School Dazed

Noah poses for his first official day of school.

Thanks for your prayers this week - it has been one where challenges both new and old have kept us on our toes. Noah began kindergarten on Monday, requiring Elizabeth to carve out an extra hour and a half of focused time each morning. Nate's duties in the finance office became a little more pressing as he is trying to prepare to take over a majority of the responsibility there in June (and will then immediately train and transfer them to another guy in time for our July move to the school base). Another project that we have been working on is preparing the classes that we will be teaching next year at the high school. We also have much to do in as we plan a potential strategy for partnering with the Mibu church. Those thing on top of the normal day to day grind made the week seem to pass incredibly quickly.

Here are some potentially interesting things that the boys did and said this week:

"I want to be a scientist." -Noah, after watching a movie about how things work (after it was explained to him that scientists do research and engineers put things together he decided that engineering is for him.)

Elias spent his first day in town grocery shopping with dad. For a two year old, he did pretty good for six hours of tromping around in the heat. (It helps that his current favorite food is the Cheeto substitute: Cheese Twisties - and dad happened to have two bags along) He is very good at saying 'Hi' loudly everywhere, I think at least half of the ladies in the produce market were completely charmed by his winning ways.

Tim, Noah and Elias and the Lockwood boys all participated in a play of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego put on for an audience of the two dads. (It was awesome! - so what if I am a little biased...)

For those who would like some bullet points to pray for:

• Elizabeth, as she manages two antsy kids and tries to teach school as well
• Nate as he balances preparing for teaching (he has never taught two of the courses before), work here, and planning for work in the tribe
• Tender hearts for our kids - to hear the truth and to be settled in the many transitions that they will be going through in the next couple of months.
• Elias - he is growing a bunch and is responding well in many ways to our training him, but he still struggles (as the littlest and slowest) with frustration and anger.
  

Again, thanks for praying for us.
Nate for the family

PS: Just to clarify, as we have mentioned before, we will be taking a year to teach at the school for missionary kids here beginning in July. We will be moving to NTM's highlands support center at that time. It is about 6 hours away by car on a rough and dangerous road.