Peningki Hill School - Middle/High School

The number each student is holding corresponds to his/her grade level.

 

This is my current class.  From left to right: Hattie Underhill, Taylor Moore, Caleb Moore, and Isaac Underhill.  At the end of September I will have one more boy - Britton Forney. 

What a great bunch of kids.  Although teaching is always a lot of work, these kids make it enjoyable.  They are all polite and eager to do well. 

Hattie and Isaac's father is a pilot/mechanic.  Caleb and Taylor's dad is one of the teachers this year. Their moms are busy taking care of family business.



You know you are going to have a good year when you tell your class, "Let's take a crazy picture now," and this is what you get. :o)

Now please indulge my musings. If any of you have spent much time talking to me, you know that I don't feel like a true missionary here. I can't speak the language (although I'm trying to learn) and therefore don't have opportunities to engage the people here. But on the other hand, I came to help the missionaries that are here doing just that.

I repeatedly hear from missionaries and organizations that support missionaries that one of the major causes of attrition is concern for their children's education.  Missionaries leave the mission field because they don't have quality schooling options for their children.  And that is where I step in.  I hope that my coming here to teach MK's will alleviate some of the stress parents feel about their child's education.

So I will look for opportunities to interact with nationals but I will be content knowing that I am doing what God has called and equipped me to do - teach MK's. 

My Scooter

Last time I was here I had a red one.  This time I opted for a blue one.  I'm talking about my new  Suzuki Nex.  :o) 

It is nice to have a bit of independence while here.  Without the scooter I am dependent on the MAF ladies for rides to the stores.   Not that any of them resent helping me out.  On the contrary, they always are very gracious and willing to give me a lift.  But it is nice not to have to always be asking for help.  I hope that isn't pride but thoughtfulness.  :o)

My scooter arrived Friday.  On Saturday morning, one of the other teachers, who is a pro on her scooter, offered to ride along on hers while I followed closely behind.  I did fine - came home all in one piece without a scratch.  And I don't mean on me; I mean on my scooter. 

 Driving a scooter is a bit stressful for me. (Understatement)  One of the hardest parts is getting out my driveway, around the bend and up the incline to the gate.  When I was here before, I got to the point where this wasn't difficult for me.  But yesterday, it left me shaking at the top of the hill.  I'm sure I will get back to the same comfort level as before.  I just need some time.  :o) 


The driveway
 

The curve and incline



A look back down the driveway.  This is my house (above) and school (below).

Check back next Sunday for more news.  Have a great week.

 

 



School Starts Tomorrow

Since you can read (thanks to a teacher), you can see that tomorrow is our first day of school at Peningki Hill School.  Peningki is the name of the neighborhood so there really isn't a translation for that word.   I think I'm ready for school to start.  No teacher is ever completely ready.  There is always one more idea that would be good to use.   But in less than 24 hours, students will be arriving expecting me to know what is going on.  And by 8:30 tomorrow morning, I will. 
 

Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth grades; taught by Aunt Lynne

Third, fourth and fifth grade classroom; taught by Uncle Chad

First and Second grade classroom; taught by Aunt Mary


 

This is the view from my classroom window out onto the local cemetery. 

You will notice that the teachers go by Aunt and Uncle.  This is a tradition amongst missionaries from time immemorial.  As a child in Brazil, I called the adult missionaries Aunt and Uncle.  I have no idea where the tradition got started but it seems to span all continents.  I like the tradition.  Because essentially, the families that are serving here with you become your family.  So for this year, I will be Aunt Lynne and I will relish the title.  :o)

My classroom

Here are a couple of pictures of my classroom.  Disclaimer:  it is still a work in progress. 

 I live in what is called the "schoolhouse."  The walk-out basement is the actual school and the upstairs is the house where I live.  The school has three rooms:  two classrooms and a library.  This year we are very fortunate to have three teachers.  Therefore another classroom was needed.  Since I only need one bedroom, the third classroom (mine) will be in one of the spare bedrooms of the house. 

Now for something totally unrelated; a picture of what we use here to remove fingernail polish; varnish remover. :o)  The yellow sticker is the price:  5,500 Rupiah which roughly equals 55cents. 



