First Day of School!!!

I cannot believe it's already time for this!!! Yesterday was the first day of school, and it was awesome. Since last school year ended, we have been planning to start school in the new building. It was only last week when we realized that wasn't going to happen, so we had to adjust QUICKLY. The teachers and staff have done an AWESOME job of being flexible and working in these temporary conditions! Here are a few pics from yesterday... (sorry for the random order- blogger is not cooperating at the moment)

The Ecuadorian government provided a pre-school teacher for us this year, Ms. Norma, and she is wonderful. She attended all of our in-staff training, and she's totally on board with what we're teaching. She is so great with the little ones! She has Pre-K 3 & Pre-K 4 in the mornings, and some of our staff will help her as well.
Jonathan went to chapel for his first time. He couldn't stop pointing and grunting, because he was so excited to be with the big kids. Every Monday we will pledge to the Ecuadorian flag as well.

I realized I haven't blogged on our newest kids! There is one sibling set of 4... Gabriela is the oldest. She's in the red shirt...only half of her face is showing. oops. Jimy is beside her in the white, and Ariel is in front of him.

Kevin (2nd from the left) is their youngest brother.

If I would have known this was going to happen, I DEFINITELY would have been ready with my video camera! Megan & Dallas accompanied Edy, Ivan, & Javier with some amazing beatboxing. (Side note...I just had to look up how to spell that word...my whole life I thought it was BEEboxing.) Wow...

Nayely & Rosa are both in the Pre-K 4 class. They weren't too sure what to think of everything.

HA! This is Alejandro's famous facial expression. He maintained this look (crease your eyebrows really hard together) for the entire time at chapel.

I just LOVE this picture of Coco! If you look at his hands, you can see that two of his fingers (they're webbed) are crossed through one slot.... SO CUTE. Also...this picture is very deceiving, because he was never sitting in that chair for longer than 20 seconds at a time.

God is amazing. Look at the picture of our school staff this year!!!! Left to right...Ingan (ESL & Tutoring), Ms. Norma (Pre-K), Miss Megan (1st-3rd), Miss Dallas (Kinder), Miss Alison (4th-7th), Miss Aleta (P.E./tutoring), Mr. Omer (Director of Education), Miss Bethany (Art/tutoring), Miss Amanda hiding in the back (P.E./Pre-school/Tutoring), Mrs. Mary Jane (nursing), Mrs. Desi (music), Mr. Beto (Lenguaje & Ecuadorian Social Studies). Isn't that incredible!!! Missing from the picture....Mike Waskosky (Bible) and Ashley Van Conant (Nurse). To stand back and look at this picture is just...I don't even have words. God has grown this place, and it is so humbling to be a part of it all. I think we had 5 or 6 people for school staff last year. What a difference in one year!