School Boy

We wrote last week about Drew starting school. He did have a good first week and we felt very positive with how he was doing. So, he has continued. He loves going to school and he loves talking about it. As is standard for all students at CCCD, he also needs to wear a uniform. Wednesday was the first day he wore his uniform. It was ridiculously adorable and he looked like such a little scholar. Sometimes you never know what will "turn the crank" of the deaf, but Drew in a school uniform did just that. I dont know if it was his official welcome into their world or if they had never seen a white kid in a uniform, or what the excitement was. But as we walked down the hill towards school, we walked past the middle school chapel and maybe 15 kids came out screaming and squawking about Drew and his uniform. This happened all morning with all of the kids and most of the staff. We couldnt go 5 steps without someone calling out or commenting about him and his uniform. It was unreal. Anyways, we continue to pray that this will be a good experience for him. Oh the transitions, we cannot believe that we are "doing homework" with our little Drew. We also posted a few other pictures of the kids HERE.

Church Growth

We hope that this blog title is not sacrilegious. Our sincere prayer is for growth in the deaf church of Jamaica and we pray that one day we can title a blog post "Church Growth" and report of God's faithfulness in this work. But, today, we couldn't think of a better title for this video. As you probably know from previous videos, a favorite activity of the boys is church. If we recorded and showed every adorable church service that the boys conduct, it would take up every blog post. So, in general, we no longer even break out the camera. Tonight was different, we realized that the boys' church had experienced significant growth (100%). How many churches would not want to experience 100% growth in a year. We are unsure if the church will continue to grow at this rate, but the addition of a second parishioner is a welcome sight. They can now also have separate seating as the new church member is a young lady. So, here is a little taste of the church as experienced this evening.

A Piece of Paradise "Money"

Yesterday after visiting the grocery store, the same boy who has come to me so many times before meets me at the door and mumbles something about needing money. And the haunting begins, I try to practice giving to those who ask, but something always feels wrong with this boy. So, I say, "No thank you," and keep moving. Was he hungry or is he just a shameless kid looking to get some cash. As we have written many times before, money is a whole new animal in Jamaica. While many of us understand the all-consuming nature of finances, when living in a developing country, it seems that everything ramps up to a whole new level. It happened again upon our return to Jamaica from the states, the poverty is shocking. And, that is even with an understanding that Jamaica is much better off than many countries. I wish I could ignore it, but it haunts me. For some reason, I cannot forget it and it really changes things for us, some ways good and some ways bad. Anyways, it was also yesterday that Jamaica began circulating the $5000 bill and the day that our grocery bill was over $17000. Minimum wage in Jamaica is just a little over $16000 a month and we spent more than that in one trip to the grocery store. We pray that we can learn everything the Lord is trying to teach us about money, poverty, and living with both in a God honoring way.

Trial

Drew started school yesterday. We are going to do a one week trial to see if he is ready. School for Drew has been a big issue to our Jamaican friends. Jamaicans start school by age 3 and they do not do homeschooling. So, for the past year we have been consistently interrogated in regards to why Drew is not in school. Our consistent answer has been that we are homeschooling him and that usually works in not getting him sent away to the Department of Children Services. Before we left for the summer, we had talked to the principal and she said that we could try Drew in school. The goal of this experiment is not necessarily academic. We are hoping that this will help him improve socially and help him improve his signing skills. He has a new teacher that just graduated from Bible College in Georgia and is back for her first year of teaching. She seems to do a great job and we are excited to see how the trial turns out. He has done well his first two days and so we will see how he finishes the week. As I am sure most parents understand, the adjustment may be bigger for his parents than for him. We are nervous wrecks, but we trust that if the trial is successful it will be good for Drew. He had homework the first day as he had to glue together a paper "A." There are already several good stories, but why waste all of the good blogging material on one post?

