Here are a few pictures of the children during their normal school day. Jacklyn is the young lady patiently introducing how to fold napkins to the little girl. The picture below is our Practical Life shelf/shelves. This is where the children learn how to do basic skills like pouring, spooning, transfering liquids or solids. It is amazing to me that the children can repeatedly use this material (or as we say in Montessori "work") and not get bored. Infact, just as Maria Montessori has shown the children can become quite focused on fine tuning these skills. They learn how to wash their hands, how to cook, clean, take care of their environment inside and outside their school.

What they probably have not been used to is actually having the freedom to choose what they will do during a normal 'work cycle'. They receive some guidance from Jacklyn and I, especially with learning how to use the new material, and we watch and observe to find out what areas they are growing in and where they might need some encouragement to continue to fine tune those skills. Definitely a different way from conventional schooling. We don't have tons of copied work sheets and notebooks etc., that you would find in typical classroom. Which, of course, is cost effective for us and is wasteful to boot. They learn math for example, with sand-paper shaped numbers and letters that are placed on wooden tablets. Then they have a box of wooden alphabet letters that can be moved around to form their first words. The children love the materials. Boys and girls are learning to hammer and use a screwdriver. They are going to begin gardening soon. I have a huge bag of seeds of flowers, herbs and vegetables. I've been collecting ideas to make the garden a fun place to be. And our animals are right outside for them to observe and visit. We moved the parrots to the aviary that is attached to the side of the school. We can hear them talk, scream etc., when we are outside eating our lunch. Will had the guys construct a child-size door where they can enter. We also have a fire-pit on our patio.

Below is one of our little girls unfolding a 'mantelito', a hand-woven mat that the children use to place their work on. Just the rolling and unrolling of these mats creates a more calm child. And it gives them their own space in which to work. I enjoy this philosophy of teaching. It does provide a more independent child and it is less about keeping them all in their seats and  teaching them the same thing.

I thought this just about sums up some of the challenges we face with children......

 

YA ESTA!

We're open!!! Last Sunday we had our opening of the school and threw a fiesta for what felt like half of our pueblo! We had our construction workers and their families, the new little students and their families, just lots and lots of families. This is a photo of the path that leads from the houses to the school. You can't see the details in the cement but Glen, our dear friend brought cement stamps of vines and flowers, hummingbirds and butterflies. These border the whole sidewalk. Our local painters will be painting them so that it really stands out.

Here are Jack and June Bower from Kansas. June has graciously given of her time and talent to train Jacklyn and I with the Montessori method of teaching. She not only has given time to us but other schools in San Lucas (where Will and I volunteer in the parish hospital), but she also travels to little pueblos in surrounding areas. She has energy! The school is named after Harriet Schrontz, a dear woman who passed away recently. She was a patient of Will's and had a heart for children. This school is dedicated to her and she will leave a legacy to children who otherwise would not have the opportunity to have such a good education.

We had a local marimba band play their wonderful music during the fiesta. This a a family that has a restaurant in Panajachel. This really created a nice atmosphere for the fiesta and the people of our town enjoyed eating outside and enjoying the beautiful view of the lake. And the food....we did not kill the 'fatted calf' but the fatted pig. I don't know all the details and don't even want to think about them, but we hired a local woman to come and do her dastardly deed. She brought a big cauldron and butchered it here on the property. We borrowed a smoker from some local gringos in Panajachel and Glen and our friend Bo spent the night smoking pounds and pounds of pig meat. They still can't get the smoke out of their nostrils, I'm sure of it :) Glen didn't go to bed until 3:00 a.m. on Sunday....We love ya, Glen! Bo too! Added to that was rice, salad, tortillas and plastic tubs of fruit, fruit and more fruit. Felipa and Candaleria (Juan's wife and mother) cooked all of it. We could not have pulled this off without community effort. From the funds we received to all the local men who worked day in and day out, it was a labor of love for the children.

