A snapshot of our week.

Welcome to our wacky weeks...

It has been a little while since Dunstan and I posted in here and so we thought it would be good considering it is the end of WEEK 5! to give a little update. Seriously, time is flying out here and we are over half way through the term. This post is to share, as the heading suggests a snapshot into our weekly routine here at Family Group Home 4. Hopefully it will provide a bit more understanding into what we do out here.

This is a typical activity for our girls, watching movies (sometimes the same one over and over and over again)

Monday:
The girls arrive from their communities anywhere between 11-1 on Monday. We prepare a hot lunch for them to eat before heading off to school.
The girls have Growing Young Women AFL training at 4:00pm and then dinner at 6:30pm. After dinner is hygiene night, or "nits night" where we do lice treatment for all the girls (this can take quite a bit of time considering some weeks we have up to 12 girls). Good times.

Around the dinner table

 Tuesday:
Their day begins with breakfast and then showers before leaving for school at 8:20am. After school on Tuesdays and Thursdays is Life Skills, which is a time set aside for the Family Group home parents to teach the girls basic skills. On Tuesdays we have been teaching the girls different things to bake and in week 8 we will put on an afternoon tea for some female staff and the girls will use their new found baking skills to serve their guests.
After dinner the girls go to homework, which Dunstan or I accompany them to and help out where we can. Homework is run in their classrooms for half an hour. After homework the lights are switched on at the basketball court for the students enjoyment for the evening.

Edwina making my Mum's banana cake recipe

Wednesday:
The girls have AFL training and homework night.

Watching carefully

At homework one night this week, a YWAM team taught on social media

Thursday:
The girls have their football game, and whoever doesn't make it on the team has to take part in the life skill program. Thursdays is when we get the girls to do cleaning around the home, so you can imagine how much they love this afternoon (insert sarcastic tone). We then have community dinner at 6:30 where all the house parents bring a meal to share on the basketball court and all staff and students come along.

Phylly our pool shark

Friday:
Friday morning Dunstan and I cook the girls a nice hot breaky before sending them off to school.  School finishes at midday with an assembly and then they come home for a prepared hot lunch before they jump in the troopys to return to their communities. Dunstan I then wash all their bedding, and clean the house before putting our feet up and welcoming in the weekend... 

Dunstan and I serving dinner

*The past two weeks we have had a team from YWAM Townsville here at the college. We had four wonderful helpers assigned to our house. They truly were a blessing to us and the girls. Its exciting to have a YWAM connection out here considering YWAM was such a huge part of mine and Dunstan's life for so-long. The photos are courtesy of one of the girls who helped at our house.

Due to various community activities we only had seven girls, the white people are the wonderful YWAMers:)

Well there you have it. That is a fairly typical week at Family Group Home 4. We hope you have had a really good week, wherever you are and in whatever you are doing... Thank you for your continual love and support.

Love,
Mr & Mrs M
xo