Out of the mouths of Plattners

This morning as the boys were eating their cereal, Drew says to his mom, "oh, a fly just got in my milk and I ate it." Keri, aghast at the thought began interrogating him and asking him if this is true. He plays along for a few more seconds and then says, "just kidding." Not but a few moments later he burped and declared, "see the fly is letting me know he is in my tummy."

This morning Truitt carried up his "Franklin goes to school" book and kept talking about the bus on the front cover. He loves buses and began saying over and over again that he rode on a bus and he let Grandpa ride with him. He was reminiscing to this summer when he did get to ride with his Grandpa in a bus. While he has confused the facts a little bit about how it was his bus and he let his grandpa ride with him, it was funny to see him connect the dots.

This afternoon, our little intercessor named Drew, exclaimed, "God is calling my name to go pray." He goes back to his bed and prayed for his teacher and then came out to let us know. Next, he runs back again to his room and prays only to return to say, "Daddy, I prayed for you." He knows that I have been under the weather and asks, "so has God started making you feel better?" Next, he looks upwards and begins his side of a conversation with God in which he determines that God is asking him to go pray for Daisha. We have no idea what this all means for him, but he remains very spiritually interested and "in tune."

Also this afternoon, Drew came up and said the sweetest thing as he was playing. He was flying a little toy airplane, which he loves to do, and said, "Mom, I am picking up sick people and flying them to Illinois." We had little idea how much he understood of what went on with Daisha and we were touched.

Smiley Face!

Here is a recent picture of Daisha. Her face is quickly approaching perfectly round. Here are some other pics from our photo shoot last Sunday morning and a few other things.

"North or Be Eaten"

"North or Be Eaten" Book Review
For those of you who know me or my family, you may know that we are not the type of people to pass time by reading a good fiction book. Read, yes, but fiction, rarely. In general, we are far too practical to read a whole book and in the end glean maybe one or two morals of the story. No, we wouldn’t dare pass good hours in such a way. For us, we would prefer a good non-fiction book which gives us a whole bunch of morals in each chapter and all the reasons why it matters to our life. All of that is not to say that we didn’t learn or understand the value of a good story. But, all of our time with anything fiction was while we were traveling and was always listening rather than reading. So, we were influenced strongly by the power of story by the likes of Louis Lamour, from whom we learned how to tame the west, and from Odyessey, from which we learned every good moral that needs to be known. This is not a complaint, to learn every moral there is to know through riveting stories and learning how to respect a good lady, stop a cattle thief, and cook yer grits are all important lessons. But, what was lost on us was the ability to and appreciation of sitting and reading a good story. So, I ran into a dilemma when my favorite songwriter wrote a book and I found myself wanting to read the story. I figured that it would not hurt me to sit down and read the story, but there was another problem. The book was for children and was a fantasy book. If there is anything worse than reading a good fiction book, it would be a fantasy book. The silliness and “other worldliness” of such stories are far too impractical. At the same time, somewhere along my journey, I experienced the desire and fruit of expanding my horizons and attempting to see life from a different perspective than my own. So, with a vacation approaching last year, I bought “On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness” by Andrew Peterson and read the whole book. It was an easy read and a fast read and I must admit that I enjoyed it. As I had heard from my friends who enjoy reading fiction, it was an interesting escape and felt “good for the soul.” It was a story about three children who in the midst of living their normal lives discovered that they were royalty in another land. And, as a consequence of them not being in place as rulers of their far away land, a bad brood of evil creatures had invaded the land in which they live. Through a series of circumstances, the kids learn who they are and where they belong. At this same time, the bad creatures begin to learn who the kids are as well and want to capture them for their own use. This starts a series of clashes that ultimately ends up in a battle and the kids being alienated from their homeland and begins their return to the country that is rightly theirs to rule. The book ends in such a way that it had to be followed by another book. Soon enough, the next book was to be released. I figured if I started the story, then I might as well finish the story. I had intended to buy the next book and have another shot at reading a children’s fantasy book. Then, I stumbled across an offer to receive the book free if I reviewed it on our blog. Again, for those who know me and my family, it is nearly impossible to pass up an offer that involves saving money. So, I agreed. But, then I realized that many of the people who read our blog are probably more like my family than those ridiculous type of people who can read fantasy books. Which means that I would be reviewing and endorsing a product that they had little ability to appreciate or understand its value. But, I decided that I needed to hold up my end of the deal and that I would just write the whole back story, which is why I included all of the above. The next book, “North or Be Eaten,” by Andrew Peterson, chronicled the kids harrowing escape from their home to their real kingdom. Through an immeasurable number of twist, turns, and narrow escapes, the kids attempt to make it to their far away land. This book came at an interesting time in our own journey. Through the past several weeks, we have been working through issues of fear, trust, and the Lord’s direction in our lives. While I don’t want to sound trite, the book took me through a similar journey as I watched the kids work through the same issues. While I am not convinced that the intention was an allegorical tale, strangely, I took more from the book than I had expected. I was still stretched by the silliness and remained unable to relate to the appreciation of fantasy, but at the same time the book struck a chord with me. I don’t really understand what all of this means, but it has taken me on an interesting journey that I think I am better off for having taken and for that I am thankful.

