Around the World Day 2006

Our homeschool group had our Around the World Day last week. Here are some pictures, one of our display...

Brianna in Kenyan dress:

We had a great time! The turnout was awesome! We had 12 countries represented and several grandparents and families from our group came out just to visit and see what Around the World Day is like. If ever there are doubting relatives, ATWD is the perfect thing to invite them to. All the kids had very neat-looking, well-organized displays. It was as much fun looking at everyone else's displays as it was putting our own together.

The really neat thing about our display is that everything on our table actually came from Kenya. My father-in-law visited Kenya several years ago, so he loaned us pictures and artifacts for our table (as well as the dress that Brianna wore).

We were also blessed by a total stranger! A few weeks ago, one of the ladies on the Flat Traveler group posted that she and her daughter were going on a mission trip to Kenya and were willing to take a couple of flats. I emailed her as soon as I saw it, telling her about ATWD and the fact that Kenya was the country we had chosen. The lady wrote back and said that she already had arranged to take other flats, but that if I'd send her our address, she'd send us some souvenirs. I emailed back with our address, thanked her and asked her daughter's name so that we could be praying for them.

While we did pray for them over the next few weeks, I had forgotten about the souvenirs. Last Wednesday, our doorbell rang. It was the mail lady. She had this HUGE box...from the lady who went to Africa. The lady and sent us a beautiful stool, a bracelet, a drum and a Kenya 10 shilling piece!! I couldn't believe that a total stranger would go to such expense for someone they've never met, while expecting nothing in return. In addition to the cost of buying the items and getting them home, there was the cost to ship them here. I'm looking for my opportunity to "pay it forward." Here are pictures of our prized possessions:

That's been the highlight of our last couple of weeks. We've enjoyed the time off this week. I'm excited about getting back to our American history studies. The study of Kenya was a nice break from that. You know that you've had enough time off when you're excited about getting back to business.