Through Rain, Sleet, Hail, Snow, and Even through the mosquito invested jungle, THE MAIL WILL GO THROUGH

Well, maybe we aren't quite living in a mosquito invested jungle but for our students they are feeling a little cut off from the outside world as they spend this month in the bush. And even though we are not out of North America, it sure has been special for our students to receive mail and care packages from their family and friends. It is always a fun part of the day to be able to go around and pass out the day's mail. We have had some pretty happy jungle campers as they hear from the outside world and receive some goodies.

"Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path."

The past four days our jungle camp students have been involved with what we call "Independent Studies". It is four days when our students spend some in depth time in the Word. It gives the students an opportunity to experience what its like to study for six hours a day in a totally different living environment. (We ask that all men and single ladies put in six hours every day and the married ladies are encouraged to put in as much time as they can. ) It requires planning ahead to gather and cut your fire wood as well as possibly getting up earlier and staying up later if need be. The class is encouraged to work together as a team. It was neat to see people helping out the families with children whether it was to take their children for several hours, preparing a meal for them, or dropping off baked goodies. Each day each lady is supposed to get together with another lady, and each man is supposed to get together with another man to share what the Lord has been teaching them through his Word. Although it was hard for some to sit so long studying, it was an overall encouraging and refreshing time.

Who Needs Tim Horton's?

A few days ago it was time for my yearly donut making in jungle camp. It was a cool day so Vern got our stove a blazing so it would be warm enough for the donuts to raise. It was a team effort in frying, glazing and then delivering them to our jungle campers. It was a greasy and sticky job but it was a successful venture. There is nothing like a nice fresh donut!

Prayer Hotline

As you know from a post a couple of weeks ago Ruth came down with strep throat. She finished up her medicine for that on Saturday and by Monday was feeling the same as before with a terribly sore throat. I took her to the doctor and sure enough the strep throat was back. She is now on a stronger medicine that will hopefully help fight the strep throat. However, she has also come down with a bad head and chest cold. She is feeling like she has no energy and has it takes all her strength to make it into work and then she is exhausted when she comes home. Please be praying for her. THANKS!

Northern Exposure

We have had some very warm days and nights up in the bush. Titus and Mariah thought it would be fun to sleep outside in their hammocks last night. I knew it wasn't going to be too cold for them but I was a little bit worried about all the mosquitoes eating them alive. It seems with the warm weather the mosquitoes are out in full force. Titus and Mariah made it out there all night and it almost seems like I got more bites over the night sleeping in our plastic house then what they got being outside.

Open House

This past Monday was an "Open House" up in jungle camp. All the staff working down here at the headquarters was invited up to look around at all the students' homes. We all invited a staff members and their families to our homes for a meal. Our students put a lot of time into building their homes and cleaning up around their houses. Here are some pictures of a few of our students, I will post others later. I am also posting a couple of pictures of door that I thought was cool. We are having an open house for anyone who wants to come on July 7th and 8th. SEE YOU THERE!

The Call of the Wild

We have had some really fun times together with the students. A few nights ago a group of us ladies got together to play a game. We needed up playing "animal concentration". It is much like the normal "concentration" game but with everyone being an animal instead of a number. You don't call out the names of animals though, you have to do the action of your animal as well as another animal. I thought I would never get the hang of the game and remember what animal everyone was and what that animal's action was, but I did catch on. It was a lot of fun and there was much laughter around the table. What fun making that memory together!

This is the Way We Clean the Camp

There were a few projects that we needed to do so a work day was called for Saturday. There were two major projects that needed to be done. the first project was to tear down an old jungle camp house.
For the past several years this student house was left up so that the students could see a "model" home. But the weather over the winter months, over the last years has made the house such that it needed to come down. So there was a crew working on that while the rest of us worked in cleaning up the camp.



There were leaves every where and at times it was hard to see where the paths were. So there was a good group of us working on raking leaves and laying rocks to line the paths. Everyone worked very hard and the camp looks GREAT!

End of the Year Recital

Ruth and I rushed down after the pot luck to make it to the end of the year recital that her music teacher was having. I think we arrived smelling a little smokey. (smile) Ruth played one song with a piano accompaniment. They had never practiced together and it was the piano students first time accompanying someone. It went very well. Then Ruth played with the same group of gals and the same song, that they played at the musical festival. It is a very lively song and all four gals are very talented.

Finger Lick'n Good

What did we do with all those chickens? Well, we had a pot luck in the evening. Each family prepared their chicken what ever way they wanted to, although many did baroque theirs. After a week of canned meat the fresh meat sure was good! We finished off most of the food that was there. Are we hungry jungle campers or what?

On the Chopping BLock

Yesterday we had another class up in the bush. This was a class on butchering chickens. When we were in the tribe we had our own chicken for laying eggs. It is important to know how to butcher and clean a chicken. You want to prevent the possibility of contaminating the meat. This year one of our students, Alan, who worked on a chicken farm and has a lot of experience working with chickens, taught the class. Alan, did a good job in showing us all the proper steps there are in the process of butchering a chicken. As you can see this was a hands on class so everyone was able to get involved. For the second year in a row Ruth has taken care of our chicken for us. Way to go Ruth!