Called by God

This is a note to you to encourage you.
I am not that old, I have virtually no income, do not live a fairy tale life.
I was a giant mess when God called me. I mean giant mess!
12 years ago Jesus called me quite plainly.  "Go" he said.
Many jounies and years later God once again called me to  go to Ethiopia.  This time after life crushing events and with a small son.

God called. He said "go"... yes, with no church family behind me, no husband to lead me, and no money to provide for me... even with no clear plan of why I was going, I was told to go.

The pasport for my son miraculously was granted, the money for plane tickets miraculously showed up. My son amazingly handled the 30 hour jouney quite well.

"Be my wittness, I will send them to you" was the only plan/mission I was given.

Jesus had to be my focus, after all it is He who is the way the truth and life, nothing else.

I guess I should not be surprisd as I am prone to pride that I did not begin some huge earth shattering ministry full of bling, videos, fund raising propaganda and all that jazz, but what God did do was amazing, at least to me.

I went with nothing. I arived, and I was told immediately that I would face many trials, but "I will be with you and will use you"

I cannot recount the endless trials from harassing messages threatning to kidnap my son to body lice, fleas, sickness, bedbugs, blood sugar sickness, hunger, malnutrition, and heart problems... not to mention social stresses and having little money.

We spent days wanderingnthe streets. Street boys would follow us. I wasn't sure what we were doing. We got them a ball and watched them play.

They fought a lot. They were more than a little rough. I saw them steal, lie, and run around without clothes.

In the beginning they would ask me for things. I told them no. We tried to communicate,  they played with Zeru. He did not appreciate the way they picked on him.

We began to recognize the true street boys from the regular boys. It was not always easy to distinguish by looks alone in this country with different social standards.

Day after day we would spend watching the boys play ball. Week after week. Month after month.

We got to know their names, their characters,  their traits: good and bad. We got to know them.

In 5 months they went from physical fights every day to verbal resolution and organizing themselves fairly and peaceably.
They started caring more fir those around them. They started to have respect for each other,  others,  and themselves.

What is amazing is that they became ours, and we became theirs.  They would protect us, get ofended when people treated us as foreigners,  and even fed us when we were hungry. Yes the homeless street boys fed us, and bought us things. We cried when we finally left.

We spent holidays with them and instructed them and most important, 
I was a witness of Jesus, and he sent them to me.

When we left for America we did not leave them, we were not finished, during that time we made a club. There are 2 homes being rented, character changes, love, business start ups, school enrollment.

I love those boys, Club Anbesa. They love us.
I am just a girl with a son who was called to go, and I went. God did all the rest. He still does. Somehow the boys are still growing and meeting. Somehow God provides enough for me to send each month for them to keep their homes, replace poped balls, and stay in school.

Are you called? Pray, trust, obey. It's God's job to donthe real work, it's our job to be there so he can do it. If God used me, he will use you, but not if you don't obey the call.

Thank you for reading a small part of my testimony.

Flight school

Zeru is learning about flying. Aileron ruder elevators and what they do.
Pitch yaw and roll!

Today in school

Today Zeru is working on making sentences out of his flash cards.

Yesterday we tried to count back change... its a lesson in progress!

Also we are working on Rosetta Stone Spanish...

Counting by 5s and 10s for math...

Days off mean more school!

Zeru and I took 2 days off of work which meant major school time!

It was awesome and fun!

It was of course not without plenty of lessons on the history of flight, different air planes, and more lessons on the four forces in flight (Lift, Weight, Drag, and Thrust)

We have been using word flashcards (5-8 each week) and Zeru writes them each day, we read them

together, and we do review throughout the week of both the new and old words.

Here Zeru has been building sentences with his flash cards from previous weeks.

We have added "s" and "ing" so he can form more complex sentences with words he already knows.

We have been practicing reading sentences of words he already knows.

Here he is writing this week's words. ዛፍ is Amharic for "tree" if you were wondering. We try to add one or two Amharic words each week. (And I actually spelled it wrong on his flash card! Oops!)

Before you criticize his terrible handwriting, look again... He is right handed, but for whatever reason (he claims he does not want to get his right hand dirty) he uses his LEFT hand to write on the chalk board! I let him. He seems comfortable doing it, though his penmanship is a bit lacking.

And of course we pulled out our road to reading for some fun! It is really great when he can now read the whole sentence on the "useful words" cards (The other sets have pictures). Here he proudly holds up his card he has just read.

Road signs! Reading is fun.

Here are several of our "road signs" we use and the flash cards we use with them! Print them, cut them, and have fun on your next driving adventure! We use these with our Road to Reading mat! Zeru loves them! We also have more coming soon, such as "useful words" (like "a" "what" etc.) which feature the word in a sentence to be read to the student with the word highlighted which they are to drive to.

Color lessons: FREE DOWNLOADS

Lessons we have used to learn COLOR words. They work, at least for Zeru. I hope they work for you too!

Open, Save and Print these pages and activates to learn COLOR words.

Road signs with flash cards. We use these on our Road to Reading mat, but you can use them anywhere! Place the road sign around and "drive" (or fly, hunt, adventure) to the road sign of the card you select from a pile!

Do this as a team or take turns, or even as a play alone activity.

There are also 3 separate worksheets. Begin with the easiest (color word to color) match worksheet.
From there to the word to color word worksheet, then the word to color worksheet.


Using in combination, your little reader will have color words perfected in no time!

 

 

Learning to fly

Zeru and I have been studying Air Pressure from a lesson I remember from 8th grade. We have discussed this before, but never in relation to an airplane's wing.

