{"id":8390,"date":"2014-06-02T01:11:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-02T01:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8390"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","slug":"wrapping-up-our-first-school-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8390","title":{"rendered":"WRAPPING UP OUR FIRST SCHOOL YEAR"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

These last few weeks have been emotional, tiring, rewarding and … blessed.\u00a0 We’ve been wrapping up our first school year at Cowman and prepping for a two-and-a-half month long trip back to the States.Here is a small fraction of the pictures I’ve taken in the last 14 days or so:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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End-of-year testing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Sarah giving her little friend Lilly a goodbye hug.\u00a0 The Ayars were the first missionary family to leave the field for the summer – we'll be next.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The last days of school were filled with all sorts of special events.\u00a0 Like the Parents Vs. Teachers soccer match.\u00a0 The teachers had a pretty intimidating starting line-up, no?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Not surprisingly, the parents won the trophy.\u00a0 They were quite proud. My sister-in-law, Kristine, would get a kick out of knowing that I had to leave the game early after taking a soccer ball to the face and losing a contact.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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I've lost count of how many times we've had our "last time with the Heckmans".\u00a0 This was our last time with the Heckmans at the beach.\u00a0 Last night, they surprised us and our kids by taking our four for an overnighter at their house out at the seminary.\u00a0 So our kids spent all day yesterday with Haylie and Ethan at a pool (pictures below) and then overnight at their house and then to church this morning together.\u00a0 It's Sunday night as I write this and Hannah just stumbled out of her bedroom after a four hour nap saying, "Where is everybody?" "They went out to eat with the Heckmans." "Without ME???" "We asked you four times if you were going to get out of bed – we figured you were sick, and I'm running a fever so the two of us stayed home." Then she burst into tears at the thought that she missed her FINAL "last time to see the Heckmans" for the summer.\u00a0 Poor thing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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This past Sunday I got to sneak in a new experience – my first time preaching on a Sunday morning to a Haitian congregation.\u00a0 Pastor James Israel (who teaches next door to me at Cowman) invited me to come to his church, Grace en Zion, and he acted as my translator.\u00a0 I preached on Joshua 1 and the Lord telling Joshua to be "courageous and strong".\u00a0 I got a few laughs and a few Amens, so I must have done alright.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The last three academic days of the school year were all themed – Monday was Mis-Match Day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Tuesday was Dress Like an Adult Day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Samuel dressed as his hero.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Wednesday: Crazy Hair and Hat Day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Two of my students reading their last letters from their pen pals in Mrs. Prestel's class back in Indiana.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Thursday was the last day in school and the afternoon was "Fun in the Sun" time.\u00a0 Johnny, Mikenn and Ruysdael had no school, so they volunteered to help fill water balloons.\u00a0 Not sure they knew what they were in for!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Coach David carting balloons to various spots around the campus for all the different game stations.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Caleb and Jake helped too.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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My station was Water Balloon Volleyball.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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My Friday morning was spent in finalizing report cards and then the afternoon brought our closing program at the Radio 4VEH station next door. Can't believe Caleb will be in 8th grade, Hannah in 7th, Samuel in 6th and Sarah in 2nd next year!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Everyone was quite dressed up!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Each class performed a song or read poems.\u00a0 Here, Melissa's kindergarten and first grade perform "Who Let the Letters Out?"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Pastor Steve MacInnis helped us close the program with a song that reminds us that Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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After the Cowman program, there were tons of refreshments and then it was off to my final adult English class of the year.\u00a0Philippe gave me a wooden sculpture of Haiti as a year-end gift.\u00a0Remember that Haitians don't generally smile for photos.\u00a0 The result is that it looks like I forced him – and the students below – at gun point to pose with me for a picture.\u00a0 But the pictures were THEIR ideas!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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On Saturday (yesterday), we finally got to relax a bit.\u00a0 This time it was a Cowman staff pool party.\u00a0 Here's Hannah with an exceptional young lady named Susie who worked with us at Cowman over the last three months or so.\u00a0 Hannah made her a bracelet and ring as a going-away gift.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Sarah and Kristina were inseparable all day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The Heckman kids, Bundy kids, and Gross kids.\n\nWe have a full day tomorrow of last minute this and that and a few more goodbyes.\u00a0 Tuesday we board a plane for Fort Pierce, Florida.\u00a0 From there we rent a vehicle and head to Orlando for a few days of "decompression".\u00a0 Melissa's mom is flying down from Indiana to spend those days with us and then will help drive us up to Columbus, Indiana on Friday, June 6th.\u00a0 God willing!!\n\nIt is shaping up to be a busy, but fun, summer.\u00a0 I will post a schedule soon.\u00a0 We want to see EVERYBODY!\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Time to take the plunge!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These last few weeks have been emotional, tiring, rewarding and … blessed.\u00a0 We’ve been wrapping up our first school year at Cowman and prepping for a two-and-a-half month long trip back to the States.Here is a small fraction of the pictures I’ve taken in the last 14 days or so:\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8418,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8390\/revisions\/8418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}