Our basic daily life is pretty boring really, unless you count the traffic jams, psycho motorcycle drivers, people riding hanging off busses, firecrackers at 5 am....I guess for us it is boring - the rest of y'all should come visit to remind us that our normal has changed.
Seriously though, our day to day life is not filled with directly helping orphans, feeding hundreds, or healing the sick. We wake up, go to school, have rehearsals and piano lessons, come home, eat and go to bed. (Most of the time we remember to eat before collapsing into bed. If we didn't have three hungry kids we would probably forget. Although, if we didn't have three hungry kids we probably wouldn't be so tired at the end of the day either.)
So, we'll highlight the big events.
September was pretty uneventful - we had one day off of school during which we sat around the house. Wait - there was one event. Guatemalan Independence Day was celebrated in style at school with Sara doing a traditional dance with her class, and Abigail doing a dramatic recitation of a Spanish poem. (Hard to imagine her being dramatic I know.) Every day Joy, and some days the girls, had rehearsal until 6 or 6:30. The dog did get groomed once during the month, for those of you who care about her needs.
This is a picture of Sara and her best friend ("though sometimes she is mean to me") in their "traje tipicos" worn by the Mayan here still.
Sara enjoying the music during the dance
Sara and her classmates lining up for the dance
Abigail dressed up as our national bird, the quetzal, about whom the poem was
October brought our annual Harvest Fair. The theme was Mario (from Nintendo) and the girls went dressed as Koopa Troopa (a turtle), a knight, and a butterfly. Not so close to the theme on a couple of those - but who has that kind of time or money, besides they chose and made their own costumes with help from Maribel. Kenneth had the job of watching the girls as Joy is a class advisor and was helping work the sophomore class booth. She was also a good sport (if she does say so herself) by participating in the pie in the face booth. She made quite a bit of money for the juniors that night. Not that she isn't well liked, she just teaches the whole school. Really, we have lots of great testimonials about how well liked we are - we just don't share them - that would be kind of arrogant we think. If you want to hear some though, let us know - we'll share :-).
One of the elementary kids letting her have it
At the end, pretty sure she had whipped cream in her ear for days
Emma the knight
Abigail the turtle Sara the butterfly
October was also the High School Retreat, which Joy had to chaperone. It was great fun, but she realized she's not as young as she was when we did youth group staff and Snow Camp. Joy also spent most of October, and all of November, and well December battling some sort of laryngitis. Since she really couldn't rest her voice she still hasn't fully recovered. Some days he can sing, others not so much. If it lasts much longer a doctor's visit will need to happen. (Great, she loves doctors and communicating medical things in Spanish.)
November was the farthest thing from boring. Rehearsals for the musical started going until 8 some days. (That made for 13 - 14 hour days for the Eisners as we didn't get to go home between school and rehearsal like most others did.) We also had lots of Saturday rehearsals. It was SO worth it in the end though. The musical productions are the one thing that our whole family does together, and it is a huge ministry to these students and joy for us to serve together. On the 20 - 22 we presented Seussical the musical and it was a rousing success. Even Joy thinks so, and she is pretty critical of her work. We have only a few pictures, since well...we were kind of busy the whole time. These are stolen from facebook. (By the way - if you want to see pictures of the stuff we are involed in, and you are on facebook, like and follow the Christian Academy of Guatemala page on fb.)
The Cat in the Hat and Mayzie - both seniors who have been in our shows since year 1
Emma as Cindy Lou Who, posing with her teacher
Who knows what number this is - Joy choreographed it so she should, but not so much
Horton the Elephant and Gertrude - both first time on stage and phenomenal performers
Cast Picture - But this is only about HALF of the cast: Yes, we are gluttons for punishment :-)
Abigail is in the second to last row, 2nd from the left in the orange - she really shone vocally in this performance (even in the shadow of the amazing student who played her mom)
So, that was it. Just kidding! We can't stop at one big production. Two weeks later we begin the Christmas concert season. In our last post we talked about getting a concert at our local mall. It was a great success! All the choirs sang, the band played, and the band director (who being Guatemalan has way better Spanish than us - go figure) was able to share the gospel..right there, in the mall, in the sound system. The week after the mall concert we had our school wide concert on campus. Even the preschoolers performed in that one. We were able to use the new instruments that one of our supporters purchased and it was enjoyed by all. (If you wish to see videos of that - go to our CAG facebook page https://www.facebook.com/CAGMKS and search for the Christmas concert section.)
The High School Choir - New concert attire!
Vox Laudis - audition only children's choir we started in January (E and A in front row)
The small, but extremely fun, middle school choir
The secondary girls and Vox Laudis singing Sleigh Ride
Joy with the Creative Arts Mission Statement we were asked to display at the mall
The preschool through 1st grade students at the school Christmas concert
The audience: These are the missionaries who you support by supporting us as we educate their children. Quite a big crowd - and that is not all of them! (OK, some of those are Guatemalan family members so I guess it works out to be about the right size for the body we support.)
December 14 Emma turned 8 - and she and Abigail participated in the church Christmas pageant.
December 20-27 we had friends and supporters from the States come for a visit. We had a big party at our house Christmas Eve (as is the tradition) to watch the midnight fireworks. We spent part of Christmas day ministering at an orphanage. It was so much more exciting than sitting around waiting for the turkey to cook!
December 30 Joy's Dad arrived. He will be "snowbirding" here this year (and hopefully many other years - hint hint Dad.) When he opened his lap top, and our blog was the home page, we realized what slackers (at least in blogging) we are and resolved to make it our home page so we feel guilty more often and take care of the problem.
December 31 - Joy and her Dad went to the hospital to visit a couple of kids from the orphanage who had taken ill. Praise God they should be able to go home tomorrow - and remembered Joy and lit up when she went in the room.
Thanks for taking the time to read, or at least look at the pictures and skim (hey, we're realists.) Hopefully we will not take so long to post next time. May you have many blessings in 2015! Thank you for your continued emotional, spiritual, and economic support which allows all of the above to happen
