Thankful

I enjoyed another lazy day Friday, with no studying! It was great! Yesterday, Phillip and I did something amazing! We volunteered for an ICAN event. We helped take kids from a local orphanage to the beach! It was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed it!!!! Here’s a website to check out the orphanage.

http://www.i-canfoundation.org/

There are 27 kids living in this orphanage, ages 3-13. One lady started this place and lives with the kids. She has a couple other workers who help her. Absolutely amazing! We had a blast at the beach and it was obvious how much it meant to the kids. I was reading on their website about how they recently moved to a new house. (The old house was so small that there were 10 kids to a bedroom.) Anyway, it says on the website that they had to make a decision – either buy new clothes and shoes for the year OR move into the new house. The children helped make the decision to move! They live in a nicer house now, only about 5-6 kids per bedroom. The kitchen only has one stove. Can you imagine cooking dinner for 30 on only 4 burners???? It breaks my heart. But what an amazing place!!! I’m posting a few pictures, but here is a link where you can see a bunch more!

http://picasaweb.google.com/RobyAThomas/ICAN#


On the way home, we stopped at the beach I discovered by accident when Sara and Jon were here. It’s the place that has lots of conch shells. Phillip and Sean wanted to see it. Visilli, who was riding with us too, was excited to see it too! I like the picture of the 3 boys with their treasures. I got a bunch of shells last time, so Phillip and I were collecting sea glass instead of shells. We didn’t stay long, but it was fun. Sean and Visilli each got some conch shells. Phillip and I did keep a couple of really pretty small shells and several nice pieces of sea glass! FUN! Notice the rocks everywhere instead of sand…so weird! It’s like everything washes up in this one place…rocks, shells, and tons of garbage!

We were totally worn out after our day at the beach, but Phillip did manage to study some afterwards. He met Sean early this morning to study together and I started reading for my February class!!! My advisor enrolled me on Friday! Good timing since the class starts tomorrow! I got the syllabus on Friday though, which means I know what to start reading. There is a LOT of reading for this class. It’s going to take forever! We have 3 different textbooks! YUCK!!!

I picked Phillip up at school at 4:15 for church. We were glad we got there so early! Church was so packed that everyone was squished sitting in the pews, tons of people were standing in the back, and they even asked all the kids to go to the front and sit on the floor. Crazy!! I was so glad we went to church tonight! It was Father Thomas’s last Mass in St. Maarten. He flies home to Wisconsin tomorrow. It was sad! Father Thomas has been here for four and a half years. I think he is excited for the change, but also very sad to leave. It looked like he was struggling at times…as were many other people. He will be missed here!!!!!! (We are very sad to see him go!!!!!!! He is a wonderful person and we’re so glad he was our Priest here!)

After church, we went to McDonalds for dinner! What a treat!!!!

I am feeling very grateful today. We have complained many times about our apartment being small and overpriced. We could have gotten a bigger and cheaper apartment, but didn’t realize it when we signed our lease for this apartment. However, most of those other apartments are farther away (still walking distance though) and down a dirt road that does not seem as safe to us. Many of our friends live down that road, but Phillip and I both agreed that we would not have felt comfortable walking down that road, especially not after dark!!!!! Last night, 4 cars were held up at gunpoint on that road. We don’t know the details yet. All I can think is that could have been us if we lived back there! Thank goodness for our tiny expensive apartment, located on a better road. I am no longer allowing myself to complain about the price…