March has been a month of guests:
A lovely family from Saskatchewan served as guest planters, our friend Hector was a guest speaker in chapel and the Hokansons from Kansas were guest chefs!

We were delighted to meet Stef’s fiancé and see that he is an excellent guest dishwasher… regular COQUI guests came by and two delightful young people from Gallaudet stopped in one day.

Just to keep us on our toes, we had chapel outside – we also had no electricity!
Kevin served as our musician and he played The Old Rugged Cross and How Great Thou Art. Our weekly Surf the Bible Drill was also held outside. It was a fun start to our day!

1 ) Check out the blurry face on the right – we can’t get Juan to STAY STILL for a photo!
Now you may know how to pray for Stef a little more specifically!

The students are preparing their own introductions to their favorite songs
in sign language or on the bells or on stringed instruments.
Hector Saroza along with Stefanie Beals will be providing the vocals for our
February 14th concert sponsored by Margaret Upperman at the Playa Azul Community Center.

2)  Alyssa quizzes students on their multiplication facts as they enter the classroom.

3) Elizabeth prepares lessons at the classroom computer.

4) Judy More instructs Larimar while Kevin and Kristian work independently under her supervision.

5) Visitor/volunteer Elaine carries out repairs to our school mailing list. If you WANT a paper newsletter, you may want to send your address again – IN CASE we messed up your address 🙁

6) Volunteers Margaret and Doreen work on soup labels and boxtops4 education.

7) Dorothy, the mother of Juan Jose, prepares lunch for the students and workers.

8)Reading specialist Yvonne Yancey does some phonetic awareness activities with the students one on one.

Gerry Martin is working on some kitchen improvements for the school.

Alyssa Freitag (Minnesota) and Meghan Little (New York) joined us in January 2013.

Alyssa is an interpreting student who has taken a semester away from studies to serve with us and gain some experience in ASL with children.

Meghan is a recent graphic arts graduate who joined us for 2 weeks before launching her career. Meghan did some graphic art work for us while she was here and introduced us to some new programs which we are loving.

Our group photo from January 18!

Back row:
Philip, Carlos, Kevin, Judy, Betsy

Middle row:
Kristian, Margaret, Tess, Meghan, Larimar, Stef, LaraMichelle, Elizabeth, Alyssa

Frontrow:
Saul, Mizael, Juan, Gaby, Kiioney

We have 9 students at this time. We are praying for the Orocovis girls who would like to come to school here but we have some paperwork and redtape to get through first.

Also pray for a the 3year old boy whose parents have called. They are looking at educational alternatives. Pray they will make a decision ASAP – as the child is in the late stages of optimal language development and we would love to begin working with them as soon as possible so that their child will not lag behind in linguistic (as well as cognitive) development.

We wish you a Merry December!
Come back to see photos of our Christmas Celebrations!

This page was last modified on Monday, February 04, 2013 08:58:57 PM

Check out this article about
DEAF OBSERVERS working with the OXACA Mexico Police Department

12-19-12

LAST DAY OF CLASSES for 2012

Wednesday we were treated to a yummy lunch and some lovely gifts by some old friends of the school.

After that, we played the bells for the families. EVERYONE had someone from there family present!

Finally our string ensemble played and we sang together. We shared our favorite Christmas things and used these as object lessons
to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to our guests in the school chapel.

SNOW COMES TO ESD!

12-12-12

One a warm and breezy day, a blizzard hit our school. We started with paper snow flakes. Then we had a frozen t-shirt contest.
In the end, there were buckets of (fake) snow in the chapel. The kids enjoyed throwing and sliding and making snow angels.

12-01-12

It is December and the rains have begun! The umbrella “taxi” is carpooling and we are all enjoying cool weather to sleep!

A Christmas parcel arrived! Something for everyone and extras as well 🙂
Thanks to all who remember our students and our ministry at this special time of year.

Classes continue full speed ahead. The students enjoy independent reading time and snacks in the library. Today, Bazooka came along and tried to con some snacks for himself.

