Story Time

While I'm out buzzing around in the airplane and turning wrenches, Joy stays very busy here in the home, among other things, she home-schools the kids, prepares meals from scratch, keeps things clean and organized, and all the other things a great wife and mommy does in a third world country. She also enjoys being involved in several local ministries, one of which is "Story Time."

A while back, Joy and a few of the other MAF moms began having a story time every other week. Basically it's a great opportunity for some of our friends and neighbors to bring their children over to "learn" English from the Americans in a non-threatening environment. The group has been steadily growing over the past several months. It's not just an opportunity for them to learn English better, but also for the wives and kids to develop deeper relationships with our Indonesian friends. They have a lot of fun in the process.

Last week for the fun activity, they got to get crazy painting on a sheet in our back yard. Most things in the Indonesian schools here are very regimented--you must use this color, and you must make it look exactly like this, and so on and so forth. So Joy decided they should have the opportunity to get creative and crazy with the paints...no instructions, just go for it! They loved it!

In other news, the twins are into everything right now. This is Tanner. He's extremely mischievous, and can climb anything that doesn't climb him first. His latest trick is to pull his pack-n-play along the wall, until he gets it close to Tyler's crib. Then he arranges his pillow like a step, so that he can pull himself up onto the rim of his pack-n-play. Next, while teetering on the top rim of the pack-n-play, he pulls himself up and over the edge of his brother's crib with sheer arm strength, after which he awards himself by attacking his brother. What fun!

While Tanner is our little "jock," Tyler is all verbal. He's talking circles around Tanner, but not quite as far along in the athletic department. Right now he's in the "I'm a parrot" stage, where anything you say will be repeated back to you with laughs and giggles. He often seems like the underdog in the brotherly skirmishes that inevitably develop at this stage. However, more often than not, we winds out on top through pure determination and stubbornness. O.k., don't worry. It's not like we just let 'em go at it for fun, while taking notes and making psychological evaluations. It's just interesting and amusing to notice how completely different they are. But without a doubt, they are each others' best friends, and a tremendous blessing to our fam!