Faith: Update

Faith is 15 ½ years old now. She is a sophomore at CMIS (Chiang Mai International School) which is equal to Year 10 for any of you Aussies reading this. She has 7 different subjects, but she is really enjoying her French, Sociology, and World Geography classes in particular. Faith has also chosen to participate in an all Chiang Mai International Schools choir that will join with an Australian Girls’ Choir for three performances on the 13th of October. She has really enjoyed her time of after school practices each week. Two of the songs she has learned for the performances are sung in Thai; one of them is called the King’s Anthem.

Due to Faith’s surgery in August 2005, she missed the first semester of 9th grade. At the time, we considered keeping her out for a full year because of the move, adjusting, and length of time off, however, we are so thankful she went ahead and got started mid-year. After getting her school schedule organized when we arrived in January, we discovered that the only specific class she had to make up from year 9 first semester was English. Over the summer, she enrolled in an online English course with Indiana University High School. She was able to take advantage of a greater selection of courses offered so she chose Children’s Literature. (We really were impressed with the course and IUHS’s professionalism.) Because of snail mail, her midterm and final exams were the only assignments preventing her from being finished. Now, she is down to the final which she has scheduled at CMIS on the 20th of October. (She is also scheduled for the PSAT on the 18th of October). She has really done very well with the English course and we have seen huge improvements in her writing skill and her confidence in her writing ability. We believe this has been due to the amount of assigned work and the variety of genre that was assigned and accomplished in a concentrated time. It was a hard summer for her, particularly at the beginning, as she grudgingly surrendered assumed childhood norms…such as “the freedom of summer”. But then isn’t that what happens to a lot of kids her age as they take on jobs and driver’s ed and become more committed to sports training or other avenues of interest or responsibilities?

For those of you wondering about the MRI situation for Faith…She is doing exceptionally well! Praise the Lord…always!!! She had an MRI here in Chiang Mai in April and the process went rather well even with contrast dye. However, we opted to send the MRI that cost very little here… (I will update this again soon with the actual cost…) back to Dr. Sartorius in Indiana for his opinion/approval. He said all looked great. Well, we are set again for another MRI the end of October and we will follow the same procedure. Faith is also coming off her seizure medication little by little in hopes of being off of it in December. I think we are all looking forward to her getting off of it. Not that it has horrible side effects that we know of…it’s just all the things they don’t know about it.

One of decisions we made for the kids before coming to Chiang Mai was for them NOT to be involved in any extra-curricular activities for the spring semester last school year. There were so many unknowns to figure out…just the logistics of picking up kids from places we couldn’t even find could throw me into a tizzy. Scott’s travel schedule also contributed to our decision. We really wanted the kids to figure out the school thing from an academic and friendship perspective first. Well, last school year has past and now the kids are all finding things to be involved in. I’ll update you on the boys later. Faith is considering Track and Field, which begins in November. She is also considering participating in a local Youth Group. To explain the church situation here in Chiang Mai would require more time than I am willing to give right now. However, Faith has asked for prayer in her decision and ability to get involved. This is a big decision for Faith as the Youth Group is very large and there are very few kids she actually feels comfortable with who attend.

Well, that’s about it for now….more updates later.