Heading to India

For those of you that don't know, on Wednesday I'm flying to India for two weeks. Win Our Nations has a Florida based team heading there to visit the WON Orphanage and Bible School. It's going to be pretty amazing, my parents are leading the team so I will get to hang out with them (which doesn't happen very often). A close friend that visited us for a month last year is also on the team. So it is going to be totally awesome!! Can you tell I'm excited?! I have never been away from all my kids for that long before, in fact Jordan's current separation time is just one night... so that is going to be hard. I am also really going to miss Jake.... I fly on our on our 14th anniversary.  But I am excited about flying by myself, who knows I might actually get to watch a whole movie, read a book, finish a sudoko puzzle, have a meaningful conversation with my neighbor (something I haven't done since having kids). I also have a six hour layover in Johannesburg. I told Jake last week that I could be eating a Big Mac in less then 7 days!!.  It will be nice to experience a little bit of "development" (and by this I mean meandering around Duty Free trying out free perfume samples and thumbing through magazine at the kiosks) even if just for a few hours. 

But most of all I am looking forward to experiencing India; the smells, sights, and tastes. I'm excited about meeting the WON staff that I have heard so much about, and communicated with only through emails. I look forward to hugging Praveen, an orphan that we have sponsored for the past seven years (plus the other 40+ children). I hope to observe how they are running the Children's Home and see if we can't improve on how things are running here. WON India bought land a few years back and is already building on it: they have a coconut farm plus a Water Buffalo venture. It will be great to see where WON Cameroon could be in a few years time too. 

I am very grateful that Geri, the itinerant teacher with our home schooling co-op, will be teaching the boys school for the two weeks I'm gone. I won't feel like I have to catch up on anything when I get back. It is also a nice change for the boys.

I know Jake is going to do awesome while I'm gone. I'm sure the kids won't even miss me as they'll probably be able to play Wii without time limits, throw footballs in the house, eat as much chocolate on their bread as they like, and in general, have an awesome time with their Dad. While the cat's away.... :D

Scams and Scammers

Over the last few months it has become obvious that someone is using Helping Hands Children's Home's name as a way to scam people out of their hard earned money. In July we started getting emails and messages from people in the States who had seen advertisements in Craig's List about a child that was up for adoption at our orphanage (who advertises for adoption on Craig's List?!). Since that time we have had a constant supply of emails, people desperate to find out if it was legit. Basically these scammers were saying that they could adopt a child through us, the contact name being Father Christopher. They are told to Western Union $500 to start the process, then another $3,900 after that to cover all the costs. You would not believe how many people have already given the down payment, and some even the final payment. And what is crazy is that the pictures the scammners are sending are of white kids... I'm not quite sure how people fall for this. If anyone did a second of research on Cameroon they would know it is pretty much impossible for a foreigner to adopt unless they are actually living in country and willing to give up months if not years to the process. But scamming is on the rise in West Africa (all those Nigerian princesses!). We've know quite a few people who have had some pretty crazy stings happen to them. 

It got really bad when we realized that these con men had copied our exact website, except for the mailing address and the donate button (it went to their own money website). Thankfully my internet-savvy-brother was able to get that shut down in a few hours but, at the end of the day, they could just make another one again. Their email address is helpinghandchildrenhome@gmail.com.... frustrating! Jake has emailed them a few times but to no great success. We have contacted the American Embassy to let them know too. Our biggest concern is that someone will think that we are the scammers and assume that there really is no orphanage. 

For a few nights I was furious: how could someone be so base to scam vulnerable people wanting to adopt children in need (and using our name to do it!)? But I've let it go now. It is only by the saving grace of Jesus and His mercies, that I am not in the same pit.  For now, we just cast our cares on the Lord and pray that these people will come into His marvelous light.

So, if there is anyone out there that has been contacted by these people, DO NOT SEND THEM MONEY. Helping Hands Children's Home DOES NOT adopt out children. Cameroon, in general, does not allow children to be adopted out of country. 

More Schooling Stuff

This year, all but one of the kids at the orphanage headed to school. School in Cameroon is not compulsory or free. Students are responsible for providing uniforms, dress uniforms, sports wear, black shoes, white socks, pens, pencils, exercise books, and text books (plus, if they are taking a special exam they have to pay for that too). It can all really add up, most families can't afford to send all their kids to school, and rarely do children have all the textbooks that they need. The government schools are the cheapest so they are packed full, classes often have over 80 children with only one teacher (can you imagine teaching 80 five-year-olds!). Needless to say, the standards are pretty low. For that reason we send all our primary age children to a private school (it only has 30 to 50 pupils to a class) so that they can get a good foundation before heading to a government secondary school (equivalent of middle school). Now when you hear private school, don't think American private school, it still has a lot of room for improvement but they are better than most schools around. We are thankful for the three Helping Hands Car Washes in town whose income allows us to send the children to a better school. The last week of August was crazy busy making sure that all 29 children had everything they needed. I let out a great sigh of relief once they were all off to school!

