Fall (um Spring?) Semester at the Academy

I need to mention some of the highlights of this past semester in the Academy here. Mercy Ships Academy moved off the ship to Appelsbosch in early September when we moved here. The Academy operated here over the past several months and is now back in session although most of the educational materials have been moved back to the ship already in anticipation of the completion of the generator project and the move back on board. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I worked this past semester at preparing and teaching a 4-week student life class on photography for some of the junior high and high school kids. We made pinhole cameras out of paint cans took pictures with them. We used paper for our negatives and processed them in a darkroom that I put together. We then made positive images by scanning the negatives into the computer and inverting the tones in photoshop. The students got some really amazing photos with the pinhole cameras they had made! We also did classes on some history and basics of photography, depth of field, ISO, white balance, and basic artificial and studio lighting. The P.E. teacher has been working with the Academy kids on doing some gymnastics and they did a nice demonstration for everyone here in early December. The last week of school just before Christmas break, the teachers and kids put together a Christmas play and many of us invited friends from the surrounding communities to come and watch the play with us. It was really fun! Bethany was Mary in the play, David was a wise man, and Joey was one of the angels. They also did signing to a song under black light. They all wore white gloves so their hands showed up really well. It was really cool!All of the Academy kids (and teachers!) did such a nice job with the play!

I think the kids had a really nice semester here at Appelsbosch. They had a lot of neat opportunities too to do stuff they could'nt have done on the ship (like having a couple of non-poisonous pet snakes in the science classroom just as an example - that wouldn't have happened on the ship).

John