Off to the High School retreat

It's quite a sight when these big coach buses pull into the school driveway. This morning 6 of them left for the retreat with 290 students and staff. It's always a great weekend for everyone involved, even though they all come home completely exhausted. Happy...but exhausted!
Here's the Principal, Vice-Principal, Director and Bookkeeper waving the kids goodbye.
Buses like these are also what is used to transport our kids to and from school. When our girls first saw school buses in Canada after having ridden these amazing Mercedes coaches to and from school for a few years, they said, "Look at those cute little yellow buses"! We all laughed and still enjoy that joke when we're back in Canada.
After sending off the High School kids, I went up to the library to open up for the Middle School kids who literally had the "run" of the school today! They were playing "Clue" and here they are trying to convince the grouchy librarian to give them an answer. This game went on for 2 hours and by the time the last groups were returning for their 7th and 8th tries, it was beginning to smell like a sweat shop in there! I was happy to close the library down at noon and breathe some clean air outside.

Lots of patient(?) waiting...

Bethany's turn

Today was Bethany's day to play at the festival. She was nervous, but did well. Festivals are run a little differently than when I was a piano student. Here at BFA, each student plays their own piece or pieces, and then the adjudicator actually talks to them personally and gives them ideas of how to improve what they have just played. Then the student is asked to try what was just suggested. I can only imagine that this could be a bit daunting, what with the other pianists watching, as well as the piano teachers and whoever else is in attendance.
Bethany's still smiling! This is her piano teacher, Suzanne.

Katy's great day

Every birthday starts out in our room, on our bed, for the gift opening. I'm not sure when we started this tradition but it has stuck. It is about 7:10 a.m. here!
Katy did well this year! I even crocheted her the baby blanket I neglected to make her when she was a baby. She was very pleased with that!
Off to school. Bethany had made and put up posters all over the school for Katy's birthday. Rachel is a new student this year who has the same birthday as Katy. And, the newest member of our BFA community was born at midnight last night so we believe she is a Feb 26 baby too.

This one was made by Katy's friend Mallory.
These are the birthday twins.
I managed to get the cake decorated and supper made for 5 of Katy's friends. Aren't those great candles?!? It was a very busy day with all the party preparations and playing at the festival too.
Tasha, Mallory, Amanda
You know Deborah!
Morgan
Katy was swamped today with cards and hugs, gifts, flowers and good wishes. It was an amazingly special day for her. No wonder she looks so happy!
One fell swoop and all those candles were out. What a great day for our 16 year old.

Happy 16th Katy!

Today our baby is 16! This is what she looked like exactly 16 years ago. Probably most of you don't know this, but she was due on February 29. Fortunately she came early, otherwise this year she would only be celebrating birthday # 4!

Glorious weather

Yesterday we enjoyed our first BBQ of the season. The weather the past few days has been amazing so it was time to "eat out". Bethany was at a dorm for lunch and the afternoon so she missed out on this lovely time! Katy has almost outgrown her favourite chair!

Music Festival

Tomorrow I will be accompanying these three young women as they play at the music festival. I have enjoyed working with them so much. They are all from the dorm we sub at so it's been great getting to know them better. This is Sanna (pronounced 'Shawna') and the musicians below are Rachelle and Jackie.

Candlelight Dinner - Last time, I promise!

Here is Katy with her friend Amanda. They were servers for the evening. All the students who are helping are dressed in a Victorian theme, thus the cute little headgear here! Katy and Amanda's first job was to serve sparkling grape juice and welcome everyone coming in, during the meal they checked their assigned tables every 10 minutes to make sure there were enough drinks, then they collected plates after the meal and served coffee. Katy was bushed at the end of the evening (11:00) as she was sick with a head cold and had missed two days of school this week.This is just one small portion of the sets in the cafeteria, which were absolutely amazing. These two had the job of "courting"!
Bethany being angry.
We had a super time last night with our guests. They are such warm and enthusiastic people. Herr Kohllhoff is a retired Lutheran pastor yet as a couple they still spend lots of time caring for people in the community here, being active in the Luthern church, singing in the choir and enjoying their children and grandchildren. He is actually mentoring the pastor in training for this area as well. Two of their grandchildren are twins, born on my birthday! Pretty cool, we thought. Herr Kohllhoff told us several interesting stories about life for his family after the war. He was in his early teens at the time. Years ago I saw him on the street and thought, "He looks like Sean Connery!". What do you think?

Birthday time in the dorm (again!)

We have been to a lot of birthday parties in the dorm this year! They seem to celebrate them on Thursdays now. Anyway, every birthday girl gets to pick their favourite dessert since the meal comes from the central kitchen and they have no choice there. Here is the dessert of the evening, arriving in the dumbwaiter from the kitchen downstairs - chocolate swirl cheesecake!A tradition was started several years ago which leaves the birthday girl with Nutella kisses and a nice glob on the nose for good measure. I was not on the ball to get this action-filled event on camera, but you can see the outcome. Sonia is enjoying cleaning up after the frivolity! She is an MK from Central Asia. She came last year speaking basically no English and is now doing extremely well with her THIRD language!
Birthday blessings are written for the birthday girl by the other girls in the dorm, and then a few of them are read.
Then it's time to dig in to that special dessert!
The seniors write a song for the birthday girl using the tune from a popular song as a starting point.
Time to relax and read the comics after supper. This might not look like a big deal to you, but these comics are either sent to the dorms or brought by people traveling to BFA from North America. Kaitlyn's family is in Poland.
Joy is the third member of her family at BFA. Her parents reach out to Muslims.
Naomi is a long-time BFA student. Her family is in Bosnia
Here's Anna again (her family is in Moscow) with Ellen who was born and whose parents still live in Germany. She told us last night that she's not a typical MK because she was born in a hospital in Hamburg that was about 1 mile from her home which she lived in until she came to BFA two and a half years ago. She has no multiple moves in her history. She also said that she considered herself German until coming here. Although she added that when she goes home at breaks, she tells her friends she's going home to Germany (in other words, she's leaving North America behind at BFA!).

Candlelight Dinner "Open" Dress Rehearsal

As happens every year, the Wednesday night dress rehearsal for the Candlelight Dinner was again open for all who wanted a good idea of what would be happening on the weekend. There are about 8 or 9 acts and some of them, like the one in the pictures below, are amazing. We have a good population of Koren students and it's thrilling to me to see them highlighted in this way. This dance was absolutely beautiful. I wish you could all come tonight to see it!

Katy's picture

Katy painted this picture a few weeks ago. We think it's amazing.

Candlelight Dinner

Next weekend is BFA's annual outreach dinner. It is a huge event held over two evenings - Friday and Saturday, and takes months and months of preparation. The point of the evening is to invite Germany friends and neighbours for an evening of fun and entertainment, as well as a presentation of the Gospel. This is a highly anticipated event in this community, and both evenings are always completely booked. The theme this year is "time" and that theme will be woven throughout the evening by a story about a time machine, and ultimately the whole aspect of "what are you doing with your time?" will be personalized.
Each stop that is made in the time machine is represented by an act from that time period. Bethany is in the "Les Mis" act you can see below. They are working very hard to look angry and intense! Katy will be serving both evenings for the dinner. Howard and I will take guests on Friday evening and will be serving on Saturday. Please pray for these evenings - for the German guests for an openness to the Gospel, and for all the performers, servers, cooks and hosts.