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Halloween 2009

Halloween was a big deal for us this year as a family! After all those years in Europe our kids (at least Nathan and Grace) were giddy with excitement as the day approached. They had planned out their costumes and developed a strategy for how to blanket the most strategic neighborhoods in order to rake in as much candy as possible.  They also developed a list of homes of grandparents, church friends and teachers where they knew they could take in a bigger haul in one stop. Believe me, this was a well planned endeavor!

The weekend included more than just Trick-or-Treating, however. The festivities started on Thursday when Great-Grandmother Verda Wallace attended the Halloween party at the Senior's Center in Spencerport. Verda is the most incredible 94-year-old woman we know! She went dressed as a Seniorita, and many of the folks there wanted to get their photos taken with her. You just don't meet too many  people her age as healthy and active as she is. We love you Grandmother!

Another highlight was pumpkin carving and decorating. I (Ken) kept kids going in the carving area, while Andrea and the kids decorated our front porch. They put up a spider web with a Charlotte's web message, so that it wouldn't be too scary (Grace's idea).  I carved out a pumpkin that we used for a candy bowl, and Nathan carved out the more traditional face in his. Zachary and I also carved out what we affectionately called our 'whimsical pumpkin'. We just started making circles and shapes and let the pumpkin take shape as it evolved. We loved the finished product.

Our candy dish pumpkin was used at the Harvest party that Grace's class had on Friday, the day before Halloween. We were unsure if Grace would able to focus on any type of school work with a party and then Trick-or-Treating to look forward to, but she was still able to score a 95 on a spelling test. Amazing! The photo at the right is Grace with her 5th-grade teacher, Mrs. Grape (one of the houses she visited while Trick-or-Treating!). 

Saturday finally arrived, with the rainy weather not dampening spirits at all. Grace donned her Gaysha girl outfit one more time, while Nathan transformed himself into Elvis with the help of Grandmother, Nancy Motley. She had an outfit from a play that she was a part of, and then found a wig and sunglasses complete with black sideburns. Nathan looked incredible, and got all kinds of comments on his costume as he made his rounds.

This was a great weekend for us with lots of family time, opportunities to meet neighbors while allowing our creative juices to flow. Our kids may be a little too old for this next year, but we'll always remember this Halloween. 

BCC Mission's conference and Acts 29 network meeting

I (Ken) just finished 8 days of conferences and meetings! Last week was the annual Mission's conference at Browncroft Community Church in Rochester. There were missionaries there from all over the world, and was a very good week. I didn't play that much of a role after having asked the team running the conference if I could let the other missionaries play a more 'up-front' role. I will be here all year so can present our ministry later, and I also just wanted to connect with people more informally. I had a great time, and was very impressed with Browncroft's program. They had panel discussions, Discovery Night for families on Wednesday night, Dine and Discover potlucks at various homes throughout the week, and a coffee house on Friday evening.  Mission's and missionaries were highlighted in the Sunday services, with missionaries visiting Sunday School classes as well. It was great to get back in touch with so many  old friends from Browncroft once again.

On Monday I got up early and drove with four other men from Grace Road Church to Troy, New York for a regional meeting of church planters associated with the Acts 29 network. Grace Road is a new church plant here in Rochester that we are interested in, and Acts 29 is a network of church planters that I would like to learn from. They are also the organization that we worked a lot with in Czech through the Josiah Venture. 

The network here in the Northeast is hosted by a church in Troy called Terra Nova. They are a very interesting church reaching out the artistic community of the Capitol region of New York. I loved hearing the speakers and just talking with other men who are either planting churches or preparing to do so in this part of the country. I also just enjoyed getting to know the men that I went with, and respect the work they are doing here in Rochester.

A weekend in October

October in Rochester means colorful fall leaves, and we're loving them this year! We always loved the fall colors in the Beskydy mountains where we lived. The dominant colors there were gold and yellow. There are some gold and yellow leaves here as well, but there are some spectacular red and orange leaves mixed in. Our favorite house that is not far from us has a row or red-leafed trees on either side of their driveway, so Grace and I walked down there today and snapped the photo below.

