If you read my Bloom Where Planted post, you know that we’re still here at the training center, which wasn’t our original plan. You’ll also know that we’re trying to make the most of our time here (aka bloom where planted). Things look quite different for each member of our family than they did previously.
Previously Cameron was taking the tech training, then once that finished he was helping with a water project in Mexico, and once he got back he was using his time to do what we call ministry partnership development (previously called deputation) and also other things related to preparing for moving to West Africa.
My main role this whole year has been being a stay at home mom, taking care of the majority of the foster-related things, and homeschooling the 2 kids.
The kids’ main jobs have been having lots of fun playing 🙂 and homeschooling.
Now we each have a very different role than those I just listed.
Cameron:
- Linguistics – Just like the tech course, this is an optional training. Since we are here anyways, waiting for things to get worked out with our foster son’s case, we felt like it just made sense for Cameron to take this training. We’ve never heard anyone say they regretted taking it and many have talked about how it’s helped them when they’re in another country. They study how to break languages down, how they go together, how to make an unwritten language a written one, etc… Cameron’s in class all morning, part of the afternoon and has homework.

- Ministry partnership develovement/Africa prep– Which he’s sitll doing as well. This involves staying in contact with current supporters, corresponding with NTM leadership in West Africa, etc…
Katy:
- Childcare – The training center provides on-campus childcare for the children of the missionaries in training up through pre-school age. This was such a huge blessing when were were both in classes. It was great to know Gracia was in a class right here on campus with kind teachers in a safe environment. Now I’m volunteering in the childcare 3 mornings a week to help out while other students take the training, so far I’m loving the cute little kids and fellowshiping with the other ladies in childcare! 🙂

- Mothering/Foster Stuff – Even though I don’t have the kids for several hours a day (see below), I find there’s still plenty of work to do at home between, cooking, laundry, cleaning, helping with homework, etc…
The kids:
- Public school – Gracia’s in first grade and Little Dude’s in kindergarten. Don’t let their size difference fool you, Gracia’s 9 months older. 🙂 If you’re wondering why we’re not homeschooling anymore, the main reason is that Little Dude is a foster child…which means he must attend public school (before I was just doing pre-school with him, so it was no big deal). We’re so thankful that they’re loving school, and Little Dude even gets to have recess with Big Sis (a little girl we’ve fostered before).
[…] So, at least for this time in my life, I won’t be blogging here at Purposely Frugal anymore. If you want to keep up, I’ll continue to post over at our ministry blog, and in fact a couple of you were asking about an update to what we’re doing now, and I just posted that. […]