Sublime to be 39!

Well, I had my 39th birthday last Sunday.  Several people have asked how it went, so here is a little report.  I had a wonderful birthday!

 I woke up to find 3 hand-crafted birthday cards on the table from my 3 Patrow men.  The cards were beautiful and two of them had CHOCOLATE inside!

A few weeks ago Dave asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I said "I want to go to national church!"  Since we arrived in town, we have attended an international fellowship that meets at the school where Dave teaches.  For a while we have talked about going to national church once a month or so.  My birthday seemed like a perfect time to kick it off.  It was lovely!  The whole family enjoyed it and Dave says we should return on a regular basis!

Here are the boys in their Sunday School class.  This is actually a weird picture.  It looks like there are only 3 kids in the class, but there were more in the back.  Normally, they have Sunday School in an outdoor courtyard area, but it was being used for some kind of bazaar so for this week they used this classroom instead.  All of that was not important, though.  The boys did great.  They didn't goof off and participated in class.  I can't wait to get back and learn more non-English Sunday School songs.  After our bad day at pre-school a while back, I was really nervous today....but I was wrong to be. They will be excited to go back!

My favorite moment of the day, though, was when Dave brought out the birthday ice cream (coconut flavor) with candles and he and the boys sang Happy Birthday with much gusto.  I wish we could have recorded it.  They all sang so well together, even Joshua knew all the words.  The Patrow Trio for my birthday!

Thank you Lord for another year!

Preschool at our house!

First of all I want to say thank you to Becky for somehow finding ABC Jesus Loves Me and then telling me about it.  Second, thank you to the makers of ABC Jesus Loves Me who have developed the perfect program for our home and made it free for use in private homes.  (For those who are interested in more detail, we are using the "4 year curriculum" at present, just doing the parts that fit into our lives or out of our library and supply box.)

The curriculum is very extensive, but I've decided to just pick and choose what is best for us right now.   I don't want Jonathan to be one of those kids who knows how to read, write, do math, but not how to behave or be kind.  I'm not going to focus on teaching the "intellect", but focus on training the will/spirit and do the fun activities that support normal development.  It would be scary to me if Jonathan were able to read all of the material that is out there in the world if he didn't yet have the spiritual foundation to help him process it all and discern what is right in the eyes of the Lord.  So the 4 year curriculum focuses on a single character quality each week, such as Faith, Obedience, Attentive, and has a corresponding Bible Study and activities to go with it.

Here the boys are working at their new desks.  I mostly focus on teaching Jonathan, although Joshua likes to join many of the activities too.  In this picture, our focus of the week was "Giving."  They are coloring a picture of the widow who gave her last two coins to the temple.  

One of the corresponding activities was to make rubbings of coins and start learning about money.  We used local coins.  One of these days I'll have to teach them about American currency!  We also made "offering banks."  They get a coin for helping me do the dishes in the morning, and then we empty the banks on Sunday mornings and take them to church.  The boys love putting their OWN money in the offering.

I've made a rotating gallery on the wall here, at the boys' eye level, for all of their artwork.

We do a handful of worksheets every week, which gives the boys some practice at deskwork.  Most of the activities are more active though.  We've done a nature hike around the neighborhood where we collect samples and make a big poster.  Every week there is a suggested game for developing fine motor skills (like moving small objects with tweezers or painting with q-tips) and large motor skills (kicking balls, jumping and hitting balls.)  Below is one of our favorite large motor skill games called "put out the fire."  I made a chalk ladder and fire on the sidewalk.  The boys had sponges (washcloths for us) and got them wet at a bucket at the bottom of the ladder.  They had to walk "up" the ladder and then squeeze out their water on the fire until the chalk was all gone.

Jonathan puts out the chalk fire at the top of the ladder.

This was a fun game for Joshua to participate in too.  Here he is dripping water from his washcloth onto the "fire"

Here the boys are playing with kidney beans.  This activity didn't work so well for the intended purpose, but they still had fun.  The theme of the week was "Patience" and the story of the week was about Abraham being patient to have a baby, Isaac.  In this activity, we counted out beans to show the ages of people in our family (Joshua, 1; Jonathan, 3; Mommy 38) and compare them to Abraham's age (100).  I just don't think their brains were ready to understand the comparison concept ...but they had fun playing with the beans!

