Fiesta de la Dia de Independencia

Things have been going wonderfully for us here in Merida, and are definatly improving in the school department. Tim continues to be doing good, and is not having any behavior issues - he loves teaching and is getting raving reviews from the school director, the church pastor, the parent's of his students, and most importantly from the students themselves!! People are always coming up to me telling me what good things they've heard about my hubby - that makes me happy! Things are going a lot better in my class too. Here they are:
After 6 parent-teacher meetings, lots of notes home, and trying hard to be more firm, things are going better. And, there is a girl who was the 3rd grade English teacher at the school last year but this year couldn't because she is in college - anyways, she, Stephanie, is volunteering at the school 3 days a week in the afternoon. I expressed my need for help and my behavior problems to her and she volunteered to help. So she has observed me 3 days and then we had a long meeting discussing what I'm doing right and what I could do better. Basically she said the biggest thing is that I need to be more firm. So I've been trying really hard to put into practice all of her suggestions and it seems to really be helping so far! Also, tomorrow she is going to teach my afternoon class so that I can observe and get some subtle tips from watching her! So I've very excited about that and am already feeling like "okay, I can do this, things are going to get better!"

Enough about school. Today is Mexican Independence day... which you think would mark the day of their official indepedence, but really, it marks the day 10 days and 11 years before the actual independce. In actuality it marks the day which the call for an independence movement was started. Regardless, this is when we celebrate the wonderful "Republic of the United Mexican States" which by the way is Mexico's offical name. So the church had a party for the whole church and school last night. IT WAS A BLAST!!! There were around 450 people there and was a wonderful time of fun and fellowship!

Below is Tim with our buddy Ceasar - he is our age and speaks only 5 words of English - but he loves Tim so much and they have a cool bond - built mainly off of high-fives and hugs!:

We got to see a lot of our church friends and talk with them. As well as students and their parents which was great.

This picture is of Kari and her student Zuri. I included this because I think it is so funny that as soon as I bent down in the picture to be closer to Zuri, she too bent down! lol kids are great!The picture below is Kari with 5 of her students, Tim, and Jeff (another American teacher) with 2 of his students:By the way, Tim and Jeff are becoming such great friends! The support eachother and pray together, laugh together, call eachother "dude" all the time and generally love the other's company. They are planning to get together for a giant pizza and a football game as an escape from reality and to have a US day!

At the party there was a competition who could sing the revolutionary song the best in the mic. Tim and Jeff were elected to be in the competetion and sing it as a duet. Though they didn't know the words or the tune, amazingly THEY WON!! Here is their vicotry shot:To celebrate their little-deserved, but very-appreciated victory, Jeff, Tim and I went to jump on the bouncies that they church had rented with our students! At one point there were probably 25 kids and the three of us bouncing away! It was really great to be able to just have fun and spend some quality time outside the classroom with our students. Speaking of which, our friend and fellow teacher Ericka is taking us to Chichen Itza (one of the 7 wonders of the world) next Saturday with her two daughters (Renata is in my class, and Alejandra is in Jeff's class)! We are very excited to go - but even more exciting is that GWEN will be with us!!! Gwen is one of Tim's best friends from college who is coming to visit us next Wednesday and will stay till Sunday! Tim and I are both very very excited to have her here and have our first visitor!

Thank you all for the love, prayers and support! Please pray that we can really reach our students and share Christ's love with them. And please pray for safe travels for Gwen when she flies down here!