School Opening: A New Twist
First of all, I wanted to remind everyone of a very important blog series that we are about to start. In the next couple of weeks, you will begin to see blog posts about each of our children. We are hoping to use these blog posts to give each of our sponsors and supporters a “personal” introduction to our children. We still want everyone to come down and meet them, but this is a way for you to get to know the kids even if you have never been down. With that said, we still want to finish our “starting school” blog series, so here it goes…
As many of you know, school started for the majority of our children on September 7. This is the first year that school has started on time since we have been coming down, and we were very excited. You also may remember that 7 of our children (Kervinson, Tony, Apolon, Gueline, Misthafa, Chinaider, and Franklin) did not start school on that day. In fact, their school initially came to us and told us that they would start school on October 5 because they were not yet finished with construction. When we told them that we would have to find a new school and send our kids there, they quickly changed their tune and said they could be ready by September 14. (As an aside, the reason they changed their tune was because the schools in this area really like it when Americans are sending kids to their school) Anyway, this date was acceptable, and we really liked this school for these children, so we agreed and we paid tuition and got uniforms made for all 7 of the children. We were very excited for these 7 children because they are so far behind in school, and this is the first year that we have seen them really excited about school and it is the first year we have been excited about the school we are sending them to. They have worked with us to get our kids in the right grade regardless of their age, and we think that it will help these kids to progress in their studies.
Well, I should say we were happy until we drove up to check on the school 4 days ago, and everything kind of fell apart. They told us that there was no way that the school would be ready by September 14 and that they were pushing the start date back to October 5. At this point, we had already had 3 uniforms made, purchased all of their books, and paid tuition. At the same time, however, Jess and I will be going back to the states soon for our adoption and we need our children to be in their school routine prior to us leaving or they will never get in the routine we want for them. So, I scheduled a meeting at the school to see what I could do to get our kids started earlier. In the end, we decided that our kids (all 7 of them) could start school on September 14 as was agreed upon while the rest of the kids at the school would start on October 5. This was not ideal, but it does give our kids a chance to get into the school routine and to start school almost at the same time as everyone else. They could not really afford to miss a whole month of school, and we are so glad that we pushed to ensure they would start their school on time. This will also help them get used to their new school, new teachers, and a new environment with only 7 children going for the first couple of weeks.
While this was happening on Wednesday, we started to hear rumors that Christianville school would be closed for 2 days for a revival. Initially I just kind of shrugged these off as rumors until, on Wednesday evening, every single one of our kids told us the same thing…There would be no school. So I drove up to Christianville the next day to talk to some of our friends to find out what was happening. Sure enough, after 3 whole days of school, our kids got a 4 day weekend because there was a big conference going on for all “Christianville associated churches” and many of the attendees would be sleeping in the classrooms. The point of this blog…
You just never know what is going to happen.
In all honesty, we are still very excited about the new school for our 7 older children and we are still hopeful that our kids at Christianville are going to have their best year yet. But you just never know how things are going to happen here in regards to school (or anything else for that matter). Who could have thought that those 7 kids going to the new school would be the only 7 students in attendance for 3 whole weeks? Who could have known that Christianville School was going to start on time for the first time since we have been here just to close down for 2 days almost immediately? Who could have known that after the first week of school, the only books our Christianville kids are missing are the ones that we purchased in the office of Christianville school? Who could have known that we would be starting the week of September 14, and by Tuesday every single child will be attending school? For all of the things that are going on, we just continue to pray that our kids will do well and advance in their studies. They have an opportunity that very very few children have in Haiti. They have the opportunity to go to school, come home to a loving environment, and have help on their homework every single day. I cannot even imagine that 5% of the children in Haiti have this opportunity, but our kids do. Pray with me that they take advantage of it and that they try their best to do well.