Girls Soccer Team Party

We hosted the QCS girls' soccer team party at our house yesterday. The girls had fun swimming, playing soccer, making up awards for each other (commemorating things like noses that attract soccer balls). Richard was the coach at the beginning of the season, then, Katie Broecker took over when Basketball was done. Joy's too modest to tell people that she was the captain, and that she scored several goals. I don't remember how many, but at least one in each of the last three games. They didn't win much, but they played some exciting games, improved their skills and mostly had fun.

Ricky's Birthday

We are now the proud parents of 3 teenagers! Ricky turned 13 yesterday and it was a great day. At lunchtime, Richard came to school and we surprised Ricky with a cake and a very special present which was able to be delivered right on his birthday because of a really nice friend, Renald (and Richard, who drove Renald to get the gift)...



The most entertaining part about this gift was when we brought it home at the end of the day. When Lexi (our BIG lab-rottweiler puppy) saw the gift she was very curious and when she smelled it's skin and then...heard the loud noise it makes, she was terrified! It seemed really funny to us, but then again, it's bigger than her, it's got the skin of animal she's never encountered before, and it's sound probably sounds a bit like the scariest thing on earth--thunder. (see below)
Ricky really seems to like his Haitian drum. We're pretty sure he still prefers his drum set, but this is more portable. In fact, one of the first things he said was "I'm gonna take this to college!"

Does being a Mears mean I have to play soccer?

QCS was planning a sports day and decided that the girls soccer team should play a women's team made up of staff members. They called it the Women's Allstar Team. People assumed I could play soccer since all the other Mears they know can play it well. At first I laughed, but when I realized that most of the women on the staff also knew little to nothing about the sport, I decided that the only chance we'd have would be to "psych them out" (as we used to say in the old days).

Looks like I'm about to head the ball....nah.

So, yes, I played. And, yes, we psyched them out, but didn't beat them. And I played soccer for the first time in my life. (Even though Richard considers my first soccer game to be one that happened in New York when we were dating and since there weren't many players, he asked me to stand in the goalie cage.) We did give them a run for their money, mostly because of a few girls who knew what they were doing and also because of my husband's great coaching, i.e. teaching us the whole game the day before. :)

It was fun and we had the most team spirit of all the teams at QCS. And, I must admit, I liked playing more than I thought I would. But I still prefer cheering in the stands.

Here is a Mother-Daughter picture from the game.

Please pray for Grace

Please pray for our daughter, Grace. She's at Biola University, she's doing well academically and she likes the school. I thank God for that, but I have some requests too :)

• Please pray for the right summer job for her--either at a camp or some kind of job that doesn't require a car (or for God to provide a car)--and God's wisdom about working in California to possibly establish residency there.
• Pray for a good roommate for her for next year.
• Pray for wisdom about possibly entering the Torrey honors program which would require more time and would probably make it diffiicult for her to have a job during school.
• Pray for all of us--being apart.

I think all of you Moms out there can appreciate these requests especially.

thanks

Carol

We got the pool set up

We've been especially hot since the big generator isn't working at school so we don't have air conditioning. But, we got the pool set up and we've been cooling off in it.

Happy Easter! Joyeux Paques!

Here is a picture of us at Quisqueya Chapel, the English church near us. We love what they do every

Easter. They put up a cross during lent and the people of the congregation write on a piece of paper something they are "sacrificing" or a sin they are asking God to remove. Then they put the paper on the cross (it has chicken wire all over it). The papers are burned on Good Friday. On Easter Sunday, as we walk into church, one of the kids hands us each a flower which we put on the cross to celebrate what Jesus has done.

After church we went to a friends' house for coffee and Easter treats and a nice visit.

We had David and Phyllis Schmid (of CrossWorld) over for a nice Easter dinner. It was great being with them--we really haven't had much of a chance to visit with them since Thanksgiving!.

Here are the beautiful Easter eggs we colored on Thursday. The sad story of these eggs is... I tried to do my usual 3 things at once, so the job dragged on for most of the day.

