Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Back to School

Hey everybody!

Welcome back from the summer.  The past three months have been wonderfully busy and crazy.

It started with the long flight across the Pacific on June 15th, and three weeks with Danny's family in Portland and Vancouver.  It was a lot of fun letting Aaron interact with his five cousins aged from 2 months to 3.5 years.  Most of these we had never actually met.

After our time in Vancouver we made the drive to Othello to spend time with Betsy's parents.  This was another wonderful time as Aaron got a chance to ride on all sorts of machinery (tractors, trucks, motorbikes, and a dune buggy).  Our trip ended with a couple weeks at Deer Lake, swimming and boating and otherwise relaxing.

It was a refreshing time and was wonderful seeing so many people that we haven't seen in a long time.

We returned to Singapore on August 3rd.  It was nice to not have to live out of a suitcase anymore.  The last three weeks have been spent trying to get back into a normal routine at home, while at the same time getting a new school year started.

The school year is going well.  At the end of last year enrollment was down by about 15% (from 400 to about 340), causing the board and adminstration to need to make some cuts and plans.  They set a budget based on 360 students and told us to pray that God would bring them in.  It was close, but on the Friday before school started our enrollment hit 361!  Praise God!

Please continue pray for the school, we are in the midst of some negotiations with the government regarding coverings for our outdoor basketball courts.  We have been waiting for final approval since last June and continue to wait.  Please pray that something will happen quickly so these coverings can be put up quickly to allow more places to play and have PE during rainy days!

Thanks for praying!  Sorry there aren't any pictures today.