October also means Halloween, and Grace and Nathan are totally preparing for that this week. Grace is going as a Geysha girl, and had a trial run this weekend as a church in Spencerport had a Halloween party on Saturday. Nathan will be wowing everybody in his Elvis outfit. We'll be sure to post photos after next week.

How the kids are doing in school

Everywhere we go these days one of the first questions we hear is "How are the kids adjusting to American school?" Well, last week marked the end of the first quarter which means first quarter grades! Our overall sense for the first few weeks was that the kids were doing well in school, and making the adjustment very quickly. Their grades only confirmed that!

Rather than write all of their grades, I wanted to just let you know their grade point average. So, here you go!

    Nicholas: 96.5%, with a grade of 100% in biology and PE.

    Zachary: 96.0%, with a grade of 100% in Earth Science and Geometry.

    Nathan: 95.11%, with a grade of 99% in Art, and a 97% in Algebra as well as Bible.

    Grace: 81.75%, with a 91% in reading, and her teacher describing her as a "Bright, beautiful and     social lady." I like the sound of that!

We're thrilled as parents at how incredible our kids are! Praise God for how He created them and how they are developing in Him.

Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra

The RPO put on a free concert at First Bible last night, and we went as a family. RPO is a world-class orchestra, and each member of our family truly enjoyed the show they put on.

The evening had two highlights for us. One, our neighbors from across the street, the Toates family, joined us for the concert. Their girls are becoming dear friends to our entire family, and we're all enjoying being good neighbors to each other. The Toates have gone out of their way to welcome us to the neighborhood, and we've enjoyed just sharing our lives with them over the past few months. We let them know about the concert, and they immediately decided to join us. We loved sitting by them and sharing this moment with them.

The second highlight of the evening was when the orchestra played a composition by a famous Czech Composer, Bedrich Smetana. The kids immediately recognized the piece since they had studied all 9 movements of that symphony in music class in their old school. The boys excitedly told their grand-daddy (they sat with him up in the balcony) that this was a Czech piece and that the Czech title is "Vltava" (they used the English title 'The Moldau'), and we also told everyone around us that this was a Czech composition. Nathan blurted out afterwards "Man! I'm feeling all patriotic about Czech after that!".  I closed my eyes, and I could feel the 'czech-ness' of the piece. It brought a flood of memories and faces to mind, and tears to my eyes. A profound moment in the life of this missionary!

Nicholas's 16th birthday

On Saturday we celebrated Nicholas's 16th birthday as a family. Andrea made the dinner he asked for, baked Ziti (Nicholas had 3 huge portions!), with cheese cake for dessert. Grandmother and Grand-daddy came over with Great-Grandmother for dinner, and then we opened presents with 2 other couples that came over to help us celebrate. Mike and Louise Metzger are close friends to Andrea and I, and Vinnie and Kelly Tumia shepherd the youth group at First Bible. We wanted Mike and Vinnie, along with Grand-daddy Duane Motley, to pray for Nicholas as he crosses over into an important season of his growth into adult-hood. 

The most important gift that Nicholas received for his 16th birthday was an Integrity Ring from Andrea and I. We've been talking about this for a few weeks as we've seen this mile-marker approaching. Nicholas will soon begin the process of getting his driver's license (Grand-daddy's gift-he's sending Nicholas to driving school!), and he is generally just having to make more decisions that have implications upon his life. We're talking about the concept of integrity, and sense Nicholas beginning the life-long process of living with integrity before God and man. 

The ring is beautiful, and on the inside the word Integrity is engraved, along with 1 John 2:14 (just the reference). As men we prayed that these things would be true about Nicholas, and then he prayed himself at the end. We'll keep praying them as he goes through these next few years:

    "I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one." 

Nicholas and Zachary's great day

Nicholas and Zachary celebrated their 16th and 15th birthday with some of the new friends they're making here in Rochester. Both wanted to do very different things with their friends, and both had a great time with some great kids.

