Summer School

    This summer is a time for lots of school preparations for the Stayton girls!  This week they began a summer bi-lingual camp offered at Centro Multiuso Parque Victoria (the official name of the community center affiliated with the church here-same building). 
Parque Victoria Church/Community Center
      The camp starts at 9am and ends at 2pm (in time for the children to go home for lunch) Monday through Friday. It runs from this week until the last week in August.  The camp is offered and ran by our friend and brother in Christ, Mike Jones, who offers English classes to adults and children during the school year.  Mike was gracious to invite the girls to attend his camp this summer.  It is such a blessing for them to be able to go. The Lord has really given us a desire for them to be involved in the children’s activities and classes offered at the community center in effort to put us along side the centers patrons for ministry opportunities through relationship building.
  Laila’s making every effort to meet new friends!
     At camp, the children participate in dance, sports, crafts, and games while instruction and interaction is given in both Spanish and English.  While most of the children there are Spanish children with a  desire to learn some English, our girls are attending to learn Spanish both through the camp instruction and through their interaction with the other children during camp.  It gives them a chance to meet children their ages and forces them to engage them in communication without us being around to help aid and guide.  It is a GREAT precursor to what they will encounter this fall.
 
 
 
                
     After an initial visit to the public school in La Cala (our new town) on Wednesday of last week and a canceled evaluation appointment for Jara last Friday due to illness, we returned to the school on Tuesday to turn in the completed registration paperwork for the girls and for Jara to receive her evaluation test.  The test took about an hour with Jara being questioned and interacting alone with the official from Malaga,who speaks no English, and the director/principal, Pedro, who speaks VERY little English.  After the evaluation, we met with both gentlemen to get the results and their recommendation for Jara’s placement in the fall.  Our friend, Priscilla, was able to go with us to serve as a translator (since Mike was busy with camp at the center).  Her evaluation went very well with them commenting on her high intelligence level.  They felt that there would be no concern for placing her into the 7th grade along with all other students born in 1999.  However, the official felt that for social and language adjustment that placing her into the 6th grade was the better option.  She would be with one teacher all day who could better monitor her language improvement and with the same class all day to help her form friendships easier than being in the 7th grade in the secondary school where she would have changed classes, having various teachers and students in each class.  They also felt that being in the same environment for both girls (passing in the halls, comfort in knowing that the other was located in the same building, and ease of communication between our family and the school) would be very beneficial during this major transition year.  After receiving and taking the official’s recommendation, we enrolled Jara into the 6th grade and Laila into the 1st grade at the primary school in La Cala, where they are to begin their official education in Spain on September 12th.
  Meeting Pedro, the Director of the Primary School
       It was our first chance to make the walk from our apartment at the church/community center to the school.  The walk might have taken 10 minutes though we didn’t actually time it.  It will be an easy walk for us to make a couple times each day during the school year.
  The view walking to school. Wall and flags are on the primary school and the building directly in front of picture view is the secondary school.
  Being buzzed through the school gates.

     The school has been newly remodeled and expanded due to the large number of young families moving into La Cala (in fact a second school was built on the other side of the highway to accommodate the growing young population.)
 
 
     Jara and Laila are both extremely excited about their upcoming school experience.  Laila got even more excited when the principal and the official shared with her that she would speaking Spanish before any of us and would not even need the assistant provided to her after the first few months at school!  Jara has such a strong desire to learn the language, and it is that determination that will be beneficial to her during this learning time.  They are both working on summer enrichment books that I picked up at the local store for them.  These are helping us all navigate the format, wording and vocabulary necessary to completing the school work they will have this fall.  Jara is also continuing with the Rosetta Stone program for more language learning.  We are trying to provide the girls every opportunity and advantage that we can in developing their language and culture skills during these summer months.
  The girls are not the only ones getting some schooling this summer. Beginning next week, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Mike has arranged for Jared and I to have private Spanish lessons together and individually from 9am-12pm here at the community center by several different people who know Mike.  These lessons will work in conjunction with the Rosetta Stone program that we will be doing daily; any café, meal or other outings that we schedule with our non-English speaking friends and acquaintances; and our outings interacting with the local people at the shops, markets, and other businesses in town and the surrounding area. We are finding our understanding of the language improving but desperately desire to communicate more effectively with everyone we meet.
     In our visit to the school and the few days prior to that visit, the Lord confirmed His leading us to enroll the girls into the public school system here. We felt the Lord wanted us to truly become a part of the culture and people. When members of the church, who are native to Spain, and other people we have met in the community center learn we are enrolling the girls into the public school system, they are encouraged by this desire of ours to become a part of their community in every way, including schooling the girls the way all Spaniards do through the public school system and by not keeping them segregated from the local children by homeschooling them (as has been the trend with most missionary families).  We also felt that the Lord wanted us to have an expanded mission field in the children, parents, and families that we would meet through the school environment.  On Tuesday as we were officially enrolling the girls, Jara was able to meet the secretary’s daughter, Ana, who takes English classes from Mike during the school year and is the same age as Jara (but she will be entering the 7th grade). Her mother, Nati, is very much encouraging a friendship between the two girls that both girls can practice their language skills this summer and mentioned several times for me to call so we can make arrangements for them to get together.  We have no idea if this family are believers and fellow brothers and sisters in Christ or not but we are excited to find out!  Also, while at the school, a man approached us while we were waiting on the principal to return to talk to us.  He spoke in very broken English that he heard us speaking in English and needing a translator to speak Spanish.  He said that he had a desire to learn more and practice his English that he had 5 years of at university. He suggested that Jared and I along with him and his wife get together for coffee to converse and learn!  Again, we have no idea of their standing with Christ, but we are willing to invest the time into a relationship to find out.
     God is providing us the ministry that He gave us vision for while in the States.  It is such an honor and a blessing and an encouragement to see Him working in and around us in our lives even as we just begin to walk in His calling here for us.  In our obedience to follow His desires for educating and acclimating our children in Spain, God is opening doors and ministry opportunities that would not be available to us otherwise.  While a decision on where you are educating your children or having them involved in activities may seem like small matters regarding His Kingdom, God uses obedience in these little things to matter for the only One who does matter.
     Philippians 2:12,13 “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and do for His good works.”