Backtrackin' - October

One of the best parts of this year has also unquestionably been the hardest: We've been much more intentional in throwing ourselves into more school related functions. We did this a lot the first year, but now we have a lot more going on.

On top of class, (which I have all new classes this year):
B - coached high school boys volleyball, coached high school girl's basketball, music leader at our sunday morning hangout spot
K - coached high school girls volleyball, coaching high school girl's soccer, and helps run an after school arts and crafts program for little kids

It is extremely rewarding, while being totally exhausting. Here are some pictures from October, which shows our boys and girl's VB teams playing in a tournament at the local military base.

 

The other awesome thing that happened during October is that we had our first visitor! Kendall's cousin  Blake works for our same organization and came to look at the school. It was a lot of fun since he stayed with us, and we got to show him around Turkey. Blake's an awesome guy and we were so glad to have a touch of home and family while over here. Here are some pictures from a trip up to Ulus Castle, an old fortress in the oldest part of Ankara that overlooks the city.

Lastly, the Fall Carnival is the last thing in October as it coincides with Halloween (which is a divisive term here). We have a time open for parents and kids, as well as the greater community to come and play games and eat candy. We raise money for the school, and each grade has a station. My station with the 11th graders was "gladiators", so we had jousting and sumo wrestling. The elementary grades do fun games like bowling, bean-bag toss, ect. Kendall's group did face-painting, which turned out to be a real hit. Pictures below.

The end of October / beginning of November marked an exciting time for us too, we made our first trip up to Istanbul. Even though it's only 200 miles, we hadn't yet made it. We were especially excited about the trip after the founder of our company (who was here with Blake) told us it was his favorite city in the world. That's an impressive statement from a man who has been to pretty much every country I can name. However, that trip will get it's own post shortly.

Thanks for the interest! I hope we are making up for our long absence from the blogosphere.