Gamboh excited about seeing all her friends at school again (Nursery 2)

Blessed's first day of school (Nursery 1)! He is just too adorable stomping off to school each morning in his little uniform. It is amazing to see how much he has improved in the last year. He was so weak and malnourished when he came just over a year ago. He is now on meds for the HIV in his body and is strong and healthy. Such a cutey!

I'm just so proud of these seven children (Nestor, Joel, Ocilia, Mirander, Kari, Tahirih, and Francis). They started Secondary School this year. They have come so far in the last four years. Most of them could barely speak a word of English let a lone read and write when they came to HHCH. 

We've completed week three of homeschooling (33 left!). It has just been going so well, I am really thrilled, I have a lot of peace in my heart about it. Last year was not easy being six months in the States, for most of which we were on the road. I am grateful that our kids got to see so much of the States plus tons of national parks and museums but once I got back to Cameroon it was all work and no play.  So far this school year we have managed to finished by Thursday afternoon and then have fun on Fridays. Seth is studying about the Eastern hemisphere in history this year. Each week he focuses on a different region and then has to do a special project about it. The first week it was on the Pacific Island and he had to cook a meal from there. He went with a Hawaiian chicken-pineapple recipe and tropical fruit smoothies that were pretty yummy.

Our Hawaiian night!

 He had fun making the leis too. 

Delicious

Josh made us up a special menu

Last week Seth was focusing on Australia. He had to draw an Aboriginal piece of art which I decided to make into everybody's art project for the week. After studying different pieces on the web, we had a go at it, it was a lot of fun. 

Seth went with a Kangaroo

Josh's duckbill platypus (he's such a perfectionist, he still hasn't finished it!)

Jude painted a lizard

For Jordan I traced out a snake and she painted it, not bad for a three-year-old!

Seth's finished masterpiece

Jude's is pretty cute

And I had to try my hand at it too, pretty fun. 

Home schooling and other things...

We're into our third week of homeschool, and so far so good! I must admit I was a bit nervous about how to schedule all the boys in during the morning now that Jude is in Kindergarten. Seth has matured a lot over the summer and he is much more independent now (it's amazing the difference between 4th and 5th grade!). So the mornings have been going better than I expected. 

Here is how a typical school morning goes chez Schilinskis: We start at 8am, Josh and Seth start on devotions and then Math and LA (which they can do by themselves). I begin devos with Jude and then get all his reading out of the way (science, history, read-alouds, poems). Then Jude starts on his workbooks and he is all done by break at 10:30. After a quick snack (and a cup of tea for me of course), I start reading with Josh (history and read-alouds) and then do the same with Seth. We are usually done right at 1pm and if the boys have any workbooks to finish, they do that after lunch. They are also doing Typing Instructor and  the French Rosetta Stone on alternate days. Fridays are our fun days with art, music, and sports. I'm seriously going to try and get them to the pool (which is a at hotel in town) once a month so they can keep improving on that (especially Jude who still isn't swimming independently yet).

Here's the curriculum we use for those home schooling mums who are interested; Saxon for Math, Sonlight for history, Abeka for LA and spelling, and I've started using Apologia for Science this year with Josh, which I am loving (and Josh too!). Then they have some work books as well: Wordly Wise, Map skills, MP Phonics. I am absolutely ecstatic about being back into a schedule with the kids, it just makes the whole household run much smoother (I've even been running/exercising more consistently). I even got to spend a couple of hours in the garden this week. My poor garden has been severely neglected the last two month and for any of you that know me, it is one of my favorite pastimes.  I feel like I am back to the garden I had when we first moved into the house (ok, maybe it's not that bad) but I have a lot of weeding and pruning to do. 

As some of you may remember, we always kick of the home schooling year at Sonlight Christian Academy (the missionary co-op we're a part of). It is two weeks of devotions, classes, sports, art, etc. with about 10 other missionary families.  The kids had an awesome fortnight and so did I as I got to hang out with good friends that I don't get to see too often. I had a lot of fun teaching the Kindgarten class Math and LA (only two students), as well as helping out with sports; Presidential fitness testing and american football (I was a big help with that one). The theme this session was Scotland. An American family who is very "into" Scotland taught the kids about the country. Their son played the bagpipes which was pretty impressive. All in all it was a blessed two weeks to start the school year off with. 

Jude's first day of school! 

Josh looking very Scottish (he is 1/8 Scot after all)

Jude and his buddy in math class

Fitness testing

Crazy Hair Day

Another crazy hair day

A lesson on a famous Scottish battle (against the English of course!)

Art class

My close friend (missionary in the East) came over so we could make a cake for her son's birthday (she helped me with Jude's earlier this year)

We went with a Scottish theme, came out so awesome 

So happy that Jordan had another little girl in preschool this time, they were inseperable

All of the home schooling mums; a group of amazing women and a great source of encouragement to me

Some of the delicious food from our "Mother's Tea" (of course scones were on the menu!)