Homeschooling

The nice thing about homeschooling is that it has allowed us to move around without having too much interruuption in the kids' schooling.  Here at the base we usually have a few hours of work duty every afternoon and my duty is teaching my children.  I consider that great, since the rest of the people on the base have to do fun jobs like clean bathrooms, wash dishes or pick up garbage.  We aren't always able to get all of our work done in the time available, so we had slowly gotten about a week behind.  These past two weeks while we had our mini outreach, it gave us a bit more free time, which we took full advantage of to get caught up in our schoolwork.  I am so happy to report that after 2 months here, we are right on schedule.   I praise the Lord for that, because I wasn't sure if we would have any time to do school.  Another blessing is that a neighbor family (also attending one of the schools on the YWAM base) is also homeschooling their two kids who are the same ages as Alexis and Diego.  They are a Chilean family, and it is extremely rare to homeschool here.  So it was a neat surprise to meet them and have our kids be able to play together after "school" while the other kids are still in school for real. 



Here are the kids enjoying school together on a sunny afternoon




Isn't school fun!



Mini Outreach

I can't believe that it has been three weeks since my last post.  The time is flying by.  These past two weeks have been our mini outreach time.  Most of the students were divided into 3 groups that traveled to towns in southern Chile to do evangelism work.  All of the students with children made up the fourth group,and we were assigned to stay here in Pichilemu to do our outreach work.  We ended up working with a local church doing various activities.  Alexis and I helped with a mothers day event for the church.  They hold  a weekly kids club in a poor section of town called Widow's City.  Just the name of it sounded discouraging.  But we had a fun time with the kids and moms doing a few skits, sharing the love of Jesus, and providing refreshements.  



Enjoying the snacks




Alexis and I both participated in the skit,
and Alexis was a natural. 


One of the other activities that I was involved in was helping to host an hour long radio show in the afternoon.  I have never been on the radio, and don't consider myself a natural "talker" (unlike other talkative members in my family).  So this was a stretching experience.  At first I dreaded it, but by the end I must admit I actually began to enjoy it.  We picked different topics each day and shared and taught from the Bible about things such as friendship with God, the paternity of God, and the tongue. 


Here I am with the two ladies I worked with.
They were great and it was such a joy to get to know
them better by working together.




This is the small radio room and the pastor's wife on the
right is the one that worked the controls for us.


While I was working at the radio or the kids club, Junior stayed home to take care of the kids.  Then he would have his turn in the mornings to go work in construction while I stayed home and did school with the kids.  The church we were working with is pretty small, and for now they are meeting in the pastor's house.  They are constructing a church, so for these two weeks Junior and the other guys worked on getting the trusses made and put up.  He really enjoyed being back in construction work and spending time with the men from the church. 


Junior working hard



The church at the end of the two weeks



A few of the guys

So it has been a busy two weeks, but was a nice change of pace from our regular schedule of classes and activities.  Tomorrow we go back to class for the last 4 weeks.  We are still praying about whether we should do the 11 week outreach, and if so where.  So thanks for praying with us about that.