Will and I were able to share our hearts with the community, especially those parents who have allowed us to teach their children during the week in the afternoon. Most of the men are out working during the day and mothers are busy at home, so it was an opportunity to speak to the family as a whole. Our friends, Nate and Mayra Bacon came and blessed the opening of the school. It's a wonderful thing that Nate is fluent in Spanish, he could speak from his heart with no stuttering. Unlike myself.....

 

And ofcourse we have a few pics of two of our students!

 

 

 

This is the actual first level of the school where we will be holding classes. We also have a second level and I will try to remember to blog those pics too. The murals upstairs are beautiful!

 

It was an incredible day for Will and I. To see the children running towards me on the sidewalk with their families, this was a gift that was beyond words. Each child is a stewardship from God and I do take it seriously.  And at the same time, I am not forgetting the children that I and Jacklyn teach in the afternoons. It's been hard trying to maintain our afternoon schedule with the training during the day with June. Anyway, the photos are just a small view of what we experienced that day. If you think of us, please pray that Jacklyn and I will be okay once June leaves. We are both somewhat nervous as this method of teaching is new. I've enjoyed being trained and have such a long way to go to understand it all but I believe we're as ready as we are going to be in such a short period of time!

What is it that calls us forward,

To lift our eyes

And see that everything is possible?

Just for a moment to feel a strength beyond ourselves,

A love beyond ourselves,

And imagine we can step into the river

And change its course?

Perhaps it is remembering

That everything we do

Shapes the future

For the children we will never know.

Everything we create

Fashions a world for the people who will

Some day Call us ancestor.

Netzach teaches

Raise up right action

And aim toward love and generosity.

Eternity exists in each moment

There is no separation between us

And what will be.

Rabbi Yael Levy

A Planting of the Lord.....

I love sunflowers, especially the ones I used to buy at a local grocery store in Washington. They had brown centers which were big and then smaller yellow petals. I'm not a rose lover (there may be some of you gasping right now, who doesn't love roses?...) but after having my arms sliced during a thorn to pruning shear battle with a climbing rose, I am done. Anyway, the sunflower is a happy flower, like daisies. It's face strains towards the sunlight. And when their time is over, they bow their heads and look humble as if they have given their best and understand that their time is fading. But the resurrection side is they give TONS of seeds, don't they? And their glory continues...
These happy flowers represent each and every child that we have here. As I have thought and meditated on this little school, the word 'flourish' or 'florecer' in spanish has become my word for the next coming year. My desire is that these children flourish. That this is a happy place for them and they will know that they are loved. Well, as I have pondered and pondered, one day as I was inside the school taking a looksy at what had been accomplished that day by our workers, I came across this:

growing right smack dab in the middle of the computer lab! Not another one in sight. Here is a sign of things to come. I trust that they will flourish inside these walls (and outside too). And so I trust that they will learn to gaze upward to the One who can cause them to grow and have strong roots in Him.

And this will be the end result.....ahhh......

A VERY JOYFUL ADVENT

A Christmas Thought

There is a child in each of us waiting to be born again. It is to those looking for life that the figure of the Christ, a child, beckons. Christmas is not for children. It is for those who refuse to give up and grow old, for those to whom life comes newly and with purpose each and every day, for those who can let yesterday go so that life can be full of new possibility always, for those who are agitated with newness whatever their age. Life is for the living, for those in whom Christmas is a feast without finish, a celebration of the constancy of change, a call to begin once more the journey to human joy and holy meaning.
Let the soldiers stomp through life. Let the cold winds blow. Let the birth points of all our lives be drowned in obscurity. Let the days seem mundane and fruitless. The crib in Bethlehem justifies them all. Jesus has been here before us. Bring on the days of our lives. We have a God who has already walked them and found them holy making.

–from In Search of Belief by Joan Chittister (Liguori)                    

And Here are Those Pictures.....

This is at the top of the stairs. On the left hand side of this pic, on the side where the small picket is, we will have a reading nook with a tree hanging over it, in the corner. Underneath the bench, we've created a 'cage' that will hold all our stuff animals. We will put a sign over it..."The Zoo".