Next week I'll post before and after pictures of making my house into a home. 



At Home in Tarakan

I've been in Tarakan for eleven days now.  The trip from my door in Oklahoma to my door in Tarakan took 52 hours.  That's counting airline check-ins, airport layovers etc.  I was allowed to bring three suitcases with me as far as Jakarta.  After that, I could only check one; the other two had to be shipped separately.  They arrived in a timely fashion so I quickly had access to all my stuff.  I thought it was interesting how the two suitcases came wrapped.  Kind of kept them protected from harsh treatment, I guess. 

A few days after arriving one of the ladies gave me this delicious pineapple.  Although green, the bananas were ripe and very sweet. 

A cheechuck (gecko) story before I close.  As you may remember from my posts two years ago, I have a lot of geckos in my house.  I allow them because I am told they eat bugs.  I would rather have geckos than cockroaches.  But I don't want them in my bedroom.  Any room except that one.  I've heard stories from the other missionaries of cheechucks dropping on them while they slept.  Shiver!!
Anyway, I took my laundry off the drying rack (see the picture below this story of my clothes drying room), and into my bedroom.  I picked up a hand towel to fold and a cheechuck was clinging to it.  Believe me that towel flew out of my hand.  But I didn't want the gecko in my bedroom so I kicked the towel out the door into the hallway.  Thankfully, the cheechuck ran away, but left a bit of his tail behind which was still wiggling.  I should have taken a picture of the wiggling tail but I was a little disconcerted and not thinking rationally.  Picking up the still-wiggling tail with a wad of Kleenex, I disposed of it in the trash can.  Adventures.  They make good stories.  "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." 

Learning about Blogs with Emily.

What do you think of my new look?  After two years of being away from my blog, I have come back to it.  I wanted an updated look, so when my daughter's friend, Emily Seaman, came to visit I corralled her into helping me.  I'm learning a lot from her.  I just hope that when she leaves tomorrow I'll remember everything. 

I will start blogging again in earnest once I get to Indonesia.  The plan is for me to leave at the beginning of August.   Check back again in  about a month.



Stories from MAF pilots

I am including a few stories from the Flight Journal which is a compilation of anecdotes from the MAF pilots here in Kalimantan. What you will read, is what these guys do on a daily basis. (Sorry about the paragraph formatting - with my limited computer skills that was a challenge I couldn't resolve.)

Flew a full load of PVC pipe into LAY for a community water project that they are starting. This was one of a number of pipe loads that we’ve carried into the village.

Today, Jason and I, Steve, performed two medical flights. We picked up a sick child in the village of Tiang Ohang. Then we went to another village that neither Jason nor I had been to before called Jangkang. In this village was a young father that had fallen off a motorcycle. There are not really any roads there so to speak, so I’m not sure how it happened, but he seemed to have a head injury and had a lot of pain from his chest. I’m assuming it was an internal injury. His wife, young child, and father rode along. I was able to pray with the family before we took off.

By the way, while we were in Jangkang we overheard an interesting conversation by
some of the kids. They were trying to figure out if the airplane was actually real or not. I’m not sure what they thought, maybe since there is such a belief in ghosts and spirits they thought the airplane might not be really physically there. At any rate, they had to touch the airplane to be really sure. After that conversation they began discussing how pointy my nose is.

Today I, Steve, was able to carry the Indonesian pastor of a GKII/ CMA church plant
here in PalangkaRaya to a village about 120 miles away for a Christmas celebration.
The village also has a small GKII church, but this pastor told me this morning how the people of this village are still deep into their ancient animistic beliefs and want little to do with Christianity. This pastor also told me that alcohol is pretty rampant in this tiny little village. I was also able to carry in about 10 live full size chickens into this village to help them celebrate Christmas.

Today, I also moved all of a family’s possessions from one village to another. They
will be moving to this other village, but there was not room in the airplane for both their possessions and their family, so the family plans to go on a later date. The interesting thing is that all these peoples belongings only took up about a third of thecapacity of the airplane. I tend to bring more than that back from the capital city whenever I go.