A Little Bit Of Loving
Ben’s Birthday Ice Cream Cake
Park Play Time
Dolmus- Public Transportation
Boxed Choo-Choo Trains
Walking In The Heat
Handsome Isn’t He?
Kai Rock Climbing
A Turkish Summer
I remember reading as a kid the book ‘Narnia’ and all about the little boy who falls in love with Turkish Delight. Well, now I know why! After eating just one small square you definitely don’t want to stop! I may have over indulged a few too many times.
We had a great summer in Turkey. For those who don’t know, Ben has been leading a 9 month bible school that YWAM runs in many locations all over the world. It is called the ‘School of Biblical Studies.’ Basically what we do is take students through the whole bible studying each one of the 66 books using the inductive method (which is really just good reading habits like considering the authors intent and how the original readers would have understood what was written). The challenge is that because this school is 9 months long we have to figure out a way for our students to stay with us for 9 months. An easy solution was to be in Ukraine for 90 days, 90 more days in Turkey and then back to Ukraine for the final 90 days. That way we can just have our students receive the regular visas and not need to apply for temporary residency. Why Turkey? Because Turkey has some great archeological sites that date back to the time in the New Testament.
And so our website right now is filled with pictures from this summer in Turkey. It was awesome taking our students through the Old Testament. They just finished Malachi last week and this week begin studying the New Testament with Luke and Acts while they travel to these different archeological sites. We’ve both taught a lot of books this summer and enjoyed the routine of Ben usually going to work in the morning (sometimes I, Angela would go if I was teaching) and then at the end of the day Ben would come home, we’d have dinner and then head to the park with the kids (since it was the only time of day that wasn’t too hot – just 30C or so).
It has been an awesome Turkish summer and we are going to miss the Turkish Delight. But now we are in the Netherlands getting ready to run the 4th Titus Project Europe! 8 participants and 3 outreach locations! It is going to be awesome!
Super Sonic
Right before we came to Turkey, Ben’s Dad came to visit and help the ‘Love Kiev’ team that came from our home church in Canada. He brought Jay a little model of a Concord plane and explained the concept of ‘super sonic.’ Well, Jay has decided that everything that goes fast is ‘Super Sonic’ and I think that is a great description of our little Jay! He is Super Sonic! He even decided that he wanted to swim without any arm floaties and wasn’t at all afraid of having his head go under water! He is our brave, super Sonic Jay!
Cassie’s First Children’s Book
Cassie’s Projects
Cassie is growing up and loves to have a project or a craft to do. With our very limited amount of craft supplies while we have been in Turkey, we have needed to get creative. Thankfully I brought our little travel sewing kit, and with a piece of material we found and some cotton pads, Cassie sewed her very first pillow! She also learned to weave with paper and colour with pastels a bit. We’ve made paper airplanes, paper mache, our own children’s books (see video page), cardboard box trains and many other things. It has been a fun summer in Turkey that is for sure!
First Words
Kai is in the fun stage of beginning to copy sounds and have his own words for things. He does sign language for food items like more, please, eat, drink etc. His first word was definitely ‘Dada’ and he knows exactly who it refers to, but his second word that he just started saying a few weeks ago is ‘Eeya.’ What does that mean you ask? Well, his favourite stuffed animal that he sleeps with every nap and night…Eeyore. He loves to squeeze ‘Eeya’ and snuggle the donkey that is pretty much the same size as he is.
X SBS Audio Lectures
Aug 27 – Angela, Joshua
OT Oral Test Example, Nehemiah, Malachi A, Malachi B
Aug 20 – Derrick, Saana
Haggai, Zechariah A, Zechariah B, Zechariah C
Aug 13 – Angela, Vicka
Aug 10 – Students Chronicles Sermons
Thelma, Pete, Maria, Sasha, Yulia, Paul
Aug 7 – Ben D
Aug 5 – Sandrine F
July 30 – Joshua W
July 23 – Angela D
Ezekiel A, Ezekiel B, Ezekiel C, Ezekiel D
July 16 – Tim H
Jeremiah A, Jeremiah B, Jeremiah C and Julia
July 12 – Ben D
July 10 – Saana K
July 8 – Vicka N
July 1 – Sandrine F
July 1 – Josh W
The Right Kind of Happiness
This is a super interesting article from the Economist blog concerning what kind of happiness brings health. The premise of the experiment was what kind of pleasure brings health, is it basically selfish pleasure or selfless (giving to others) pleasure. Past experiements show that both bring roughly equal happiness to a person. And we know happiness generally affects ones health. So do both types of happiness generate the same health benefits?
Here is a simple quote,
“Dr Fredrickson, an expert on positive emotions, has long known that happiness benefits health and leads to longer lives. Similarly, she knows that both hedonic [for self] and eudaimonic [for others] pleasures generate feelings that people describe as “happiness”. A simple syllogism, therefore, suggests happiness does indeed bring health and longevity. But, because of the overlap between the happiness-generating properties of both hedonic and eudaimonic pleasures, she had until she conducted this study found it impossible to determine whether both are able improve physical health and longevity, or whether only one of them can.”
Psychosomatic medicine_ The right kind of happy _ The Economist
Date Night
Rocks on the Beach
Hats Off To You
Chewing Rocks
Teaching Adventures 