Here is the front door! Beautiful and solid...not going to move during a earthquake, I imagine. I am grateful that our workers didn't fall from the second story, they said the school is pretty solid.

Hard to see, but these are the stairs - made of cedar and each one is very thick.

 

 

We built a wall of benches which hold the hospital mattresses that were donated. We are going to cover them with the colorful Mayan material. Underneath is lots and lots of storage.

 

 

Here is the bottom of the bench that will hold the stuffed animals!

 

 

Here is that tree that will hold wind chimes, bird's nests, and wooden birds! To debark this small tree took an incredible amount of patience. I told Will it would be easier if we just put our parrots on it, they could debark in minutes.

 

And this is the backside of the school. We'll have a small outdoor patio below this ledge but we are
going to have a firepit beyond that. Will is going to have some palms planted in this section of the school and Glen is going to construct an aviary for the parrots.....and speaking of parrots, this has nothing to do with the construction of the school but here is Amorita getting ready to rumba :)

and here on top of a wooden reindeer that I made for a craft fair that the women and I are going to have this Sunday:

Unfolding of a dream.....

     How amazing it is to see something unfold (like the Opal House) so quickly when it is in God's timing! It seems like it wasn't so long ago our workers were digging the dirt to begin the foundation and now, things are moving right along.
     Awhile ago, Will and I went to visit his sister in Laguna Beach, CA. One day we went with her to pick up her two children who attended a Montessori school. The owner actually has more than one school. But this one I would have to say is enchanting (I've never used that word to describe anything). My thought after I left was that if I had been living there I would be a volunteer, no one would have to pay me. It was designed with children in mind. It had a pen for all those farm animals, like chickens and rabbits and ducks etc. It had a 'house' specifically made for their parrot, siding and window boxes and all. There were little nooks here and there and the school rooms were actually octagonal, like little hobbit homes. They have gardens for teaching the children how to grow their own food and cooking also. We collected photos when we began to dream of having our own school. So here I am watching the walls go up and Glen helping us with those whimsical ideas and I am so very grateful. I have to chuckle when I think of our workers probably wondering why on earth we are putting a tree upstairs in the corner of a reading nook. And the poor man that is chiseling the bark off that tree up to the tiny ends of the branches. I have been collecting ideas, and more ideas, every day knowing that some will fall by the wayside but nevertheless yearning to make each part of that school something that the children will enjoy and call their own. The children and I and Jacklyn have been visiting the school and walking around after their afternoon lessons. They are excited and we dream together.
     We've ordered the Montessori materials which took 4 hours one night (the hamsters must have been on break the computer was running on one wheel). Glen and his helper, Francisco have been cranking out the bookcases to hold the materials, wash tables, coat racks.....Glen just left today and was busy right up to the last 20 minutes. He has always been so enthusiastic and I feed on that enthusiasm. Will too, ofcourse. Will is everywhere these days, running to this hardware store and that hardware store. It's not like we have Home Depot. We were pretty excited to visit a store in the capital that had so much hardware stuff. As a woman who doesn't spend that much time in hardware stores, I look at it with different eyes now :) 
     We have a dear friend, June who is going to be training us in January. God has sent her, no doubt. I would have more anxiety if not for her. She quiets that anxiety over the unknown. The other thing that overwhelms the anxiety is looking at our future students. Little ones who I would like to adopt in a heartbeat. One little boy, especially. His name is Emerson. It takes much self-control not to laugh when I watch him watching us during our lessons in the chapel. The only way to describe it is quiet wonder. His eyes move from Jacklyn, to me and then to Will. He is studying us. I just want to grab him right up, then and there and hug the wonder right out of him. I remember the words of Bill Cosby who once said that he could rule the world if he had about 200 toddlers. Quite true......They are a species of people all to themselves.
 P.S. WILL ATTACH PICS SOON :).......