Teacher Appreciation

May 30th, 2012

On May 17th, the day we celebrated flag day, we also celebrated our teachers for Teacher Appreciation Day.  In my, humble, opinion Adoration Christian School is a great school.  You don’t have a great school unless you have a strong, committed, energetic, educated, capable team behind the school.  We, at Adoration, have all of those things.  We have a great teaching staff who wants to make an impact on their students and on their community.

Thank you Rachelle, Node, Ketia, Annelle, Wislande, Carline, Roodvens, Reminais, Abner, Evenz, Magdalyne, Ketie, and Alix for all of your work that you do for Adoration Christian School.  We know that your job is challenging and frustrating but we thank you for all the time, energy, prayers, sweat and tears that you invest into your students each and every day again.  Thank you for being a blessing to Adoration. 
Alix, school director, giving a short appreciation speech

 

Some of the ladies enjoying their lunch and cake
Node, Magdalyne, Carline, Rachelle

Flag Day Parade

May 24th, 2012

As promised, here is the link to some footage of Adoration’s Flag Day Parade.  Enjoy!

Fête du Drapeau

May 18th, 2012

Tomorrow, May 18th, is Flag Day.  Flag Day is a national holiday here in Haiti.  Below are some quick facts on the Haitian flag.

  • First Haitian Flag was adopted on May 18, 1803
  • Revolutionary leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines created the flag by ripping out the white in a French flag
  • The blue represents vigilance, loyalty, perseverance and justice, and the union of black Haitians and mulatto Haitians
  • The red symbolizes hardiness, bravery, strength and valour
  • The coat of arms in the middle of the flag consists of a trophy of weapons ready to defend freedom
  • The coat of arms also has a royal palm that symbolizes independence.  The palm is topped by the Cap of Liberty
  • On the white scroll on the flag is the nations motto; it reads L’Union Fait La Force (“Unity Makes Strength”)
  
At school today we celebrated flag day with the students.  The older classes started of the morning with some trivia about the flag.  Grade 3 & 4 were very evenly matched!  There was lot’s of cheering and yelling going on down there as the classes displayed their intelligence.

 

And around 10 we started our parade!  This is the first year we have done a parade in the community and judging by how much the students enjoyed it, I don’t think it will be our last.  Roodvens (Grade 3 teacher) has been preparing the students for the parade for a couple of weeks.  Throughout the last couple of weeks during recreation as well as Phys ed you could hear and see the students learning the chants,  songs and routines that go along with the flag day celebrations.  This morning the school headed around the block and down the hill waving their haitian flags and proudly singing about their flag, their independence, their country.  Hopefully we’ll have a short video for you next week showing you their fine performance but for now pictures will have to do.
Practicing before we left the school yard

 

Marching out into the community

 

Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right

 

Roodvens, proudly leading the parade

 

L’Union Fait La Force!

 

A Prayer for Our Students

May 15th, 2012

Father of all mercies
We ask that you would bless
the youngest and littlest of learners,
the most helpless and powerless of persons,
with Your infinite and loving mercy,
granting them the strength to learn, concentrate,
and act in love towards
their teachers and fellow students.
We also ask that You would watch over them,
at home and at school
and give them proper direction
so that they may learn
of Your wonderful virtues.
We ask this in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen

David Bennett


Home Building Project

May 11th, 2012

A few weeks ago we posted about the Building Committee going out into the community and assessing families for a Building Project that we were hoping to start.  Well the project has been started!  We have received funding to build 50 homes for people in the Adoration community.  This project is exciting, stressful, and needed.

 

The building committee, which consists of Abner, Reminais, Evenz, Asselhomme, Alix, Cadeau, Pastor Octavius, Cornelius and Randy, has been working for weeks already finalizing the list of beneficiaries, making the budget, looking at land titles, finding foreman, signing contracts, preparing the supplies list, and the list could go on and on. 

 

But today was the first day of being out on the field with the beneficiaries digging in the dirt to start the foundation.

 

This project is a rehabilitation project to build houses for people currently living in tent cities or other unsustainable interim housing because their houses were destroyed by the 2010 earthquake.  Each beneficiary of the project will be required to participate in a repayment plan where they will pay back a small percentage of the house in the next 5 years.  They are also responsible for working alongside the construction crews with the building of their house, putting their own sweat and tears into their new home.