Nicholas invited a group of guys to play basketball in their school gym and then go out for ice cream at Friendly's. We had enough to play 4 on 4 full-court, and had a blast. The guys are good players, but what made it fun was their friendship. There was some great on-court ribbing and trash-talking, as well as efforts to include everyone in the scoring, encouragement and just plain fun sitting around waiting for the ice cream to come. We're excited about the up-coming basketball season when Nicholas will have the chance to spend even more time with these guys under a good coach.

Zachary invited two friends over for a sleepover. They ordered pizza from Krony's (our favorite here in Rochester), played Wii and watched a movie. Zachary's friends are completely different than Nicholas's as far as their interests are concerned, but are great kids as well. We loved getting to know Errol and Eli, and are glad that Zachary has friends his age with whom he can develop some deeper relationships.

Can you hear the joy we're feeling as parents watching our kids make friends in this new place? Praise God!

Crazy hair day!

Grace wanted me to put this photo on our blog for everyone to see, since she won first place. They had a crazy hair day at AWANA this week, and Grace and Andrea went all out. Grace received the price for first place in her age group (Hersey chocolate bar! yea baby!), and we all loved seeing all of the kids. My personal favorite besides Grace: a girl whose mom put a sports bottle on top of her head and then pulled her hair up straight so that the bottle was completely hidden by the hair. She looked like a cone head-awesome!

Two more books I just read

We as a family are loving being by libraries full of English books once again! I recently checked out two books, both business fables, that have been very helpful for me as we go through this process of transition and entering a new season of life. 

The first book I read was "The Myth of Multitasking" by Dave Crenshaw. This book has one simple principle that we never really mult-task but rather switch-task. Whenever we switch tasks we lose valuable time and energy and truly lower the quality of our work and our effectiveness at whatever we're doing. I was reflecting on the truths of this book while driving to Chicago last week. I was driving, eating my lunch and listening to a Podcast when I answered a telephone call! Obviously, the person who called me didn't get my full attention, and more seriously, neither did my driving! This book is helping me realize how often I allow my attention to get divided (thereby weakened), and how that affects my communication with my wife and others among other things.

The second book I just finished is a book called "Bounce" by Keith McFarland. This book was fun and easy to read, and is about turning tough times into triumph. The main premise of the book is that times of disintegration (things falling apart) are inevitable and can lead to times of re-integration (coming back together again, often healthier and stronger). These times will come for any individual, family, company, church and nation, and will require a certain type of leader who will lead through times of disintegration towards reintegration. This book is helping me think about how to lead our family through this season of our lives closing down in Czech (real disintegration!) and now moving towards finding the best place and purpose that God has prepared for us. There are 6 key principles that the author develops throughout the book that will determine how we respond to whatever changes life brings us. A very helpful book for us at this time!

Zachary's 15th Birthday

This is birthday week at our house. Zachary's birthday is October 5th, and Nicholas' October 10th. Each year we celebrate the boys as a family on the exact date of their birthday, and then the boys do something with friends on a weekend around that date. 

Monday of this week marked 15 years of life for Zachary, and we had a great evening enjoying him and some good cooking provided by Andrea.

Grandmother and Grand-daddy Motley came over, of course, with Great-Grandmother Verda Wallace. Zachary got to pick whatever he wanted for dinner (lasagna) and a special dessert (banana-splits). Andrea put together a great evening of delicious food, in her typical style, and Zachary got to open some fun presents. One that is getting a lot of use already is a baseball glove: he and Nathan are totally into playing catch since they're learning baseball/softball in gym class at the moment!

Zachary is growing into a fine young man, and we are so proud of him. It was fun to watch him open his gifts and express his gratefulness by hugging his grandparents and parents. He is becoming a mature, godly young man with a sweet spirit. His class at school is recognizing how incredible he is as well-they all sang Happy Birthday to him that day, and then again at a school assembly with the entire 7th through 12th grade!