual retreat on August 3rd. It was a wonderful chance to get to know the new staff and to start to gel as a group. The week of the 6th to 10th we started with preparations for the students' arrival on the 13th. We had meetings in the mornings and time to prepare our classrooms in the afternoons.

This is typically a nice week to get things done as well as to continue getting to know each other as a staff. This year things were different. As you know, Betsy has spent the past two weeks battling dengue fever. This started on the 6th. Thus my week of preparations was a bit different. I spent the mornings at home taking care of Aaron, and the afternoons I took Aaron with me to school to play in my classroom while I worked. It was nice to spend some extra time with Aaron, but it was also a bit more difficult to get things done. But, God is good!

At the beginning of the summer I had a great desire to spend time planning how I would work through this school year. I spent quite a bit of time planning the first week or two for each of my classes. I didn't really understand why I was so set on doing this, but I did get a lot of work done. Now I know, God was preparing me to be able to take care of Aaron & Betsy and not have as much preparatory work to do.

The Sunday before school was the day that Betsy was admitted into the hospital, this meant that I had a substitute for the first day of school. For Tuesday thru Thursday (Betsy came home Thursday afternoon) we had a babysitter come by at 7 in the morning to take care of Aaron while I went to school. Then on Friday, she came at 8 to take care of Aaron and to allow Betsy to get the rest she needed.

Even with the craziness at home, the year has started well. The school has now grown to 375 students! (We had 189 students 2 years ago.) We have great new staff to help cover all the new positions and things are going wonderfully. Thank you for all your prayers for the school and for us.

God is so good! God is so good! God is so good, He's so good to us!

Dengue blues...

Yes, this is Betsy. I am once again able to reach a computer keyboard!! I have been out of commission for about 2 weeks now. Let me just say that dengue fever is not something you want to try out. Not the best way to get a vacation!

I have very good news for all of you. The doctor took blood for the last time today. My platelet count is right in the normal range now (270,000)!!! We can only praise our God!! So I asked the doctor what happens if I get dengue again. Am I immune? Is it harder for me to get now? What? This is what he said. There are four strands of dengue fever. I caught one strand. I am now immune....to that ONE strand. However, I still have a 75% (thanks Danny) chance of catching dengue again someday. And, if I get it again, I will most likely have a stronger reaction...aka bleeding internally. Yeah! So, here's what I do. Wear mozzie (Australian for mosquito) spray every time I go to mozzie populated areas. Don't let any standing water exist in our house (duh...already do that). And pray that God will protect me. Because after all, He has control over mozzies too!

Wow!!! What an adventure. I want to thank you all deeply for your prayers for us during this trying time. We know that God is so good to us and is providing for us all the time!

Aaron Around the House

Aaron has been thoroughly enjoying all the new balls left by our landlord. Saturday Daddy put him in the tub with the balls and got lots of fun pictures.
Aaron throwing the balls out.This is fun!
Daddy piled the balls back in!
Time for a snack. Hmm, a new treat, this is yummy! (Can anyone tell what he is eating?)
Aaron's new way down the stairs. He has a great grip.

Quick update

Betsy came home from the hospital on Thursday afternoon. She is doing better, but still tires easily. Thank you for your continued prayers.

Sick and Busy

Just wanted to post a quick message to update you all. Last week was the first week of teacher preparation, and Monday was the first day of school. In the midst of that, Betsy came down with dengue fever last Monday (the 6th). On this past Sunday evening she was admitted to the hospital, but she is currently improving and we are hoping to have her home tomorrow.

Please continue to pray for us, and we will post more information once everything has settled down again.

Aaron's Chair

Aaron received this chair as a present from his Grandma a few months ago. Last Wednesday we were hanging around in the living room and Aaron decided he needed to sit down too! He is so cute!

A Vehicular Adventure

This has been an interesting week. Last Tuesday and Wednesday we worked hard at cleaning up our old apartment to turn it back over to our landlord. We planned to meet with him on Thursday morning to give him the keys and hopefully receive our full deposit. We were looking forward to finishing off everything from our old home. God had a different plan!

When we arrived in the parking lot at 9:30 to drive over there we discovered a horrible thing. The car was not there. We looked all over the lot, but with no luck. So we called our landlord and told him we would be late because we had to go to the police station to report this. It took us about 45 minutes to finally locate and get to the nearest police station. There, Danny spent about 75 minutes explaining what happened (parked the car at 2 pm Wednesday, it wasn't there at 9:30 am Thursday.)

Auto theft is very rare in Singapore so the officers were having a hard time believing that the car wasn't either taken by another family member or else repossessed by the financing company. It made things even more difficult when I explained that the car was not actually mine, but that I was borrowing it for six months while friends were in the states. Eventually they were able to complete the report and Betsy and I got on the bus to head to our old home and meet with the landlord.

This was the good part of the day. The landlord was very pleased with the apartment and wrote us a check for the full deposit. God is so good; the landlord could have waited as much as two weeks before he had to give us the money.

When we got to our new home I quickly wrote an email to the owner of the car to let him know what happened. He was very gracious, but of course asked us to continue following up on what was going on.

We didn't hear any more about the car until Saturday when I checked my email. Another family is staying in Rick's home (he owns the car). Apparently the traffic police had called to let them know that the car had been involved in an accident. They emailed Rick who emailed us this new information. So, I called the neighborhood police station to find out what was going on. They told me that if the traffic police had the car I needed to contact them (apparently they are different agencies that don't communicate very well.)

I called the officer in charge at the traffic police and found out that the car had been hit in the parking lot, and since they were unable to contact the owner, they towed the car! He said I could pick it up between 2 and 4 on Monday afternoon and asked me to come meet with him at about noon. I tried to get better information on what happened to the car, but he couldn't give me very much. He couldn't even tell me if it was drivable!

So, Monday was another adventure! I went the the police station hoping and praying I could pick up the car. Well, after about two hours of waiting and then filling out another report I was able to go to the impound lot and get the car. Thankfully the damage was minor; mostly superficial. The back bumper will need to be replaced, as well as one of the side panels, but at least I can drive it until all the details are worked out.

So here is the short story as best I can figure it:

At approximately 9:49 pm on July 25th one of my neighbors (don't know who) arrived home and attempted to park his car. He caused damage to two cars (from the damage on our car it looks like maybe he hit mine and knocked it into the one next to it, but I don't know for sure). He then proceeded to finish parking and go into his home. Fortunately someone saw all this and reported it to traffic police. They are still investigating what happened. Apparently the owner of the car claims that he was not driving the car but cannot give a good explanation as to who was driving the car. The police also think that there may have been alcohol involved. So we are left to wait until the investigation is complete before we are able to get money from him or from his insurance to pay for the repairs!

It has been crazy, but at the same time, it is kind of fun having this crazy story to tell!

We are so grateful that God is in control of all things and that no one was hurt!

Here are a couple of pictures: