Welcome, Asher!

Many of you may already have heard, but we haven’t yet announced in a newsletter the arrival of our fourth child, Asher Josue Starkenburg! Asher was born on June 21, weighing 7 pounds 14 ounces. Now, at 2 ½ months old, he weighs close to 16 pounds and is growing fast. We were blessed to have Liam’s mom here both for his birth and again in July, as well as Jessica’s mom and sister here later in July and August. We couldn’t have done it without all their help!

Caleb and Judah are happy to have another little one to entertain, and Belen, although she doesn’t pay much attention to Asher yet, is glad to have him as a distraction now that her older brothers have both started up school again. Please continue to pray for our adjustment and the busyness that comes with having four children ages five and under. Pray for wisdom as we parent these precious children and raise them up to follow the Lord and to serve Him. We are so thankful for four healthy, happy children!

New Language Classes

Nicaragua Christian Academy took a big step forward this year with two new foreign language elective classes. Despite being an already bilingual school (with all classes in English and daily Spanish classes for all students), for years we have desired to provide opportunities for our students to further develop their language abilities.

This year we began by offering semester-long elective classes in Korean and Portuguese. Korean was taught during the first semester. Students who signed up for the class learned basic Korean alphabet and vocabulary, as well as several different aspects of Korean culture – food, music and traditional art.

With the exception of new arrivals to Nicaragua who are still learning Spanish, most of our students are fluent in both English and Spanish. Over 10% of our students are Asian and also speak either Korean or Mandarin. And several of our students have already learned other languages (mostly French and Italian) outside of school.

Teacher Recruiting Update

Sometimes people ask me (Liam), what exactly does a school director do? This is a question that is usually hard to answer because my job carries so many different responsibilities, but it’s safe to say that one of my most important responsibilities is recruiting teachers to fill our vacancies each year. Like most international schools, every year we have a number of openings to fill. For a school in its early years, it is often difficult to make contact with potential teachers that are both qualified and interested in moving to a country like Nicaragua to teach. I can remember two times in the past 12 years when we have started the school year at NCA without having all of our teaching staff in place, and a few more times when we have still been looking for one or more teachers with less than 4 weeks before the first day of school. Obviously these are very stressful conditions.

Fortunately, things seem to be improving in the area of teacher recruiting. We had six openings this year and all of them were filled by qualified teachers by the beginning of March. Among the six teacher we have hired is our fourth “return” teacher (taught at NCA in the past, moved back to the States, and now is returning to NCA) and our second “NCA alum” teacher (graduated from NCA, went to college and got a degree in teaching, and came back to NCA).

As always, we’re so thankful for your prayers for Nicaragua Christian Academy and grateful that God has once again provides for our needs as a school.

Check out our new Teacher Recruiting video at http://youtu.be/yU8TnKCXGHo!

Summer is Here!

Although we’ve heard rumors of early summer weather in Michigan this year, usually at this time winter is still hanging around for many of you living in the United States and Canada. In Nicaragua, however, the advertisements for summer sales and summer vacation specials start to appear in February. The months of February and March get progressively warmer until April, when we’re all sweltering and dreaming of air conditioning. The days continue to get hotter and more humid until part way through May when “Winter” (the rainy season) finally comes to Nicaragua with the first big rainfall.

So how do we know it is summer in Nicaragua, when it’s rarely below 80° year round? Here are a few ways:

1. The pool vendors set up shop in various locations alongside the roads, selling inflatable pools and floaties.
2. The road out of Managua, which is also the road to our home, is full of beach-bound traffic every Saturday and Sunday morning. It is not uncommon to see twenty people crammed into the back of a pickup truck, some sitting on plastic chairs, many times packed to the gills with mattresses and bags overflowing as everyone escapes to the Pacific.
3. For those who don’t have cars, neighborhoods sometimes organize trips to the beach for a day in the big yellow school buses that are used for public transportation.
4. Our grass is finally completely dead.
5. We start looking forward to Semana Santa, or Holy Week, when we, too, will head to the beach for the CRC retreat. Each year we get to spend about four days with many of CRWM and CRWRC’s missionaries from Central America, including Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. It’s exciting to hear what God is doing across Central America through different ministries in the Christian Reformed Church, and we have enjoyed getting to know the many families that join us each year for this retreat.

Sometimes we do miss the seasons of the Northern U.S., but if we had to choose one of them, we’re glad we get summer year round. Even Belen has been out in the pool in her Hawaiian swimsuit nearly every day this week, enjoying the sunshine and the kiddie pool with her big brothers.

NCA Triathlon

On Saturday, January 21, NCA hosted its second annual mini-triathlon. The race consisted of a 200-meter swim, a 10-kilometer bike ride and a 5-kilometer run. About 70 students, teachers, parents and friends of NCA participated in the race, which was held in two separate heats.

Students and teachers trained together for several weeks before the race. The primary purpose of the event was to build community, and it was a complete success! An estimated 200 parents, siblings and friends of the contenders came out to cheer them on. Liam participated and was proud to still be able to beat all of the students, with a third place finish and a time of 1:05. The winner of the race? Second-time champion Joel Kleinsasser, high school science teacher, with a time of 51 min 48 sec.

Answered Prayers!

The past few months have been full of surprises and changes for us as a family. In December we headed to the United States to spend Christmas with our families, which we had not done in three years. The boys enjoyed the little bit of snow they saw, Belen took advantage of the carpet to learn how to walk, and we all enjoyed spending Christmas with family in the cold weather.

During our Christmas vacation we also shared with our families the biggest surprise that has happened to our family recently, and that was finding out in October that we are expecting another baby! He or she will be born near the end of June. Although it was a surprise to us, we know that God has planned our family from the beginning, and it was not a surprise to Him. We were thankful for that as we began looking at both our finances and our current vehicle, realizing that although we were not going to fit a family of six in our car, we also were not going to be able to buy a new vehicle without His provision. It has been amazing to see Him work!

First, we quickly found out that a family from NCA was selling their 12 passenger van, only 3 years old, at a very good price. Although we still didn’t have the money, we started thinking about it as a possibility. In the second week of January, Liam talked to the family about giving them a down payment and continuing to make payments over a few months, and they generously agreed. The very next day, we got our statement from Christian Reformed World Missions that informed us how much support had been received from the previous month. As we are partner missionaries with CRWM, our support varies monthly based on how much comes in for us. We were blown away by God’s provision and the generosity of so many of you, as we saw that our support for the month of December was easily three times that of an average month. The majority of the people who gave had no idea we would need to buy this van, but God knew, and that was enough! We are so thankful for His control and sovereignty in our lives.

So, today we drove home our new van, and in four and a half short months, we will welcome home our fourth child. We are excited and thankful for answered prayers.

Busy Busy Busy

Liam is feeling the pressures of many demands on his time this semester. In addition to normal responsibilities, this semester is full of retreats, field trips and a week-long trip to Panama for HACIA Democracy. And as of two weeks ago, our elementary principal is now on maternity leave and Liam has assumed her supervision duties and meeting schedule. To add to the fun, Liam has resumed his studies toward his Master’s of Education degree and is taking an online course through Dordt College. Please pray for him as he balances work at NCA, studies and family time -- that God would provide discernment, efficiency, and most of all, time!

Check out NCA's new promotional video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU8TnKCXGHo