The entry way

On the edge is the computer table. Bonus points to anyone who can tell me what is playing on our computer.

Our new living area

New curtains as well

The queen of the house

The baby room

A great place to read while the little one sleeps!

A busy week

This past week has been a good, but busy one. Thursday we had a special emphasis on Spiritual things with two separate conferences: Heart-to-Heart for the ladies and Braveheart for the men. It was a wonderful time to minister specifically to our own gender students and their needs.

On Friday we went to the Singapore American School to watch a football game that the son of some of our friends plays on. It was fun to be in an "American" atmosphere again!

Saturday we spent the day painting, we had three people come to help us (sorry Lisa we didn't get your picture!) and had the first coat done in both rooms by 3:15. Today Lisa came back to help Betsy with the second coat. The place is looking good. We're letting it dry for a couple days, then have a little touch-up to do. Looking forward to the rooms being done this time next week!

Love you all.

Braveheart

Football!!!

Game in motion

Our hardworking assistants Denise and Cullen

Painting the ceiling

New color for baby room

Having some fun, self-portrait by Cullen

Cullen in the newly painted Living Room

Well, here are a few pictures from around Singapore. Most of these were taken a couple of weeks ago while we were out after getting our most recent baby pictures. We thought you would enjoy some shots of the things we take for granted.

Things are going well here, Betsy is now in her 22nd week of pregnancy. We are working on preparations for painting this weekend, and the first quarter has come to a successful end.

Thank you for all your prayers for us.

Great World City Shopping center

One way road outside Great World

Car Elevator!

WAY up there

Old Town and New Town

Ice Cream Sandwich Anyone?

Parkview Square, inspired by Gotham City

The busses in front of Parkview Square

See You at the Pole

Gathered for Prayer

Quarter 1 complete

Well, this week is the first week of the second quarter. The last few days I have been hard at work getting things finalized for my first quarter grades. We have also been hard at work preparing our home for our child. Last week some friends came over to help us rearrange the house, and in a couple weeks we will be painting. I've decided to add a few pictures so you can see what the place looks like now, and after we've finished painting, we'll post some more pictures.

Betsy is doing well, as is our little boy. We've had lots of people ask about names, but have not decided on any for sure yet. Feel free to comment with suggestions.

The living room, Betsy decided to have a little more open area. There is actually enough room that our guest air mattress will fit in the living room between the computer table (behind me as I took this picture) and the rest of the room.

Mom, Mama, and Daddy, this will all make much more sense to you than everyone else, I guess everyone else just needs to come see us so we can give them an official tour!

A closer look at the corner, Betsy's scrapbooking table brought into the main room

If you look at the wall on the right you can also see why we are painting! Lots of marks on the walls.

The baby's room

Changing table/dresser for our child, we picked this up at a garage sale, it has some other items inside as well.

Our new "cot" given to us by one of Betsy's friends at the RDA, it will actually convert to a bed as our boy gets older!

Little Whittaker

Looks like Grandpa!

The newest Whittaker

Well, we waited to post because of our doctor's appointment, wanted to update you all on our baby. The appointment went well, everything looks healthy and seems to be developing properly.

OK, so now is the time for you to make your final decision/guess as to the gender, we do know now and have included it later in the post. In order to find it, you will need to highlight this text and the paragraph below it. (I've changed the color of the text to make it invisible, but if you highlight it you will be able to read it!)

IT'S A boy!

Last week's Spiritual Emphasis went very well. The Genesis Strength Team was well accepted by the students and had a great time ministering to them. It was fun watching them rip phone books, break axe handles, crush cans of soda pop, tear decks of cards, and bend rebar. It was also wonderful hearing their message of salvation and seeing lives turned over to him. There were 10-15 students who made first time decisions for Christ. There were also many who talked to teachers and staff for assurance of Salvation. It was a wonderful time! Thank you for all your prayers.

Betsy is sleeping much better lately, though her back has been bothering her a lot. Continue to pray for good rest and comfort! We continue to look forward to next Wednesday's appointment.

Love you all!!

Betsy had another doctor's appointment on Monday, no new information, but another chance to hear the heartbeat! Still looking forward to two weeks from now and the detailed scan.

Other than that, enjoy the pictures!

Elementary Computers

Here are a few of the kindergarten students working hard. They are so fun to work with!

Spiritual Emphasis Week

This week is our spiritual emphasis week. Our theme verse this year is Isaiah 40:31,

"But those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint."

As our guest speakers we have the Genesis Strength Team ministering to the kids. These guys are incredibly strong and do some amazing feats of strength; as they are doing these feats they talk about God's power in our lives. Please pray that God would work in the lives of our kids!

Genesis Strength Team

Wow, look at that power! Jay is ripping a deck of playing cards in half. The kids are amazed!

Mariachi Band

We also had the opportunity this week to have a visit by a Mariachi band from Mexico. It was neat to see the dances and hear the music. Very colorful. (And very hot! Long sleeves in Singapore don't work very well.)

Another visitor

This week we have another visitor, Rachel is a family friend of Danny's. Haven't seen her in many years. She is traveling through on a tour of Southeast Asia. It has been fun having her here. In showing her around we took her to the Lantern Festival at the Chinese Gardens. The next few pictures are of those lanterns.

It was an incredible transformation from when we went with my parents in July.

Hanging out in front of the volcano

Noah's Ark

The theme this year dealt with animals, so they included this set of lanterns about Noah's Ark.

Remember the pagoda from a few weeks ago?

Swans flying over the water

Lantern Festival, lots of lights!

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!