Easter Sunrise Service

For the first time in 3 years, Dalat had a sunrise service (the other years Easter fell in the week of spring break).  It was at 7 a.m. at the amphitheater.  There were 14 people who were baptized, ranging in age from Grade 3 to 12.  Here are some pictures.

The adult on the right is the Spiritual Director at the school.  These students are just about to give their testimonies

These were the other students about to give their testimonies

This is the Reimer family (their son is in Elizabeth's class at school).  They also have two older daughters.  We met them at a Tim Horton's while we were all still in Canada; it was exciting to meet them as we were all planning our big move.  They are leaving Dalat after this year to move back likely to Chilliwack.  Mr. Reimer is Hannah's science teacher and Mrs. Reimer is a part-time teacher at the school

This is the Trescott family, both teachers at the school.  We are friends with them.  Mrs. Trescott is Aimee's current teacher for most of her subjects; Mr. Trescott was Aimee's teacher last year.  This is their daughter Hannah who got baptized.  The also have a daughter Aime in their family

This is Kimberly who is a good friend of Hannah's.  At a baptism you can have a support person or two be there with you

Easter Cookie Decorating

The girls decorated some Easter cookies.  Here are the pictures.

Palm Sunday

We celebrated Palm Sunday at St. George's Anglican Church this morning.  It is the oldest Anglican church in Southeast Asia.  It was beautifully decorated for Easter.  Hannah was part of the Ambassadors worship team, organized by one of the music teachers from Dalat and comprising students from Dalat; they lead worship at St. George's about once every 2 or 3 months.  They sometimes have difficulties with tourists coming in and walking around the church even when the service is going on. The first time we went to see Hannah the person at the door told us "no tourists allowed" and was hesitant to let us in until we explained why we were there.  Once they found out we were not tourists they let us in right away. We really like the church and would definitely consider attending there if we stopped going to our current church, Hillside Baptist.  It is usually a 20 minute drive from home to get to St. Georges but today was the beginning of the Thai Water Festival celebration so the trip home took about three times as long.  They always have a small meal after the service which we really enjoy too.  Here are some pictures:

A picture of the front of the church which is located in Georgetown (a recognized UNESCO world heritage city)



This is what the church looks like from the inside.  We usually sit at the front on the left

Grumpiez and a Play, by Kate

On Thursday, March 27, we went to Grumpiez. It is a new Mexican restaurant that has opened close to our house. We went to Grumpiez because three of us made honor roll or high honor roll. Elizabeth was not on the honor roll because they don't have honor roll for elementary school. Dad had to go home to get some more money before we had our food. We ordered super nachos to share. Hannah, Aimee, Elizabeth, and I shared chicken quesadillas. Mom had a vegetarian enchilada and dad had a beef enchilada. After finishing supper, we went back to Dalat to watch Reader's Theater perform Arsenic and Old Lace. The play was very good. During intermission they had a game. In this game, each volunteer from the audience had a cup of juice. If the juice tasted good you won two tickets to the upcoming musical. But if the juice tasted terrible you lost. Only one person had good tasting juice. My juice tasted terrible. They were also selling cookies and brownies during the intermission. We also saw a preview of the upcoming musical being performed at Dalat. I had a great time.

Elizabeth in front of Grumpiez

J.S.B. Asking

This last week, the "asking season" for the Junior-Senior Banquet officially got underway.  The Junior-Senior Banquet (JSB) is essentially like "Prom" but all teachers (but no parents) as well as students from Grade 10 and up are invited.  It is on Friday, April 25th this year.  The time that boys can officially start asking girls was  from March 20th chapel onward.  Some of the Grade 11 students came into chapel dressed as waiters and then the Junior class president officially invited the Senior class to JSB and that signals the start of things.  I have never seen a boy ask a girl to be his date for JSB although Garth and Hannah have.  It is usually made to be a big deal.  I got my first look at things though this past Wednesday when a JSB asking took place in the elementary courtyard.  That day at recess all the elementary students were treated to ice cream sundaes by the Senior class (a special treat for no particular reason) and then there was an extended recess when the Grade 12's played with the students.  This was the backdrop for a Grade 12 student to ask a girl to JSB and we all got to watch.  One of my students - Jeremiah (pictured below with the sign; he also goes by the name of J.T.) - was part of the ruse.  Holding a sign that had a word puzzle on it, he motioned for the Grade 12 girl to follow him to a nearby table and to solve the puzzle.  The answers to the word puzzle formed the sentence:  Will you go to JSB with . . .  (she had to check the back of Jeremiah's shirt to find out who was asking her.  On the back of Jeremiah's shirt it had the Grade 12 boy's name and two boxes that she was supposed to check with the marker.  One box said "yes" beside it and the other box said "yes" beside it ("no" was not an option obviously).  Of course she checked "yes".  It was quite touching and a bit romantic, even for me who is not the romantic sort.  Jeremiah's baseball cap has the Grade 12 boy's favourite basketball team on it (borrowed from him).  Most of the elementary students didn't know what was going on, just intent on picking up their ice cream, although my students did know about the situation as Jeremiah, their classmate, was part of the plot.  It was lovely to see all this.

The girl and boy in Grade 12 are looking at the sign.  Jeremiah's mom is in the white shirt taking a picture (she's a teacher at the school).  The Grade 12 boy's mom (a counselor at the school) is on the right side of her with the big camera.  Garth is in the far right of the picture

R.P.G., by Hannah

Recently, I have been involved in a club at school on Friday night.  What the club is centred around is sort of a thing of the past; it is an old game that my Dad even used to play.  The club is called R.P.G. which stands for Role Play Group.  It is like live gaming. A game master (Mr. Ronning, who is in the computer tech department at school and is one of my parent's friends) creates games or missions, such as saving a space colony from aliens taking it over or dealing with an evil group of goblins.  The club has weekly R.P.G. missions.  Mr. Ronning gets ideas and activities from an R.P.G. book that he brought from the U.S.  In my group there are 8 or 9 people (which is an unusually large group) and we come every week to do R.P.G. This group is made up of my friends who are in Grade 9 and 10. Whenever we as a character are doing an important task related to the plot we have to roll a dice to determine how good we will be at what we do.  Some of the things we do that require rolling a dice are hiding, shooting people, and not being seen by people when we are moving. We also have some skills that come with our character and these affect how well we do the task.  Some examples of skills are invisibility, increased aim or charisma, and speed.  It is extremely nerdy and weird because we are all really goofy and it is science fiction and it is just something a nerd would do.  Not only does the game master have control over the plot line of the R.P.G. but the game master can choose the genre also. There are many different kinds of genres. There is a fantasy genre called Dungeons and Dragons that gives powers like invisibility and magic to the gamers but we don't do that genre.  The genre we were doing was a science fiction genre. The setting of this genre was in space.  We began in a ship and ended in a space colony.  The powers in this genre are not as magical which is why our game master choose this genre.  I don't really want to do R.P.G. anymore because it can get very nerdy.  For example, in some genres you have to know and sometimes even memorize the statistics of all the mystical creatures in order to fight them.  This can be very confusing because there are so many characters.  And for each of these characters you have to memorize how they fight, how good their aim is, and how strong they are. Anyways, I feel like it was fun to be able to do R.P.G. with my friends but being that nerdy about characters and gaming is something I don't really like.  I found out as I was writing this blog that my Dad didn't like it too much either.