Back to School

Summer has ended and we are back to school. We started school August 27th but we had a 5 day weekend because of Family Camp, so we will go back tomorrow after a long break. Once again we had a frantic race to get everything ready the last few days before the big day, but we managed to get everything done. The first week of testing and chaos is over and we are settling into the normal routine. I am finding that this year is going more smoothly than the beginning of last year, now that I know how everything works and what to expect from the kids. We both have pretty good classes, and are excited to see what this year brings for the students and for ourselves. It is great to see the kids so excited about the beginnning of school and to hear their goals that they have set for themselves. Hopefully as the year progresses they will be able to achieve and even surpass those goals.



Family camp was fun this weekend. It was a nice retreat from normal everyday life, and the speaker had some powerful messages about the dynamics of families. They were great for everyone to hear, but I think he especially got through to some of our kids who have been so broken by their families. We are constantly being reminded of the backgrounds of our students, but I don't think we can ever be reminded enough. In the midst of a difficult situation with a student, it is sometimes hard to remember that they didn't have the life that I had growing up, and that there are circumstances beyond their control which have affected their lives in a negative way. Not that we are to dismiss their behaviors and put the blame on others. We must teach them to move past these circumstances and to put God in control of their lives instead of their dysfunctional lives.

Fishing Adventures

John and I are not really fishermen. We occasionally tried to fish while living in Indiana, but never really had much luck. This summer, John was determined to get out and fish at camp, especially after spending the money to buy a fishing license. He finally had the opportunity to go out on the boat with Bob, the master fisherman, one of the last weeks of camp this summer. Bob taught John how to fish for salmon on Lake Mary Ronan, and showed him where to go. That day he caught 3 salmon and a 16" rainbow trout. He was pretty proud of his first real fishing trip.

So after having success the first day, he decided to take me back up to camp and try again. We went out with one of the housedads from the ranch and must have just hit the right place at the right time, because we caught 18 salmon between the 3 of us in only 2 hours. We could have continued catching them, but we had to go in to check the fishing regulations to be sure we weren't going over the daily limit. By the time we got back out, the fish weren't even biting anymore. We fried up the salmon and dozens of perch that the kids and the housedad had caught and had a great dinner.

Spring in Montana

Travelpod has not worked out as well as we had hoped, so we are going to try this to keep you all updated on our lives. We haven't been doing a good job of keeping in touch and letting everyone know what is going on, so hopefully this will help with that.

Lately, we have been incredibly busy with end of the school year work, but spring has been wonderful. We have enjoyed the warm weather and the chance to be outside finally. We have been riding our bikes again, which we had missed so much over the winter. We went on a hike to a waterfall in the mountains with one of the groups that was here a few weeks ago. We are looking forward to the summer when we will have work teams coming on a regular basis. I am excited to meet new people who support our work from all over the country.

School ends in just 2 weeks. I (Heather) am going to be teaching summer school for most of June, while John works with the work teams. In July, we will be going to camp to help out there, and then in August we will be able to relax finally.

We have been doing well. We enjoy what we are doing. Sometimes we get frustrated with the little things, and we see kids who are making the same mistakes over and over again. It is hard to see repeated failures, but when we put it in perspective we are better able to understand. When we come to God he doesn't make us perfect overnight. We have to go through a painful process of change that really continues throughout our lives as Satan is constantly attacking us. We cannot expect the kids to instantly be changed, especially when we consider their backgrounds. We have to see them as Christ sees them, and be patient with them as they try to change a lifetime of wrong choices, made by them and many times by their parents as well. We have to show them love, not the frustration we often feel. Christ loves them even in their imperfection and we must do the same.