Last Saturday I spend the day at a meeting for ladies’ church leaders within the Jarai and Tampuan churches in Ratanakiri. They meet twice a year for encouragement, and this time I was asked to be the speaker (I did this once before a few years ago). I spoke from Ephesians 5:1-21 on Walking Like God. Since there were different language groups present, I spoke in the common language – Khmer. I had so much fun teaching and working with these precious ladies. It was a gift to be with them. After lunch, each church gave a report on their ministries and asked for prayer for areas where they felt weak.
Josh stayed home with the kids. After his morning, he texted and said he didn’t know how I get any homeschooling at all. The kids did well and everyone was happy!
Four days each week we have different language learning taking place in our home. Becca studies Jarai with some young ladies form our church one afternoon each week. She does a great job learning and speaking during her hour lesson. I plan and supervise the lessons, since there is no Jarai language learning resources, and I’m teaching the girls how to teach.
Anna and Clara study Khmer two mornings a week with Davi. Davi is doing a great job growing in her language teaching skills. At first I had to be heavily involved, now I just plan the lessons and provide the ideas for teaching. Both girls are growing in the Khmer speaking skills with adults.
I also study Jarai one afternoon a week with a friend from church. I’m finally to the point where I can prepare and teach Sunday School lessons to the Jarai ladies in Jarai, instead of Khmer. It’s much easier to teach in Jarai than have a conversation in Jarai, since the range of vocabulary is huge among speakers, so I still prefer to do my more complicated conversations in Khmer.
In case you’re feeling sorry for the boys…Ezra and Micah wander in and out of the girls’ Khmer lesson and participate when they feel like it, and they also spend time cooking with our helper. Isaiah is not interested in extra language study at this time, and we’re fine with that right now.
I took this picture right after breakfast this morning. Our kids usually get up starting at 5:30, and we have breakfast around 7. I usually start school with the younger girls before 8am, since everyone is up and ready.
Breakfast consists of oatmeal and eggs. While eating, we read our daily Bible chapter – right now we’re reading through the Bible chronologically – and pray together. We always try to pray something from the Scripture we’ve read, and each child gets to start the prayer circle on a different weekday.
We typically finish all our school before lunch – that’s what happens when you start before 8am! 🙂
Last year when studying French Sun King in history, we had a masquerade ball. This year we happened to make paper-mache masks for a history project and decided to have another masquerade ball along with a poetry performance night and dessert buffet.
The kids all memorized poems, and even Micah wanted to get up and recite. Micah recited by standing on stage and breathing in and out very loudly a few times. It was very entertaining. Both Isaiah and Anna had started feeling badly in the afternoon, but they put their best performance forward, and we were impressed with how well they did, even when feeling poorly.
After the poems we had some dancing, which was hard to do with masks on! Then we enjoyed our dessert buffet with all our can et doughnuts, chocolate chip cookies, and popcorn balls.
I am going to take a moment to add a bit of “reality” into this post, lest some go away thinking how amazing we are and how easy everything is. These fun events we have are a lot of work. I often am frustrated with the complaining and lack of effort and everything that falls on my shoulders. Sometimes I wonder, “Is all this work even worth it?” When the event comes, our kids enjoy it, but I’m often frazzled by all the preparations. But it is worth it to me because we’re making memories and learning that things take effort and careful planning if we want to do well. Sure – it would be much easier and more restful for me to skip these kind of things, but I hope that someday our kids will look back on these nights with fond memories and joy.
