Paraguay is going to the world cup!

6th graders

5th graders by our welcome sign

At the soccer game

Soccer game again

Go Paraguay!

We needed to come into the capital, Asuncion to get packages sent from my grandma and from Aunt Sandee and Uncle Doug. We loved the children's books, crayons, and Skittles (which only lasted 2 days). The kids love the books. We decided that we would come in to get the packages while Paraguay soccer team was playing Argentina. It was a great game. Paraguay won 1-0. This game was important because if they won they would go to the World Cup. The Paraguayans went crazy, there wasn't school the next day. That was last week Wednesday, Septemember 9.

Now we are in Asuncion again, we had meetings with our Peace Corps bosses. We have to come and talk with them every 3 months to talk about what we have done and what we plan to do. It went great and we got more ideas for projects.

Not too much else going on in site. We are working in the Support Room with reading. Joe is coming twice a week to help with the older kids. I am enjoying my time working one-on-one wit the kids and hoping to help improve their reading. We still have a lot of work to do but I am glad to have some work started.

I can't believe my little sister, Toni has started basic training with the Air Force. We are both so proud of her and praying for her.

We miss you all very much!

More Pictures

We finally figured out the problem with the memory card on our camera. It had a virus and we would lose all our pictures. We bought a new card and now have been taking lots of pictures. Here are some pictures of what we have been up to lately.

1st graders after washing their hands, these kids bring a smile to my heart!

Kindergarteners and Preschoolers showing their clean hands.

Joe showing the kids how to was their hands with the bottle washing station we made. They loved it!

Our very own garden that Joe worked very hard on. We even put up a fence to keep all the chickens out. We have Iowa sweet corn (Thank you Heits), watermelon, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, and carrots. We can´t wait to eat our veggies.

The school garden, a little bigger than ours and ready to enjoy!

It feels like summer here though it is still winter, we can´t imagine how hot we are going to be in the middle of summer here. We have been busy and hardly have much time to relax. We have even started waking up at 5:30 in the MORNING to get in a run before we are too tired and it is too hot. We enjoy getting in some exercise. I have been working almost every day in the Support Room. I have about 5 students in the morning and 25 in the afternoon. The kids range from 1st to 5th grade. It is amazing how little the children get read to and how many books are in the school library. Most don´t have books at their house, that amazes me....especially since the Heits have their own home library. There are so many kids in the afternoon that Joe comes in to help me. It is a great project for us to do together. The kids seems to enjoy working with us too. I work one-on-one with the kids, most of them just need practice reading. I will try to take some pictures or maybe a video of my classroom, but it is not ready yet...I am still making things for the walls.
Joe has been working on health issues in the schoools. Every Wednesday he comes with flouride for the kids to have healthier teeth. We are also going to the other school in the community and working with nutrition and hand washing.
We are going to have some volunteers visiting us this weekend. It is another married couple, he is in health and she is in education. They are from Indiana and we really enjoy spending time with them. It will be great showing people around our community.
Thanks for all the updates. We really enjoy them! We love you and miss you all!