Then I got involved in the last minute preparations for Passover. AFter the Passover Seder, I collapsed on my bed and fell right to sleep. The next day I forgot to put the eggs in the fridge. So, we started smell something bad. Throughout the day I kept saying things like, "We have to take the trash out, it stinks." Finally at the end of the day, Joy realized it was the boiled eggs. Eeewww what a stink, by then! It's possible that one of them was a bad egg to begin with. We've been buying our eggs from a lady that we pass on the way home, like many other foreigners do, and we always break them into a bowl to check them before we use them and often we find a bad one. Well, I've learned my lessons--just pay the $4 to buy eggs in the supermarket for Easter and don't forget to put them in the fridge!

We had better "blessings" with the chocolate covered eggs --another of our family traditions.

we're too hot, you're too cold

This morning on the internet I saw that it was 34 o F in PA and when I talked to my Mom & sister on Skype I saw they had turtleneck shirts on and were expecting flurries. Well, down here, it's just getting hotter. Through the "winter" we've been pretty comfortable...especially for those of us (me) who don't play soccer. But now it's hot enough that the kids are on a mission to get the blow up pool set up. Unfortunately, Richard says we don't have enough water right now, so I guess I better try to distract them with making chocolate covered Easter eggs.

Passover 2007

Well, we celebrated our traditional "Christ in the Passover Seder" last night. We were glad we hadn't invited too many people over because Richard had a bad cold this week. It's hard for him to slow down when he gets sick (sometimes it seems like everything's hard in this country). I didn't expect it, be he managed to get us a lamb shoulder so we could have a lamb bone for our seder plate. So, yesterday I had off from teaching and Richard got to take a 4 hour nap. And, then, as you can see "Rabbi Richard" was in fine shape for the seder.

Our friends Kerline and Lesly came over for their first Passover celebration. They enjoyed it....Even if it doesn't look that way in the pictures! :)
By the time we realized that Joy wasn't in any of the pictures, our batteries wore out. I have to get copies of Kerline's pictures to show that Joy was there. :)

Some of you have heard me say that it seems like every year when I prepare for Passover, God shows me something new...well, it happened again this year! I was reading an old booklet that we had in our stuff packed away in Haiti called "The Meaning and Importance of the Jewish Holidays" and I found 2 new things. First, I learned that in the time of Jesus, people went to the temple in Jerusalem to get a lamb for Passover and when they did, the priest would indicate an appropriate (without defect) lamb by pointing to the animal and saying "Behold the lamb." Isn't that amazing since, when John the Baptizer pointed to Jesus he said "Behold the lamb...the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?"
The second thing was that the word "Afikomen" is actually a Greek word and that the tradition of hiding the afikomen began after Jesus died for us. Afikomen means "the one who came." That makes a lot of sense for those of us who believe Jesus is the Messiah because the Afikomen is the "middle matzah" that is taken from the matzah plate, which has three matzah, one on top of each other, broken (like the Messiah who was "crushed for our iniquities" Is 53:5) then wrapped in linen and hidden away until the children joyfully find it (reminding us of Jesus dying, being wrapped in linen and being found alive on the third day).
I really didn't expect to learn new things about Passover this year because we've been celebrating it for more than 10 years now...hmmmm....or maybe I'm so old I forget stuff and then learn it again! Well, if that's the case, just think of what a happy old lady I'll be going around saying "Guess what? I learned something new today!"

"Our house....is a very very very fine house...with 2 dogs in the yard"

Here are some pics of our house...in case you're curious.

We praise God for how quiet and peaceful it's been in this neighborhood and for Pastor and Mrs. Hantz Bernard who are renting it to us at an affordable price.









our "puppy" Lexi and good 'ole Shadow...sometimes we call her Nanny Shadow

Here is the view from the "roof" porch. ...Come see us sometime!!

Random pic of Ricky and classmates

I want to share some of our regular everyday life in this blog, so, I'll pick on Ricky first...



Can you pick him out among his classmates?



Yes, it's cool enough in the mornings to want a jacket if you're used to 80 degrees and above everyday.



Even though it looks like this 8th grader is displaying stolen goods to sell to his classmates, and we live in a city with a lot of crime, it's not true, really, it's just ...um...too cold to take your hands out of your pockets....

Christmas in Haiti 2006

It was great having Grace here for Christmas. Here are a couple pictures showing our traditional breakfast of shaped pancakes. This year we had a special pancake-shaper given to us by "Aunt Judith" and a picture of us having Christmas Dinner.