Classes end on December 19 – most of the staff will be leaving the island during our Christmas break. Pray for safety in flights and times of rest and refreshing for each one.

We are OFF for the week of 18 November for American Thanksgiving (22) and Puerto Rico’s Day of Discovery (19).

But these photos who much that we are thankful for:

We are thankful for Canadian and American friend who send colourful leaves. The students have no idea! And they are delighted to hold them in their hands.

We are thankful for our friends from Interamerican University who held a food drive and brought us a bounty of good things!

We are thankful for mothers of our students who help in the kitchen. We are thankful for Joella Yoder and her parents who work with us.

We are thankful that the Santos family in Orocovis has electricity again! We continue to visit every month and are thankful that the family welcomes us in their home.

We are thankful for Dr. Suarez and his day with us every year! 1 November 2012 We attended Chemistry Day at UPR – Humacao! YEAH!!! For Dr. Suarez and his minions!

And we are thankful for friends at Iglesia Ancla de Fe in Humacao who fed us lunch after we attended the Chemistry demonstration.

Casey McArthur and Stef Beals enjoy a hug with their little children.

The little girl in this picture has been with us for about a month on trial. Her problems do not seem to be auditory and the family is taking her for further evaluations.

Pray for the many children in Puerto Rico who have educational needs. In this case, the child was diagnosed at the age of 3 but has not been receiving any kind of support in the public school system. The medical community has been slow to respond with any kind of help also.

Pray for her evaluations to be objective and complete.

Pray also for Casey who will be leaving us in December – pray for her future and plans to study education of the Deaf. We pray that she will return to ESD one day for a longer term of service.

Pray too for Stef as she works with the little children – pray for her creativity and stamina to be strong!

Juan takes a lot of energy and it’s so good to have young and energetic young ladies to be working with him! Oh and he also sleeps over half of the time so Casey and Stef don’t get evenings off!

Gaby got an envelope full of Canadian fall leaves! He was excited to receive a letter and these leaves. We counted and made designs with them and then safely put them into the envelope. Later we can laminate some and make a Fall Leaf Mobile for him to take home and dream about seeing the trees change from GREEN to COLOURS!

Elizabeth Emma is teaching Math and Social Studies (and art and Spanish) this year.
Read Elizabeth’s most recent newsletter!

Judy More is teaching Bible and reading (and helping with a variety of other areas).
Read Judy’s most recent newsletter!

Betsy Hoke is teaching Language (English and ASL) and Science (and bells/music).
Read Betsy’s most recent newsletter!

Casey is working with everyone – helping with a variety of classes. Stef works primarily with our Kindergartner and with the lunch program (and Kristian learning about food handling.)

Our First Week of school started on August 6. A visiting team from Victory Baptist Church in Kansas helped us to get ready and they presented a VBS program 🙂

In addition to touring Vieques and doing some sight seeing their first week, they painted a dorm room and our picnic tables, power washed many parts of the school, and cut the grass without a lawn tractor.

They were SO happy to see students – and leave the hot outdoor and manual labor for student-centered activities!

As part of our first week, we did some Olympic activities – pictured about – Synchronized Sitting!

Our Second Week of school saw members of Maranatha Baptist Church of Ceiba PR bring us LUNCH!

We were served tacos, rice and beans and celebrated Casey MacArthur’s birthday all at the same time. Thanks Maranatha and Happy Birthday Casey!

We wish Peter Blatz and Jennifer Johnson much happiness as they celebrate their marriage on 17 July 2012.

We were delighted to attend the wedding of Peter and Jen Blatz on 17 July. Many of the students were in attendance and the event was quite exquisite.

Read the June (15 to 23) VBS team BLOG at this LINK

Some friends are keeping busy helping with boxtops special points! Go to this site and fill in the data (zip=00773) then print as many pages as you need. Glue on your Campbells UPCs and mail it to the address given. You put on 5 points and mail it in, we get 200 points 🙂

Summer Fun has begun!