Monthly Archives: February 2017

Air Show in Sint Maarten

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Things that go fast never lose their appeal for us. Sure, we may outgrow the toy trucks and die-cast tractors, but real planes? Forever awesome. Every year (starting in 2015), Sint Maarten holds an air show above Great Bay. This year, I took R to the Boardwalk to enjoy the show!

Of course, that was way back in November, but who cares? Better late than never. I couldn’t resist sharing the photos.

The first thing we did was explore the festival on the Boardwalk. Unfortunately, most of the activities were either for adults or younger kids, so R found it kind of boring until the show started. Still, there were some pretty sweet motorcycles because of the biker event that was also happening on the island, and he thought those were cool. So did I, if only for the sheer number of them, even though I seriously could not care less about motorcycles.

The air show started (after much waiting under some palm trees) with parachuters jumping from the planes. They landed not too far from us on the beach, one at a time.

Soon, the planes began to show their stuff. They seemed to fly dangerously close to each other! I think that might have been an illusion of distance and depth, but it’s hard to tell.

 

 

The planes did corkscrews in the air, falling through the air at heart-stopping speeds before leveling out above the bay and flying upward once again.

 

You know, I never thought I was much of an airplane person, but I’m learning how awesome they are! Between Princess Juliana Airport down the street and the airshow in Philipsburg, I just may be addicted to flight.

We’re Foster Parents

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If you haven’t figured in out by now, Ben and I are foster parents! We’ve been enjoying the company of a teen boy for about six months, who you may have seen mentioned vaguely as “R” in some of my recent posts. I haven’t talked about this explicitly, mostly because I’m not really sure how to talk about it in a public forum. For one thing, our son is a teenager in a small community, we’re Facebook friends with a lot of his friends, and all the kids around here are all over the internet. I don’t really want to be “that mom” and write things that are potentially embarrassing. Secondly, as the rest of you foster moms know, there’s a lot of obligatory privacy when it comes to foster kids. You have to follow the rules, and you have to be respectful. So I’ve opted not to talk about it thus far. However, this is a really big part of my life, and I think it’s good to talk about the foster parent experience. So I’m going to be posting a lot more about foster parenting here, and hopefully creating an element of camaraderie with other foster moms.

So what is it like to be a foster parent? Well, that’s hard to answer. Our situation is very, very different than most peoples’. However, I’d be kidding myself if I said that being a unique foster family is, well, unique. Everybody has a distinct experience with its own joys and challenges. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that you can’t put the foster-family lifestyle in a box!

For us, we’re a cross-cultural family. This wasn’t much of a stretch for us. Ben and I already have learned to enjoy and appreciate our own cultural differences. With our son, there’s also a difference in nationality. Ben and I are expats in the Caribbean, and our son is from here. We’ve had to learn to navigate the system in a place that is very different from the United States, but thankfully we’ve had wonderful people from the children’s service organization who are very kind to us as we pick through the cultural obstacle course.

We’re also a young couple fostering a teen. We’ve experienced some judgement from people who don’t think we should be taking on this kind of responsibility, but ultimately, we don’t dwell on those voices. Fostering has taught me that no matter what you do and no matter what your motives are, people are going to find fault with you. You can’t let it get you down. Listen to concerns of people who care about you, but in the end you just have to do what you know is right for your family. And guess what? It’s gone beautifully. If you’ve never considered fostering teens, why not look into it? I never thought I’d be good at this, but it’s one of the best experiences of my life.

We’re in med school. As one of my college professors used to say, “It will never be the ideal time to start having kids.” Doesn’t matter if they’re biological or not. Of course, there are some things that have to be in place, by law, in order for you to foster. But you don’t have to have a house or a massive income! You just have to have an extra room and be able to take care of yourself. Med school isn’t the ideal time to do anything, really, but we decided we just have to live our lives and not act like we’re on pause.