We have also begun discussing are density. I used an example of bunnies in a box. The box is a set amount of space and the bunnies are the air molecules.

He also spent the evening building a runway and place with his Lego's!

Counting by 2s and 5s, and using soccer scores, dice, and truck wheels for math problems.

Zeru's newest interest: he wants to learn Spanish 9although he wants to travel to Brazil- which he understands speaks Portuguese- not Spanish)

Dream Big!

We have been so busy with life and learning that there has been little time for much else!

Lately as the Shop business picks up we take time to go play soccer a few times a week.
And of course on the weekends.

Educationally what has been working:

Weekly spelling lists (5 English, 2 Amharic word) practice spelling and reading every week, with
weekly quizzes and reviews.

Zeru has been doing great with this!

Our biggest struggle is boredom! Basic addition and subtraction is no longer worth Zeru's time. He lets me know it with frantic fits! But go and score a goal, and he will quickly announce the score and how many more till he wins! He has addition and subtraction down, he just hates worksheets!

One of our fun new projects is measuring maps. How many inches between locations and what direction to travel. This teaches geography, math, numbers, and direction (NSEW).

I have boldly declared to my dear son whose interest is to become a pilot and fly in Brazil that he has a choice: college or flight school. He made the choice! Big and fun developments coming soon!

More lesson plans to come!

Adventures are fun!

Zeru and I have NEVER gotten our photos taken-
I mean professionally or intentionally.
But I have this wonderful friend who happens to be a
photographer and happened to travel into town for
one day and who happened to have the idea that she would take our photos...
so Zeru is looking a little cuter than usual,
and I am sure I look a lot better than usual
 in these photos also- because Tausha is good at that.

So... I like having fun, and Zeru likes having fun, but sometimes I get so wrapped up in what I am doing, working, and keeping lessons on track that fun seems so far away!

it can be a lot of work to have fun! But I have determined that life is indeed short and I just need to slow down and realize I need to enjoy what I am doing.

like yesterday at the store when I should have grabbed a cart, but of course I did not and Zeru was frantically picking up the yogurts which were falling left and right off the tower of food I had piled in my arms! Do I get frustrated or laugh at how ridiculous I must look?

Innocent by-stander-customers were looking on as I hysterically made fun of my predicament and Zeru quite enjoyed the comical mood.

I want my son to really appreciate a good adventure and realize life is not always easy, we do not always get what we want, but we can have an awe and wonder about the beauty all around us and the love of people in our lives in this fragile time we spend on earth.

Every night we spend 30 minutes up to 2 hours reading from a variety of books (Children's bible, adult bible, Moby Dick -young reader version, Chronicles of Narnia, etc.) And I get to talk with him about so many things!

He loves maps, and discovery, and treasure! So for a lesson I hope to do next week I will make a "treasure map" from our area with familiar landmarks etc. and I will hide a special treasure somewhere. I will teach him (more) about N,S,E,W and how to follow a compass. I will show him how to follow the map. I may add some fun riddles, and some written clues he must practice reading, and of course some math for counting steps or other sorts of things.

Life should be an adventure. I want him to always remember that. but as we know- any good adventurer knows how to be smart, wise, safe, and clever. There always seems to be some unexpected surprises- sometimes good and often bad- on any worthwhile adventure, and almost all good adventure costs more than we think, so we must be prepared to pay the cost and know the worth of what we are after!

In life I think these are the most important values one can learn- and one is never to old to learn them! Know your priorities in life and live first and foremost for those priorities and you will be the most successful person in the world!



Zeru's idea of a silly face involves snapping his fingers.
He learned to snap his fingers nearly a year ago and is now
one of his favorite things to do.

When Zeru grows up....

We have been studying History, Science and Geography quite a bit this past week.

The earth's water cycle, different cloud types, Gas, Solid, Liquid, lightning and thunder, air pressure, and other earth science subjects.

For anyone else out there looking for good educational "stuff" or tools, I have found some (as well as made some!). So far I can say "Useborne" books are AMAZING! Zeru has two of their sticker books which are of course fun, but teach him history! He loves them!

From the book I have done basic reading comprehension lessons, a lesson on time-lines, geography, and also history lessons.

We also found several interesting books from a variety of sources on Archaeology, and Zeru has just gotten a dinosaur book for his Leapfrog Tag reader (The book came with a $4 off coupon!)

So today as I asked him about what he would like to be when he grew up he was pretty convinced what he wanted:

"When I am big and in the army flying my helicopter (he also has stated quite boldly, "I will not kill anyone when I am in the army") I will fly to super secret places no one else knows except me and I will be a paleontologist archaeologist."

We were also fortunate to get a fun "dino-dig kit" brick thing for free from a thrift store, so we had been digging in that as well.

While some days we take a break from math, English, and Amharic, we are always learning something! My hope is that if I begin with the basics NOW, later we can slowly refresh and add more complex ideas to the foundation already laid- that way he does not just learn it all at once in grade 9 and forget it all by age 20 (like me).

Animal road signs

Print and cut for the Road to Reading game! Road signs and flash cards...

Now folks, as you look at my comical flash cards, remember I am NOT an artist! Please feel free to purchase pre-made flash cards from the dollar shops or at www.mrprintables.com download for free! But I did ask Zeru "what is this" each time I drew something to be sure HE at least knew what it was!

It was fun, and they are certainly unique! My mom especially likes the "angry cat" and I was quite fond of my sheep and goat.