Elena at the Powwow looking over the back of the bleechers
We attended a part of a powwow, a cornstalk shoot, and an ani Keetoowah dance this weekend. There annual celebration of the Cherokee nation was this weekend and so we were able to join in and get to learn a little bit more about their culture.
We ended up learning that the Cherokee don’t have much to do with Powwow’s that is more to do with the plains Indians…but we did have an “Indian taco” that night which was served on Cherokee Fry bread… It was still a neat experience for us to be able to attend the Powwow.
This morning the boys and I went to a cornstalk shoot together. They shoot at a stack of cornstalks and you get points based on the number of stalks you penetrate with your arrow. For the younger ages there is a time limit, and for the older groups were games to 50 points.
We were able to attend the Ani Keetowah dance with our language helper and his wife. That was a good time to be with our helper and develop our relationship with him. After the festivities we went out to dinner with him and his wife.
This was our first week of the Cherokee practicum and we feel like it has gone well. The goals for this week were to get to know our language helper, warm up our ears and pencils to the sounds of the Cherokee language, do some TPR (total physical response) exercises to learn some words in Cherokee, get some practical expressions in Cherokee that we can use on a regular basis in our language helper sessions.
First of all, praise the Lord we have a wonderful language helper and he only lives 4 minutes away. You can hardly beat that.
Our schedule this last week:
Breakfast at 7:30
Language helper session 9-11 AM, leaving our kids with the Whites
11-12:30 Jonathan processing the audio recordings and pictures and Jenny watching the kids
12:30 Lunch and then lunch cleanup crew for either Jenny or I (White’s leave for language session before lunch so we have 8 kids for lunch )
One of us processes data from our session and the other one watches the 8 kids until 3:30 or 4 PM
5:30 is dinner and then one of us is on dinner cleanup
The 8 kids during story time - notice james sleeping in the background
Elena in front of the "fort" made from a downed limb, shower curtain etc
We have been asking for prayer for the kids to adjust well to our time here in Oklahoma. Thank you for praying. There is so much to be thankful for in this area.
The place we are staying has a wonderful cement slab that the kids REALLY enjoy playing on and riding their bikes on.
There is another family here with 4 children close to our kids ages and they are getting along wonderfully
We were able to coordinate our language helper sessions with the other large family and so we take turns watching all 8 kids
Did I mention the 8 kids are getting along remarkably well
The kids have built a “fort” outside that they are REALLY enjoying
On September 1st Jada told me that she wanted her training wheels off of her bike while we were outside together. I borrowed a wrench from a classmate and took her training wheels off. I set her up on the bike and off she went. She rode in a circle the first time I go her going without crashing. I will put some photos up of her riding that first evening. It was great to see how well she did her first night.
As you can see, I couldn’t stand to see daddy’s girl crash on the slab.
I had to make sure my little girl didn't go down hard on the slab...not sure I acomplished my goal
We arrived in Oklahoma and started setting up our “house” here for the next 7 weeks. Hope you enjoy the pictures of us setting up our house here. We told the kids we would be living in a “fort” for the next 7 weeks. They really like their room a lot.
We are pretty well settled in now and getting into our routine here more and more each day. Thank you so much for praying for us.
Van backed up to the wing of the building we are staying in
Our room started out with 8 bunk beds setup for summer camps
The beginnings of setting up bunks and mattresses to make the kids room
Kids Room. You can see their beds and part of our "closet"
in bed in their "fort" they will be sleeping in for the next 7 weeks
A closet to the right and the door to Jenny's and my room
our Living room and our makeshift couch
We used bunk ladders and later put boards on top to make a shelf
Jenny having story time on the couch one of the first nights
Our family will be learning French in order to live and minister in africa. Below is a video of a familiar show in French. Some of the transitions our kids will be going through…watching saturday morning cartoons in french anyone?
We are settled into our little room for our time here in Oklahoma. We went to church today at a Cherokee church and were going to eet our language helpers for the next 7 weeks. Things did not go exactly according to plan, but it looks like we have a language helper for Tuesday lined up.
Tomorrow we spend the day reviewing Phonetics and going over what we will be up to for the next 7 weeks.
Next time I get online I will be prepared to upload photos of our “fort” as we are calling it, built out of matresses and bunk bed frames.
Please pray for us as we jump into this totally new schedule with our family. Trading childcare with another family, language helper sessions, cleaning crews, cooking crews, team meetings, data entry and so much more. Thank you for standing with us in prayer.
Last night we got into Oklahoma city area after dropping our stuff of in Tahlequah. We had a great dinner of Tacos and had a great time together. If you are on Facebook you can look at our pictures from the zoo today. We have been having a GREAT time together hanging out.
We had a great time at the zoo. Here are some pics and a video that are pretty cute.
Loaded to up to our eyeballs on the way to Oklahoma
We had an awesome time at the MTC and now we head off tomorrow morning to see some friends in Oklahoma before going to Tahlequah on Friday. It is hard to believe we are already on our way to Ling Practicum in Oklahoma.
We had so much stuff to take with us so that we can completely setup house when we arrive in Oklahoma to 4 bare walls. We never thought it would all fit. We even had some willing volunteers to take some things down for us…but Jenny worked her magic and got it all in.
Prayer
Please pray for the kids – this is yet another transition for them…and for us.
Praise
We had such a great time here in Missouri reconnecting with friends from our time here in the training. We all wish we could move back in.
It is wonderful to be back at the Missionary Training Center, although it is just for a few days on our way to Oklahoma. The kids love it here. The day the kids played in the pool we ended up going down and enjoying the lake as well. We have had the opportunity to connect with friends from our time here at the training center. The kids have really enjoyed reconnecting with their friends as well.
We had the opportunity to connect with our church family from our time here in Missouri at Calvary chapel Lake Ozark. It was AWESOME to be back and see everyone. A group of us had lunch together and then took the party over to the custard stand. mmmmm!!! Good!!!!
Hope you enjoy the pictures of our time together!
Elena and her friend from church
Emmanuel and some of his friends from Church
Kids table at lunch after church
Kids enjoying the custard and snow cones at the custard stand
Jonathan and Jenny Roundy Reaching the Unreached 