We’re pioneers. As far as I know, we’re the first foreigners to foster here. I think we’re the first who ever asked. Also, the program is fairly new. So learning how this works for us is a process. There’s a lot of uncertainty about things. We just have to take stuff day by day, which is hard for me to process—I love planning everything about two years in advance! It’s a learning experience for me, and a growing experience. I never know what to expect and I’m learning to walk in faith.

We’re Living by Faith. I have to take every step before I can see where it will land, which is scary. It’s easy to say that I know God will lead me and take care of me, but it’s hard to act on it. However, as Pricilla Shirer teaches in The Armor of God (my current Bible study book), faith is an ACTION. Faith has little to do with my ability to believe really hard and everything to do with God’s faithfulness. If I trust in that faithfulness, I can take the action God is asking me to take before I see the outcome. So that is what we are doing. We have to live by faith and do the things God wants us to do. Ever since we first felt God leading us in that direction, we’ve had to take steps before we had assurance that things were going to work out. Financial commitments and time commitments had to be made before we even knew if we were going to be certified. And it worked out. We’re still up against unknowns every day, but we are trusting God to work those out, too.

What about you? Are there any other foster families out there? I’d love to hear your story, too!

Exploring Tall Ships in French Saint Martin

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Saint Martin is an island with plenty to do! There are often fun activities to participate it, when you know how to find them. This weekend’s activity was a free tour of three tall ships in Galis Bay!

After Coach Tom told me about this excursion, I decided to take R and head over to Marigot to tour the ships. Ben couldn’t come because he had to study, but Dan, another med school spouse at American University of the Caribbean, joined us with his two girls.

The Ships

We got to tour three ships during our Sunday afternoon excursion. The first was a big, green pirate-looking vessel from Germany called Alexander von Humboldt II. The four-year-old was entirely convinced it was an actual pirate ship, although she made sure the rest of us understood that there’s no such thing as a real pirate anymore.

Living on a ship sounds rather restrictive, but I could actually envision surviving a long trip on this boat. The crew’s quarters below were pretty tiny, but it didn’t look too terrible. Plus, the view from the deck is fantastic– I could totally look at that every day. An unobstructed view the the ocean is just unbeatable. R, of course, is all about that ship life. He’s excited about a future in the Coast Guard. I think he’d do it even without the view. Of course, it doesn’t hurt…

The other two ships, Frederick Chopin and the Wylde Swan, were a bit smaller, but no less impressive. They also had more interesting steering wheels, which was all that mattered the the four-year-old.

The Wylde Swan also had a great kitchen area, and whatever they were cooking down in the galley smelled delicious.

The Wheels

The most important part of the entire tour, according to the four-year-old, was the steering wheel on each ship. I think she would have stayed there all day if her dad had let her!

Each wheel was a bit different. I was surprised that the wheels still looked like old-fashioned wooden wheels. I wonder if that is standard, or if most ships (even sailing ships) have more modern wheels.

I have to say that I was pretty thrilled to see the typical old wheels still in use! They have a distinctly nautical beauty about them.

Other Instruments

There were other interesting ship’s instruments, too, beside the wheels. The baby loved the compasses, which were pretty cool.

I really liked the ropes. There were so many of them! I’ve read a lot of books about ships, but I haven’t been on too many of them. I’m always surprised at how much rope holds the ships together.

I really wanted to climb up into the rigging. Of course, I didn’t (seriously) consider it. We estimated that I’d get about halfway up before somebody dragged me down. You know, they did say that we could go anywhere on the ship, and they never said the rigging was off limits…. ah, if only I didn’t have a reputation to worry about!

These are the kind of days when I wish I could stay here forever. I want to spend my whole life wandering around ships and looking at the view!

The island life is a wonderful life, and the sea is a glorious place to be! If my adventures have taken me to the deck of a ship in the Caribbean, where else will they take me? Only God knows. Too bad he’s not spilling the beans yet!

For now, I’m loving every moment of this Caribbean life. What a fun afternoon! Ships are pretty cool. Thanks to everyone who made it possible for us to explore these ships for free!