P is for Pool

 

 

As you may have guessed we are a competitive swimming family.

We first started swim lessons with Jelly Beans on her 6th birthday. She would scream in the shower whenever I washed her hair. She hated getting her face wet!

But living on a Pacific Island where water was everywhere we believed ALL children should learn to swim as soon as possible, for their own safety. So off to swimming she went. Within one and a half years she was on a swim team competing and winning ribbons. She was a fish!!!

Wiggles and Kiwi Boy promptly followed and took to the water just as quick. Wiggles was swimming 25m lengths at four and Kiwi Boy did his first 25m length when he was only three years old.

When our younger kids came home from their orphanage last year Warrior showed some interest in swimming. So after visiting friend's pools, swimming at the lake, and a few lessons from Jelly Beans he had the skills to join Kiwi Boy at the competitive pool.

The three youngest however were too busy squealing and holding their noses that they were barely getting wet.

So this summer we invested in a pool. A simple above ground, take it down for the winter, not much bigger than a wading pool, freezing cold, wet, splash zone, pool.

And now we have three more swimmers!

After a few lessons from Coach Jelly Beans one may even graduate to competitive swimming this winter!

In just a couple of weeks she went from standing in the corner, arms folded, with her back to the others, shouting "STOP! STOP!" at the top of her lungs to swimming with breathing.

I am so proud of her and the others for overcoming their fears and learning to enjoy the water!

Time for another swim...

Mumzy

Summer Is Over

Jelly Beans started back at University this week!  Boo Hoo!!!

Wiggles and I sorted out who is reading what books for school and put them on the respective shelves.

Kiwi Boy was out having his last ride on the lawn tractor before Papa Bear takes over that job for the fall.

The younger kids were running round collecting windfall apples in the cooler breeze.

Soon we will be saying good-bye to the little humming birds and instead will be watching the flocks of Canada Geese fly by.

I like summer...  but fall is one of my favourite seasons of the year!

Mumzy

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go....





Because we were staying at a school that meant that we had
children everywhere at all times.
You couldn't sneeze without an audience.

 

After arriving in Honduras we meet up with our ministry partners for the summer, Mercy International.

 



Our team arrived at the building site to find that we had just over a week
 to complete a building with only a concrete foundation to work with.

 

They informed us that they had set up a construction project for our team.

 



The building was made from large adobe bricks made from mud
that we would have to bring down a hill to the work site.

 

Which shocked us because we were under the impression that we would be traveling with them to different villages to do presentations and door to door evangelism.

 

 

The bricks were joined together with mortar that we mixed by hand.

 

We did get to do this later but only after we had spent 10 beautiful days at a school in the clouds to build them a building which would be used as a feeding centre (much like a breakfast club here in Canada).

 

To make mortar it is required that you have fine sand without rocks.
 Which for us meant sifting the sand and then hauling it
with broken wheelbarrows held together with wire.

 

Because we were staying at a school we had the opportunity to spread the gospel with our daily presentation practices.

 

Many of us learnt new skills such as steel tying.



Where we would learn Spanish worship songs and new dramas telling of God's love with the children and the village people that were observing our every move.

 

Laying the foundation of the church meant
hauling and laying large rocks.

 

After the completion of the feeding centre we had the blessing of being able to lay 2/3rds of the village's Church foundation.

 

Just because the work was hard doesn't mean
that you can't have a good time making friends for life.

 

This was a blessing to us because the village had refused for the church to be built until they had a feeding centre.

 

One of my favourite jobs on the work site was swinging the pick axe.

 

So through our summer work project we could open the doors to the gospel in the mountain top village!





My team in front of the almost finished feeding centre.

Thanks and GOD Bless!!
~Wiggles

 

 

Click here to go to the first part of my summer story

 

 

 

Boot Camp training



boot camp

My summer started off with training in the swamps of Merritt Island, Florida, where I meet the 28 people that I would spend the rest of my summer with. (24 team members, 3 leaders, and 1 leader's kid)





The Big Top where many classes were taught and evening rallies held

While at boot Camp we learnt how to work as a team, listen to instructions, do dramas, and put on puppet shows. As well as living in tents, and washing ourselves and our clothes in buckets. We also had in-depth one on one evangelism training.  All of these things prepared us for our summer in Honduras, just not quite how we had imagined...




our tent site 'the Mosquito Museum'

The team work was invaluable as our arrival to Honduras not only gained us a new leader but also an unforeseen work project. Our extensive drama training wasn't used how we thought it would be as we almost never used the dramas we learnt. It gave us the skills though to learn whole dramas in short periods of time. Which proved valuable as we learnt many new dramas in Spanish from the Honduran TMI staff member whom we adopted as a leader.

Our team eating site where we would learn memory verses and songs,
dry out our feet, oh and eat.

Our puppetry skills never did get put to use in Honduras, but the choreographed numbers we learnt to accompany the puppets were useful when we learnt choreographed Spanish worship songs. We never did sleep in tents as we thought we would but we did have cramped living space as we often would all sleep (30 people and all of our supplies) in a one roomed church on concrete floors.  

That water might not look clean but it was all that we had
to clean our selves and our clothes

Our plumbing situation was really the only thing that turned out how we thought it would. Which meant buckets all round, for flushing, bathing, and laundry.





Our first view of Honduras

Our advanced Evangilisim classes came in handy when coming across people in airports and through travel. Knowing how to tell them about the love of God in easy to understand ways.





We traveled across many provinces in Honduras by bus.

Thanks and GOD Bless!!!
~Wiggles

Hearts

 

 

I was spending some quiet 'in time' with Treasure where we were looking at leaves. She had found one that was shaped like a heart.

"Do you love me, Mummy?" she asked. 

"I will always love you." I replied. 

"I will always be with you! Forever!" Treasure sang out.

I took the heart shaped leaf from her and ripped a little hole in it. I told her she had a hole in her heart. Sometimes her hole would feel very little and some times very big.

Then I placed the circle I had ripped out of her heart and placed it in her other hand.

I asked her "Do you know who has this part?"

"No." Treasure replied looking up at me. 

"Your first Mama." I answered. "She will always have a part of your heart wherever she is."

Treasure thought this was so cool and ran off to tell the others with a big smile on her face.

And I had another glimpse of God's healing power!

Mumzy

Borrowed Space

I am an introvert and I have seven, count them, 7 children. That makes nine of us.

Did I mention I am an introvert? That means I need SPACE.

We are completely blessed to have friends that have a farm close by that are happy for us to go for a wander in the open air whenever I need it.

Yes, whenever I need it...

So that is exactly what we did!

We followed their farm track to the end and entered into the woods. We saw a snake and a frog along the way. 

Thankfully there were no bears down in the woods that day. Although we made so much noise they would have run a mile anyway!

The kids explored the almost dry streambed (we need some rain in these here parts). They watched the water bugs dart about and spotted some fish in the deeper pools at the bottom of the waterfall.

Then we turned around and made the trek back up the hill.

It was two and a half hours of pure bliss!!!

Mumzy