Tag: Grace Page 16 of 20

Mother’s Day 2008: How Blessed I Am!

(Fun story about the matching outfits: In Tanzanian culture, when a woman gets married, she chooses a fabric that all her female friends buy from her. The women take this fabric and have it made into an outfit of some kind, and then wear it to her shower (called a Kitchen Party here) and/or her “Send-Off” Party–the party given by the bride’s parents the week before the wedding (the groom’s family pays for the wedding itself). Grace and I went to Esta’s sister’s Send-Off Party a month or so ago, and these were our outfits. It’s fun to go to one of these events and see all the ladies wearing outfits with matching fabric.)

Lucky, lucky Daddy got to go to Istanbul for a week for an ASCI convention. If you are a teacher at a Christian school in California, maybe you get to go to Sacramento or Anaheim for an ASCI convention. If you are a teacher in Africa, you get to go to TURKEY. Not that I was jealous or anything.

Anyway.

He had a great time doing things like eating at Burger King and going go-carting and shopping for Grace at Toys R’ Us. Oh, and I guess he learned a thing or two at the conference too. He had a fantastic time. And this is (one of the things) he brought Grace. Now I have my very own little belly dancer.

Yesterday was the Secondary School Talent Show. Grace and I went to watch. The kids did a great job and everyone enjoyed it.

Right at the end, while the judges were tallying the results for a few minutes, everyone was just waiting and murmuring and someone got up and told lame jokes. Gil turned to me and said, “You should take Grace up there and see if she will sing.” We’ve gotten her to “perform” in front of groups of other people before–but it’s been maybe a maximum of 10 people. We thought, “Well, she probably won’t do it, but it’s worth a shot.” All of the secondary kids love Grace and would think it was cute even if she didn’t do anything.

So I took her up, handed her the microphone, and told her to sing the ABC song. And she did. My 2 year, 4 month old daughter sang her ABCs into the microphone in front of over 200 students, staff, and parents. We were on a roll, so then I asked her to sing “Amazing Grace,” which I had just discovered a couple days ago she could sing on her own. So she did. The crowd went beserk.

She was definitely the show-stealer. 🙂

My small group came over yesterday for a craft afternoon. This age group(8th graders) is so fun because they still really like projects like this.

I love the diversity of my group! Andrea (Dutch), Jenai (Irish), Christa (American), Randra (Madagascar), Jessi (Swiss), and Samael (Tanzanian). Hannah (Korean) wasn’t there. I wish I could tell you all the wonderful things these girls’ parents are doing throughout Tanzania, but this isn’t the place to write about it. HOPAC has only 8 boarding students and 3 of them are in my group!

Grace totally amazed me yesterday. She wanted to participate too, so she got set up at the table with pony beads and yarn, and she spent almost 2 hours stringing those beads! When she ran out and wanted more, we took all her beads off the string and she did it over again! Love the tongue–total concentration. 🙂

Her legs are finally long enough! Go, Gracie, Go!

(And yes, my daughter does does run around in just underwear a lot of the time. I admit it.)