Staff Blog
One of the things that we haven't been very good at CSC over the years is documentation. Actually, we are pretty good at the documentation needed for our children: birth certificates, medical reports, child study and developmental reports, pictures, etc. But we haven't spent much time putting down on paper the history of CSC. Working with kids in the way that we do, we move from one big thing to the next. Children come and they go and new ones come. Events occur but we don't have time to sit and think about them and their significance.
I've been thinking a lot about this lately. We need to get these things in writing. We need to document the ways that God has worked and blessed us in this ministry. We need to put our memories in written form so others can be edified, and even entertained, by them. CSC is an amazing ministry that has enjoyed God's favor for 35 years. People have made huge contributions with their time, talents and treasures. Children have blessed lives here and in the homes and communities where they have settled through adoption. Hurdles have been overcome. Prayers have been answered in miraculous ways.
So, with some fear and trepidation, I am going to begin work soon on this huge project. I will be assembling written materials, pictures and newsletters. I'm going to interview people who have been on our staff or our board, or who have been close to the ministry in different ways. I'm going to pick their minds, looking for stories and accounts that will help tell the story of CSC's first 35 years. It will be a big job, and I worry that I won 't be able to do justice to the people and events that have been used and shaped by God through our history. For Marlys and me it has been a tremendous ride. I want the book to accurately highlight that ride, and the rides of others who have helped make CSC work so well since 1979.
J-O-Y!
Loving life....and more specifically....hackysacks! :)
Thank you to our visitors for giving every kid their very own hackysack---as you can see, they were eagerly received!
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SRA Day!
Last Friday was SRA Day at school! SRA is our reading curriculum so it includes reading, writing, and spelling! We spent the morning having some fun reviewing things the kids had learned in SRA throughout the year. It started off with one student from each level sharing why they like SRA. Then we had a cheer competition. The children were divided into four groups and each group had 10 minutes to create their own cheer about SRA or reading. It was cool to see what they came up with!
After the cheering competition was the spelling contest! The kids took turns writing letters or words on the white board as a review of things they had learned. They also drew pictures that related to some of the themes our classes had studied. Some of the older kids went up and explained how their pictures related to the theme.
The final part of the program involved several presentations by our kids. The Level A students performed sang "The Alphabet Song". Jaime and Pretchy each did a beautiful job sharing poems about reading! Shiela & Rowena sang a duet of "America the Beautiful", a song they learned in one of their reading units. Then three of our Level C students shared stories they had written during class.
Here are some more pictures from our exciting day!
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Friends
Friendships are an important part of life at CSC. Although most of our children have siblings at CSC (about two thirds), they all seek out friends in their age group and enjoy hanging out, playing, making music and talking about life. Our kids can easily find friends who have similar backgrounds and can understand and accept what they have gone through in life. Some friendships can go on for several years, depending on how long the children stay at CSC. When a child leaves for adoption there are often sad friends left behind who wonder if they'll ever see them again. In some cases, friendships that began at CSC can pick up later on when children are placed in the same geographical area. Check out a few pictures of friends at CSC:
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Movie Night
One of the things we often hear at CSC is laughter, and one of the best places to hear it is during a movie night.
It's hard to organize a trip to the movie theater, so often times staff will gather up a group of kids and setup the projector in the library at the school. The movie night below was a "girl's night out" that Teacher Lindsay organized. However, being the IT guy, I was allowed to attend because I had to setup the screen and projector. :)
The movie was Mr. Popper's Penguins.
It's hard to see much in the video below, but it's really fun to listen to the laughter of the kids.
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The Littlest Waveboarder
Waveboarding is the cool thing to do during playtime here at CSC. Lots of the older kids got waveboards for Christmas, but recently more and more of the little kids want to try the waveboards as well. The other day I noticed this little lady trying out her older sister's waveboard in the driveway and I couldn't stop laughing - it was so cute! And she's so good at it!
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