September Update

September Update
On plattnerfamily.com we started a special segment called “A Piece of Paradise.” I had noticed on other blogs that many people had started these special segments with witty, alliterated titles. Not wanting our blog to be a step behind, we recently started documenting various “Jamaican” things that accentuated our lives in this tropical paradise. When brainstorming about potential topics to write about, my thoughts went to the truly beautiful things about Jamaica such as unique foods, rich culture, or the beauty. At the same time, my mind also went to the “funny” things about Jamaica that occasionally cause us to laugh, but can also push us to edge of tears. There are days that we stop and are shocked that we are being given the opportunity to experience a life here in Jamaica and sometimes the next day we ask why we are being asked to endure this tribulation. This tension is very real and presents us with a very similar comparison to our interaction with the real Paradise. Understanding that our eye has not seen nor has entered into the heart of man, there are times in which we sense those glimpses of paradise. It is those times that we realize that we are looking through a glass darkly, but we are making out an image on the other side and it is beautiful. These times present themselves as one of our kids expresses one of their first prayers, we experience the beauty of marriage as God designed it, or we feel the blessing of God on a ministry opportunity. It is in these times that we get a glimpse and celebrate. But, the converse is that there are times in which we can only see the darkness of the glass. Unfortunately, this darkness is just as real and also often rears its ugly head. This darkness is revealed through the lust of our flesh, the lust of our eye, and the pride of our lives. In this, we may laugh at our stupidity and failure to understand His Holiness, but it should push us to very necessary tears. Praise the Lord that we do not have to face the realities of these contrasting scenarios in the cyclical fashion in which they seem to readily present themselves, but we have an advocate. We have been given the opportunity to live life more abundantly and it is certainly His desire to reveal to us the beauty of His kingdom. So, as we each walk through our “paradise,” let us remember to be on the lookout for His blessing through the revelation of the beauty of the true Paradise.
We are ecstatic to announce that this past month in “paradise” has been the first “normal” month since our arrival. The month of September was filled with the boring life that we find so exciting. We didn’t have any teams, we stayed in our home for the whole month, and we didn’t get kicked off the island. While we did have a couple of months when we first arrived that had no teams, we are certainly not able to claim those months as normal. Life is not normal when life is not settled. We feel as settled as we want to feel and we have been just living life. I have been helping around the school being a driver, a teacher, a maintenance man, a consultant, etc. It has been very refreshing to feel a bit of normalcy and less anxiety about the weeks. Keri has been busy at home as well as helping out more regularly in the school. The “boring” nature of this month has been a piece of paradise that we cherish.
As previously mentioned, Keri came into this school year with a bit more experience and understanding of how to balance her ministries. She continues to be the best at ministering at home with Tweedle De and Tweedle Dum. Understanding that this is her primary ministry, Keri has also had a desire to get more involved with the kids at the school. The door opened up for her to begin working daily with a boy with severe autism. Erin has been blessing us again by watching our kids as Keri daily works on teaching this boy his colors, numbers, and sign language. She has also been busy taking her rotation in Sunday school and helping facilitate the deaf to take responsibility for teaching. This is a whole other story, but Keri and Pam Huber have done an excellent job leading in ways that the deaf are wanting to follow. As if all that isn’t enough, she is also balancing a new bible study that she has started with Erin and Pam for ladies at Knocpatrick and the Deaf village. This project is in its infancy but it is exciting to see the plans come to fruition. Please continue to remember Keri in prayer as she continues to balance life by His grace.
As we look to the future, life in paradise is not going to remain so “boring.” The month of October will return us back to our normal mode of transition. In a couple of weeks we will move back to Montego Bay for a week, then back to Knockpatrick for a week, then back to Montego Bay for 2 weeks, and then back to Knockpatrick. And, during that time we are anxiously awaiting visits from Keri’s mom, Keri’s sister and brother in law, as well as my brother Chad and his family. I guess we were not promised a “boring” life nor would we have it any other way as we continue to pursue the Joy in the Journey. Thank you for your support and prayers and remember that the invitation is open for your trip to Jamaica. We would love to show you around our paradise.

Keep on Keeping On,
Kirk, Keri, Drew, and Truitt.

www.plattnerfamily.com

"A Piece of Paradise" #3

A Day at the Beach!

A piece of paradise is found in the fact that dropping someone off at the airport is not just about driving to the airport, farewells, and driving home. Here in paradise, we still have to do the driving, we cherish the farewells, WE GO TO THE BEACH, and then we drive home. There are times that we forget that we are living on an island with beautiful beaches as we live up in the mountains. On Wednesday, we carried Elsie Eisenmann back to the airport and reminded ourselves that we are on an island. We took the opportunity to steal some family time at the beach after dropping Elsie at the airport. It was a beautiful day, the kids loved playing in the sand, and the water was refreshing. It was a great time and as we remember that day we come to more fully understand that paradise has much less to do with where you are and much more to do with who you are with. We give God thanks for the gift of our family and we pray that we can use this blessing to bless others.

Hebrews 13:1

Let brotherly love continue!