Lone Ranger and Tonto

Or whatever you want to call them. Here are some pictures of the fearsome twosome. The first set of pictures is a "copy shot" of the boys. When I saw Truitt in a new church shirt, I remembered a good picture of Drew in that same shirt. I asked Truitt if he would take a picture and he graciously agreed. Drew's picture was taken in January.

Ahhh, working on a Saturday. We had some touch-up to do around the house and the boys wanted to help. We could think of no other good way to keep their clothes clean but to remove them. The boys loved it, caused no little mess, and are asking to do it again.

Settling?

We are settling back into Jamaican life, I think? For some reason, the settling part has been a bit more difficult than previous trips back from the states. Some may be due to our abrupt departure under tough circumstances. Some may be due to our extended time in the states. Some may be due to now having 3 children. Some may be due to new responsibilities. We dont know, but we are trying to know One thing more and more, and that is that His strength is made perfect in weakness. And, after supper tonight, our scripture reading was from 2 Corinthians 4, which you can read below. So, if in the future we have more extended periods of time without a post on this site, please offer up a prayer on our behalf as that is probably a sign that we are working on settling.

2 Corinthians 4

¹Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;²But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.³But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:⁴In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.⁵For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.⁶For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.⁷But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.⁸We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;⁹Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;¹⁰Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.¹¹For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.¹²So then death worketh in us, but life in you.¹³We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;¹⁴Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.¹⁵For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.¹⁶For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.¹⁷For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;¹⁸While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Arrived Safely!

We arrived safely in Jamaica after a good day of travel. We woke up this morning and Drew had a fever. In spite of him being a bit under the weather, the kids did great. Erin Davis had cleaned up our apartment, made us lasagna, and therefore really blessed us. We will not be posting any pictures of our status as we are exhausted and not looking well. Thank you for your prayers as the mountain looks steep.

Drew Birthday Parties

Another blessing of our extended time in the States was that Drew could celebrate his birthday with Grandparents and cousins. He was given the royal treatment. The Plattner celebration was at Tanners Orchard. The Kaeb celebration was an evening of play, presents, and marshmallows. We are afraid he enjoyed his birthday too much. We cant believe the little man is 4. Here are some more pictures if you are interested.

Is that really the passport?

It is hard for us to believe, but WE HAVE RECEIVED DAISHA'S U.S. PASSPORT! It came in yesterdays mail. Since, we have been scurrying around trying to get flights, rides, and all arrangements made. Lord Willing, we will be flying out early Monday morning. We are so thankful for our time in the States and we are thankful for the opportunity to return to Jamaica. Praise the Lord!

Happy Birthday Drew!