Recent Stuff

It's been a busy few weeks. We currently have two teams of great people here from New Zealand as well as a number of longer term volunteers. It's been keeping Steve hopping to keep ahead of them. We love it!

It was interesting watching the kids' thought processes going to a more materially comfortable place for the first time since we moved here and then coming back. Aaron processed things a bit while we were in Dubai but had a great attitude about it when we got back. Adam being younger was oblivious to the contrast until he got back here. There were lots of tears on his first day back at school and he was hanging around Mom heaps the next few days. I explained the concept of culture shock to him a bit since he's a little thinker. I thought it might help him to understand what was going on so he could be more objective.

But the next morning at school he started crying again and the teachers got Rachel out of her class to comfort him. When she asked what was wrong he wailed, "I've got CULTURE SHOCK!" Rachel being a thinker as well quickly responded, "Oh, Adam, you're over that now. Culture shock only lasts for 24 hours." And apparently that helped!

Everyone's doing well now although someone's been sick pretty much for the last month. Last year at this time we had a period of lots of respiratory stuff but now it's mostly been stomaches. Think we're on the upswing now, though!