"A Piece of Paradise"

"Jamaican Patois"

"Is jus cause God did love de whole a wi why him sen him ONE Son fi come dead fi wi, so dat all a de people dem who believe seh Him real woan dead but wi live fieva". John 3:16


The official language of Jamaica is English, the official language of Jamaicans is Patois. Patois is "English," but is made up of phrases, chopped up words, and a mixture of words from other languages. It often happens that I can listen to two Jamaicans speaking Patois, which is English, and not understand a word they are saying. Since arriving, I have been working hard on learning Patois, but it is not easy. One of the big stories here lately is a local Bible society is attempting to translate the Bible into Patois. Above is a persons guess at how John 3:16 would read. A major problem with this endeavor is that Patois is not necessarily a written language and many Jamaicans cant write it or read it. Anyway, it is a very flavorful part of Jamaican culture and hopefully I will be able to impress people with my patois in a few years.

Podcast 18

A Tribute to Drew's 3rd Birthday!

ACWR tour

As an ACWR team, part of our job is to visit the many organizations that ACWR supports and to continually assess the needs around us. On Wednesday, we took our first leg of this tour. We started at New Beginnings International Training Center. This is a ministry to street boys. It is a small family oriented ministry that usually houses an average of 15 boys. They provide educational services and have an active agricultural program. The school is alive with vision but also is struggling through these difficult financial times. After leaving NBITC, we took a cross country route that led us to Maranatha Christian school for the deaf. This is a Mennonite based deaf school located in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. It is a small school with about 22 students, but is located right in the heart of a large deaf community. We were excited to see the work going on at this school. Also, right next door to the school is a deaf church, one of 3 on the island. The church was built by the deaf and for the deaf. When this was being explained to us, the man who was telling us this was beaming with pride. It was moving to see his commitment to the church that they built. We were also able to take an older deaf friend of mine to his house and it was interesting to see how he lives. We hope to make several more trips around the island to continue the work of getting a temperature of the work going on here. It is a joy to see the passion for the Kingdom that is permeating this country and Lord Willing, this culture. You can see more pictures on our pictures page.

Help Me!

Here is a quick little video of Truitt in despair. With a small interruption from his brother, who is usually the antagonist, Truitt pleads for help. This has been a new tactic for T. that he uses daily as he finds himself in trouble. "Help Me" "Help Me" "Help Me"

Enjoy!

I wanna be like ......

Growing up, the mantra was "I wanna be like Mike." Now obviously time has passed and I am living in a different country, but boyhood aspirations are still strong. All of this week, I have been on what CCCD calls "administrator duty." This requires me to supervise dinner time and the play time after dinner. It was interesting this week as I was watching the kids it didnt take long for them to organize some races. These werent just any races, but these were races to determine who was most like Usain Bolt. So, the mantra has changed and Usain Bolt is the man every Jamaican boy wants to be. I quickly grabbed my phone and shot a quick video of one of the races. Enjoy!

Rain Rain

We are in the middle of rainy season and it has been rainy. We have gotten rain from Ike and it has been wet. In Jamaica, sometimes the roads get bad with the rain and today I was heading to the store and came upon some pretty deep water. About half way through I thought, I should be videoing this. I pulled out my phone and shot the video. Jamaicans love stories of stupid people thinking they can drive through water that is too deep and getting stuck, but our van pulled right through. Enjoy!

A Piece of Paradise

Having dove headlong into the blogosphere, I have noticed while perusing blogs that is is quite popular to have a weekly feature or some type of regular post with a slick title. Not wanting to be left behind as a second class blog, we decided to start a "probably not so regular" feature called "A Piece of Paradise." So here is our first installment.



Believe it or not, in paradise, food is not free. As a matter of fact, food not only costs money, but more often than not, it costs alot of money. With a couple of growing boys, we have deemed milk a necessity. Since arriving, we have been consuming milk, albeit conservatively, for breakfast, snacks, and for the boys meals. The grocery store generally gives us two choices. Powdered milk costs around $4 a gallon. The price of real milk is about $136 for 1 Liter. With about a 70:1 exchange rate, you math people will quickly calculate that into over $7 US a gallon. So, as you take your next gulp of the smooth white milk from your prarie farms jug, think of us in paradise.

Welcome Back Students!

Yesterday was the first official day back to school. The kids started arriving back on Monday and are still trickling in(some may not arrive till middle of the school year!). It's great to have life and energy back on campus. They give us a new energy as well! Drew is doing well getting involved after school. He enjoys going to the Library with the kids or doing outside activities. Our youngest student this year is a 4 y/o girl named Paris. It's exciting to see Drew try to communicate and interact with her as she is also a beginner at signing.
This morning we experienced some effects from tropical storm Hanna. This is a bit north of us. We are carefully following the lineup of storms behind Hanna.

3 Years Ago Today

3 Years ago tonight our little Drew was born. Wow! Yes I am going to say it again. Time Flies! Keri and I were reflecting the other night and were praising the Lord for His faithfulness. We have been given the encouragement so many times to cherish the moments because they go so fast. This is one of those times that we were assessing how we were doing. We both agreed that we can never cherish the moments to their fullest because we are so limited, but at the same time we rejoice at the moments we have shared in Drew's life. While it is going fast, by God's grace we feel like we are trying to capture them, cherish them, and give them back to Him in praise. We anticipate continued growth in this area and we pray that we can do the same with little Truitt. Drew is becoming quite the little man and we are so proud of him.

Happy Birthday Drew!!!!