Word Fun

The last several days here at Refuge Ranch we have experienced some comic relief through words! I hope you get a laugh too!

At each meal we draw names to see who gets to pray to bless the food! We had had arguments before nearly every meal because several of the kids would want to pray! For awhile, I let whoever wanted to pray go ahead and pray before the meal, but we quickly discovered that our food was getting cold during the process, so we instituted the prayer box. Everybody's name is in the box and at each meal we pull out a new name. That card then gets put aside until everybody has had a turn and all the names are put back into the box again and we start the cycle over again.

Well, yesterday at breakfast it was Ruth's turn to pray. Ruth will be 4 years old in November. After she had prayed for Victor's safety (he has been on an Evangelistic Medical Mission Crusade since last Friday) and after she had asked the Lord to help Ana stop making ugly faces at her because "Ana is too pretty for ugly faces", Ruth prepared to wrap up her conversation with the Lord. Mind you, Ruth has been a huge book kick lately! She has always enjoyed being read to, but she will now take 10-20 books off the shelf, surround herself with them and "read" away. Ashleigh, Ruth's preschool teacher here at the ranch, has further encouraged Ruth's book binge by having Ruth and Bernabe "write" their own books in school this week. So, in keeping with her unsatiable thirst for books, Ruth finished her prayer with a resounding "THE END" rather than Amen! We all burst out laughing while she hadn't even realized her creative slip!

Angie, our eldest daughter, and I were studying her science material yesterday. The book is in English and is quite challenging for her, so I make her read it out loud to me in English and then translate it into Spanish to make sure that she understood what she read. Besides the challenge of dealing in two languages, she is learning to deal with two cultures. Here in Mexico the metric system is used, which means temperature is measured in Celsius and not in Farenheit. So, innocently enough, when Angie got to the "F" abbreviation for Farenheit she proudly said "Featherheit"! I started to laugh and she looked at me rather confused! Well, they both start with "F", right?

Our newest staff member, Magda, has an 11 year old daughter, Erika, who now homeschools with us. She is also being introduced into the wonderful world of English. Last week, Ashleigh was going over English flashcards with Erika, reviewing vocabulary words. They got to the card with the picture of a watermelon and Erika proudly, and without hesitation, said "flowermelon"! Ashleigh and I started to laugh, Erika got red and then remembered it was "watermelon"! However, I have since decided that the word "flowermelon" is a wonderful word and should become a part of our English language. So, if you discover a new breed of plant or a new hybrid fruit we have a name for it - "flowermelon"!

Love you all!

Julie