Thursday, April 28, 2011

APRIL UPDATE

Tobi thought that he’d wash himself first... and then the car!



Well after a two-week semester break, the kids and I are all back into the swing of things once again.  
Tobi is enjoying school.  It is amazing to see how he has matured and developed these past few months.  What an exciting stage of life to be learning how to read and write!
He is very keen to try new things at the moment and is even expanding his dietary habits to include “greens” which, of course, we are very pleased about! 
He is a great helper around the house and both him and Eli were excellent assistants to Dave when he washed the ZOE car on the weekend.
With only 5 or so weeks of the school year left, he is counting down the days until our trip back, asking us lots of questions and reminiscing about some of the people he’s missed and would like to see while he’s back.
Eliana is really enjoying the warm weather at the moment and our little fold- out swimming pool.  She is always asking to go ‘swimming’ in it and loves filling up various sized containers with water and making up little games.
When she’s not happily playing with her Barbies, she loves to draw and make things.  She is doing really well at kindergarten and has become an expert at using her Thai greetings confidently with everyone we come in to contact with.  
She has been such a good encourager to Spencer with his toilet training and never ceases to amaze us with her ability to talk!
Spencer began toilet training at the beginning of the school holidays and after a day or so we were out and about with him- without an accident.  He has really picked it up quickly with the two older there to cheer him on.  It is so precious to see how proud he is to be “a big boy” like Tobi!



Spencer’s loves animals.  We are very blessed to have several places close by with lots of animals to see and at very low cost to get in.  His language has really taken off too and he loves to talk all about the animals that he’s seen, read animal books and carry around his map of the Night Safari!  
I have enjoyed being a part of the “English” camp at ZOE this week.  Jess and I were given the weakest students to work with and it has been so rewarding to see how far they’ve come with their conversation skills.  On Wednesday I shared a ten minute talk with them on the importance of education which I hope they found both encouraging and challenging.  Tomorrow is the final day and we will doing some assessment to see what the individual students in our group have remembered from the previous four sessions.







Dave was asked by Hana Kindergarten to come and share the Easter story with the 1 to 6 year-old children.  I thought he did a splendid job.  It is a hard story to explain to that age of audience, but the little kids responded really well to his talk.  
It’s an all-female teaching staff at Hana so it was novelty to have a man come and speak.  The teachers (who had put together a fantastic Easter program) seemed glad to have a fresh face come and share too.  We also had the opportunity to explain to the kids, in simple terms, what we have come to Thailand to do.  



Well as April draws to a close, I am hoping that you managed to find a quiet moment to enjoy some R & R over the Easter break.
Thank you for your encouraging emails.  We love to hear from you and think of you often.

They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive!
Blessings,
Andie

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