 

And the outcome of this project will be families will have safe, dry and warm housing.  Families are included in the project and will have a sense of ownership over their house as they help with the building process, as well as, financially contribute to it.  They will be loved and shown value through the project.  And the committee will bring the families and their new homes before the Lord in prayer, asking that He would be the Rock on which the home is built.

 

Please join us in lifting up this project before the Lord.  There are a lot of obstacles standing in front of the committee and a lot of things that still need to be figured out.  Pray for wisdom, strength and perseverance for those hot sweaty days when the block truck loses his breaks and can’t make it to the house, those days when the shovels go missing because the little children around the corner stole them, those days when the supplies can’t get to the job site because there is no phone service and they can’t find the supervisor, those days when you just don’t know if the headache is worth it.  Please pray.

Haïtî, Couleur, Creole

May 7th, 2012

 

 

 The Special Education classes put on a special program last week Thursday.  It was the first edition of ‘Haïtî, Couleur, Creole’.  A program dedicated to recognizing the achievements of the special education class as well as the dedication and help of their parents.  The whole school was invited to participate in the festivities and afterwards there were special treats and display tables of the students artwork. 
Wislande, Grade 1 teacher, was our MC for the afternoon.  She made volunteers come up and explain what the word Haiti meant to them, the special education classes sang us a couple of songs, parents of the students were given beautiful corsages, thank yous were said to the teachers and their assisants, special awards were handed out to parents of students who had outstanding achievements and thankfulness was shown for each unique individual.
I’m not sure I realize the full extent of what it means to have a child in Haiti with special needs.  These parents and families face HUGE obstacles.  There are no wheelchair ramps, handicapped buses, special community programs for these children.  A lot of them are rejected by society and become outcasts.  I recently interviewed a mother of one our students and she explained the difficulty of trying to get her son into a school and the huge weight that was lifted from her when she found out that Adoration had a program that her son could be a part of.  
Please keep our staff Ketia, Magdalyne, Annelle, and Ylda in your prayers.  Pray that they may continue to pour out love on these children, that they may have patience and wisdom in teaching them and pray that Adoration can continue to provide a loving, safe environment for our special young brothers and sisters.
First Edition of ‘Haïti, Couleur, Creole’
Randy explaining what the word Haiti means to him
The parents receiving their corsages
Outstanding Achievement awarded to three different individuals. 
These mothers received the award for their child.
Pastor Octavius hanging out with some of the students after the program

Plants

May 3rd, 2012

On Monday the whole school participated in making their own gardens.  The students of the school were asked to bring in a plastic bottle.  With the help of the teachers they cut a hole in the side of the container and then had drainage holes drilled in the bottom.  Each grade got to mix their soil with fertilizer.  Each student then picked the type of seed they wanted to put in the container.  The containers were hung on the wall were the students can keep an eye on them to see if they are growing or not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Geography Challenge

May 3rd, 2012

Today was the first annual Geography Challenge at Adoration Christian Centre.  The grades 4 – 6 gathered in the main hall where they were then asked a series of questions.  There were 60 questions all together.  Some questions dealt with the country of Haiti, pertaining to some of its fruits, sports, and geographical features. Other questions related to the world like the contitents, oceans and countries.

Here are some of the questions, see how you do:

1.  How many continents are there?

2.  What is the largest country in the world?

3.  What country has the most people?

4.  What is the name of the soccer stadium in Haiti?

5.  What is the name of the imaginary line that divides the earth in 2 halves?

6.  Name the largest lake in Haiti.

7.  Name the ocean north of Hispanola.

8.  Name the largest island in Haiti.

9.  What is mostly grown in the mountainous regions?

10. What famous historical figure landed his boat at Mole St. Nicolas?

 How did you do?  Check the answers below.

 

Listening for the question.

 

Writing down the right answer, hopefuly 😉

  

Making sure no one sees the answer.

 

The teachers monitoring the students.

 

Roodvens read the questions.

 9.  coffee  4.  Stade Sylvio Cator  7.  Atlantic Ocean  5.  Equator  2.  Russia  10.  Christopher Colombus  1.  Seven  8.  Gonaives  3.  China  6.  Lake Azuei