This activity was so fun!  We were learning about "Obedience" and the story of the week was Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace.  We made these "Fire Crayons" by melting old fire-color crayons in a muffin tin.  

We needed some new play dough for several activities so the boys really enjoy helping to make it!

When we Skype with Grandma and Grandpa in America, we can show them the projects we've been working on!

Things that are different: The Day of Sacrifice

Here is Dave with our village leader, a kind man that we respect and appreciate.  To the left you can see the girls and women working on the smaller pieces of meat.  Giant tarps are spread out on the front patio of the mosque to keep the wet, blood, and slime contained.  To the right you can see the men in the background working on the larger animals.

The Muslim community in our neighborhood recently celebrated Idul Ahda, or the Day of Sacrifice.  On the Sunday before the holiday, Dave joined the neighborhood work party to cut the grass and rake leaves in the field adjoining our local mosque.  It is custom to have a work party, kerja bakti, every month and Dave joins when he can.  A few days later the neighborhood children, including our own, were delighted to see 6 goats and 2 cows grazing there.  I didn't have the heart to tell Jonathan they would be slaughtered on the spot the next morning …maybe next year when he's five.  On weeks like this I just want to be a vegetarian.  

The animals were delivered the  day before.  The neighborhood children all came and giggled and gawked like it was a petting zoo.  The animals grazed nervously.  I wonder how they liked all of the chanting and activity at the mosque all night long.  

The night before Idul Adha is one of the noisiest of the year -- even more so than the eve of Idul Fitri, when the adults are tired after a month of fasting.  Starting at 6:30 pm, parades of batik-clad children rotate the streets to the beat of drums and Islamic music.  Then the volume is turned up on the mosque speakers and the chanting begins.  First the boys of the community take turns, and then the men, for several hours.  "Allahu Akbar," the takbir, over and over.  Oh, and did I mention there were also fireworks?  About 10 pm or so, the community leaves the mosque and someone puts on a recording which keeps the chant going at high volume…..all….night….long….until 8 am or so when it is time for the sacrifice to begin.

As outsiders not involved in the festivities, this is a hard night for us.  We worry about the boys sleeping.  They did, though.  Jonathan slept through the night without any problems.  Joshua I did give some antihistamine because we are night weaning him and I felt he needed a little extra help.  Dave puts in his earplugs PLUS noise reducing headphones with white noise playing.  He even slept with the ear muffs for part of the night.  I don't hear the sound quite as much as Dave, but it does get wearying after several hours and especailly in bed when it's finally time to go to sleep.  And every hour waking up to hear it still and then try to go back to sleep again.  When the speakers are finally turned off in the morning, the silence is truly golden!

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In the morning, honored men in the community take turns reading special passages from the Koran while the animals are killed.  Finally the speakers are quiet at 9 am and the men and women are busy for several hours butchering the meat, cleaning the entrails, cooking rice and stews.  There is a community feast, and portions of meat are divided to all and special attention to the poor. 

Disclaimer:  The following photos portray some of the butchering process-- parts of dead animals, blood and entrails.  You don't have to look if you don't want to.

The neighborhood women working on the smaller pieces.

The men working on the larger pieces, the 2 cows.

Nothing is wasted.  Here a group of men have the special job of cleaning the entrails.  Cows have 4 stomachs.  There were 2 cows and 6 goals.  That was a lot of entrails.  

Dave stopped by the mosque midway through the morning to say hi to the neighbors.  It really is a festive scene with all of the community working together to prepare the meat.  The price of meat has been going up, up, up at the markets so it is a real treat to have so much meat in one day.  I suppose, to the typical person here, it's a bit like Thanksgiving.  For us, the entire sensory experience is a cultural stressor but it is a good time to interact with our neighbors and build rapport.  We were invited to the feast, but didn't feel quite comfortable enough to join.  To our surprise, later that afternoon a portion of meat (a mix of cow, goat, and entrails) was delivered to our house too!  Interestingly enough, in our neighborhood there are perhaps 8 ex-pat families but none are very active in the neighborhood activities.  To be honest, we are not that active either, but we are trying to increase our involvement.

Dam builders

We really enjoy the PBS series Curious George and were inspired by an episode where George learns about dam building.  So we made use of a little drainage ditch in our yard and had a grand time making a little dam of our own!