School Term 1 /Achieved April 11 – 18, 2008

April 11 – 18, 2008
We flew back to Pickertaramoor on Friday morning the 11th. The flight was a bit bumpy because of strong easterly winds and very hot ground weather. It was good to be back. We learned when we returned that our new Family Group Home was ready to move into. We were off to work within minutes of our arrival. It was a hard 3 days of moving and assembling stuff. First the house needed to be cleaned from the construction dust, etc... We were thankful for some hard working staff that offered to help with this. We needed to move all kinds of stuff including, 2 refrigerator’s, 2 freezers 13 beds, 12 of which needed to be assembled. Everything was brand new for the house. The kitchen tools and small appliances are top of the line and virtually everything we will ever need. We are very impressed! Someone mentioned to us that it must be like getting married all over again with everything new for the house. The house and everything in it is beautiful and we are very thankful for such fine facilities in which to keep the boys.
The first day of the school term started on Tuesday. The roads are in much better shape now being the dry season is here so we went to pick up the students via road. I went to a community called Milikapati which is in an area known as Snake Bay on the North side of the island about 1 hour and 20 minutes away. The trip back to the school was uneventful and the students enjoyed listening to some music I brought along.
The boys did well overall the first week in the new house. We had an orientation with them the first day and laid down the house rules, etc… Discipline and structure is for the most part foreign to these boys so at times they were a bit slow to follow through. We gently led and encouraged them and they for the most part followed through with what needed to be done. We began to build relationships with each one which is very important with the focus of making them feel loved. We are teaching and training them and are working to develop a culture in the house which will take some time. The capacity of our house is 12 boys. We started out with 7 boys this week. Some did not come because of a funeral in the community. The Tiwi people are very respectful when it comes to these kinds of things. Over the course of the week we lost another boy who went to the funeral, one was suspended for refusing to participate in school and yet another hurt his foot during PE and needed to go home for the week. We finished the week with 4 boys. The encouraging thing about the week is we had no rock throwing or fighting among the boys which is a breakthrough. They seem very comfortable in their new home. We expect to have more boys in the house next week.
We continue to enjoy our new surroundings. We love the wildlife which includes wallabies (a smaller version of kangaroo, some call them Kangaroo want-to-be’s), wild horses, and many varieties of parrots. We also have seen a couple of Dingo’s around as we have driven the roads. We know there are plenty around the campus at night.
We’ve enjoyed our time with other staff on campus. We got together and played Yatzee one night this weekend and another night watched a DVD concert with some others by Randy Stonehill and Phil Keaggy. That definitely gives away our age! We still like it loud!!!