Week #1

Hello everyone,

We are having a wonderful time here in VA. It has been really cold and wet here. It snowed the first morning we were here, it was really slushy so not at all the kind of snow you play in. We all started classes on Wednesday. The girls go to an amazing school where the help them learn all about transition and they work hard at getting them ready for a big move and things that are different. All three girls have great teachers and I understand from Bianca's teacher that she may have taken after her daddy and have the gift of preaching/teaching. Apparently she led her class in a prayer on Friday that made the teacher feel like she had gone to church. That, to me, is hilarious. Most of her prayers here are for her littlest pet shop animals and her friends The twins have also done really well. They are having a bit of trouble getting to sleep at night. It has taken them up to an hour to finally get settled down enough to fall asleep. They are sleeping in twin beds w/o bed rails and are doing a fabulous job. None of the girls are really eating that great, I think that is just part of the adjustment. They are eating in a cafeteria and that is just a lot of action, too many things to look at and play with. They have, however, learned to like soy milk. There is a pretty big milk freezer in the cafeteria and Ian lets them pick what they want and they have fun trying all of the different varieties. According to Ian the very vanilla silk is outstanding!

The grown up classes are really just getting cranked up this next week. We are having a three day session with Dr. Rankin and that is supposedly an amazing time. This past week was a lot of introductory type things just getting us ready for the next 7 weeks. Our day starts at 5am with a quiet time and ends around 10-11pm. We have a pretty good amount of homework every night and we also have some other ministry team responsibilities  in the evening also.

We had our first house church service this morning. It was so cool. There are 8 adults and 8 children. The oldest child is almost 5 and the youngest is 13 mos. We did a bible learning activity with the children, but they also joined in for some of the time. I think this is going to be a really cool experience, I am loving our small group and I just think we are building some amazing friendships.

In terms of prayer requests here goes...

1. a continued focus on our private time with the Lord

2. time to complete all assignments without sacrificing too much time with the children

3. for the Basque people to begin to be tender towards the gospel

4. for the children to continue to transition well and to make some great friends.

Thanks to all for their support,

Katie

Some of the sweet kids in our quad. We have a great group with us!

The girls leaving for school.