Furlough: Week 1

I will try my best to keep you up to speed with our summer furlough experiences.  However, no promises! With our short and very valuable time needed to be invested face to face with friends and family, summer posting might be spotty.  Although, having started to make our rounds with supporters many have commented that they do indeed read this blog.  And here I thought my audience was mostly grandparents and family.

We arrived safely on Saturday, June 9.  All went smoothly and it took us nearly two weeks to recover from jet lag.  Jonathan's parents were most gracious to us in our initial week of reentry adjustments.  There is nothing like coming back to your parent's house and being covered in great love, care and encouragement.  The kids were spoiled and loved upon our first week.  Here are some of our first week highlights:

Gramma came along to see a brave little girl get her ears pierced

Munga taught the kids to ride bikes and they picked up on it right away.  Apologies to all the neighbors for the bike tracks left across your lawns and mailboxes hit those first few days!

A first time for the kids and I in picking Michigan strawberries.  It was a wonderful experience and the kids had a great time and even sweeter time eating 8 lbs of strawberries in 4 days.

Luca sporting his new big boy glasses that he chose so he could look like Uncle Ben

Baseball in the yard

Belated birthday dinner celebration for Jonathan with his grandparents and aunt

Swimming, squirt guns and soaking up gorgeous summer sun

One week later we repacked up our bags for our trips to Ohio and California.  The 5.5 hour drive down to Chardon was long, but it was so great to reconnect with the Hayes' and the Chardon Baptist Church family there.

Precious time and hospitality given by Pastor and Susan Hayes

Jonathan ran a marathon on his Father's Day.  Sunday school presentation, preaching, driving 1.5 hours to Canton to then present at Whipple Avenue Baptist Church for an evening presentation and then 2.5 hour turned 3.5 hour drive due to a traffic accident back to Cedarville.  We finally rolled into Cedarville around midnight.

One of the great joys of furloughing is to reconnect with supporters, but the drawback is always that our time is too brief.  But thus is the nature of summer furloughs where you feel like you are just flying in and out of places.  Our one week in Ohio went by quickly and I hope to fill in those details in a coming post.  Ciao for now!

Say Cheese

Luca has a new smile!

Music Recital

End of the Year Student Recital - 31 May 2012

I am so proud of Samuel, Emma and Jonathan for their outstanding performances last night at the music recital!   They all have showed great perseverance and faithfulness over the past 7 months in their musical studies.  The kids have surely inherited their father's passion and gift in music.  Samuel and Emma love playing the piano and we are so thankful for this experience for them.  Luca is right behind them, teaching himself and figuring out how to play on his own.  It is very likely he will be enrolled in piano come the fall.

Jonathan is a self-taught guitarist and up until last November has never taken a lesson in his life.  He finds classical guitar playing a challenge in technique and a growing passion of his.  His instructor made sure to communicate to the MC last night that Jonathan was performing songs that are studied by a 5th year student in a conservatory.  I think he is her price pupil.  The MC praised him again at the end of his performance saying how Jonathan practices 4-6 hours a day!  Umm, that was news to us both!  Clearly he does have a family, work and life you know!

The program began at 9:00 PM.  I know all you Americans out there are gasping at the thought, considering too it was on a school night.  The recital was held at the local theater here in Leinì.  There were 80 students listed in the program and many performed 2 songs a piece.  Samuel and Emma were #34 and #35 and Jonathan #52.  Around 10:00 Samuel and Emma became less concerned about playing and more worried that they would not be awake to play.  Thankfully their adrenalin kicked in for them to execute stellar performances at 10:30 PM.  Jonathan waited another hour to play his pieces before we made a beeline for the door and headed home.  A mom from school verified that her son played the final piece of the night at 1:00 AM!!!

Samuel and Emma with their teacher, Ruben

The auditorium was packed out as this was quite the community event

Here is a video of their performances.  The lighting was so bad that we could not get any pictures worth posting.  I had issues with the video camera: covering the speaker when recording Jonathan and somehow switching to black and white for the kids.  Sorry!  Jonathan took video from his iPhone from a different location and thankfully he did as Ruben was totally blocking my view of Samuel from where I was.  The teachers sat near their students while they played which I thought was kind of cool as it served to help calm nerves.  Enjoy!



 P.S. Dad and Mom, a huge display poster did fall from the wall during a piano performance.  Unlike me, the student kept his composure and concluded without being phased. I did chuckle to myself at the memory of my own disastrous recital.  :)