Merry Christmas...

Support Letter

November 2010

To friends and family of Marissa,

We at El Camino Academy in Bogota, Colombia have the privilege of having Marissa Lavigne serving as our third grade teacher for the second year in a row. Though she is fairly new to teaching, she is creating a reputation as an outstanding teacher who uses creativity to keep her students interested. Responsible and a good team player, Marissa has built positive relationships with students, parents and our other staff. She has learned much about our Colombian culture here and grown in her multi-cultural skills.

El Camino Academy (ECA) is a non-profit, interdenominational Christian school founded in 1980 in the city of Bogotá, Colombia, to serve foreign missionary families and other Christian families. ECA extended this educational opportunity to other families, and we currently serve around 23 missions, 172 families and 285 students from the United States, Canada, various South American countries, Korea, and various European countries. ECA provides a pre-kindergarten through 12th grade program with a United States curriculum, taught completely in English. About 88% of our students speak English as a second or third language. Accredited by the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) since 1998, ECA has been also accredited by the Colombian Secretary of Education since 2003. All graduating students receive an American high school diploma and may also complete requirements for a Colombian diploma.

Due to the high percentage of our families (over 50%) that have one or both parents dedicated to full-time ministry (working with street kids, drug addicts, displaced Indians, single teen moms, pastoring churches, counseling, Bible teaching, or serving in other outreaches), our school income is limited and teachers do not receive full salaries, but a small stipend to help with some expenses. Each of our foreign teachers is asked to raise some of his/her own financial support so that we can continue to serve the Christian community here in Bogota, Colombia and invest in the discipleship and training of our bi-cultural and bi-lingual students who are so well-suited to use their skills to impact the world with Christ’s love.

As we as a foreign staff raise part of our support, each person who invests in us as teachers or administrators, is also investing in the next generation of leaders that will serve here in Colombia and all over the world. Our goal is to train our students to be servant-leaders and it is a privilege to invest in this special group of students. Your gifts allow us to continue to give partial scholarships to worthy students whose parents are heavily involved in ministry, both foreign missionary kids and Colombian students whose parents have dedicated themselves to sharing God’s message of reconciliation.

We would love to have Marissa be supported fully so she can focus on her ministry here with our students. I would like to ask you to pray about the possibility of being part of the team that prays for and invests financially in Marissa’s ministry with our elementary students. Please email Marissa (marissalavigne@eca.edu.co) to let her know how you might want to be a part of her team. Then you can send checks either to her personally at 20148 Gary Lane, Livonia, MI, 48152, or for a tax exemption slip, please send a notification to Marissa, and your check made out to RCE with the account #11180 (without her name) to RCE International, PO Box 4528, Wheaton, IL 60189.

Thank you for being a part of this great effort of making a difference in the lives of our 285 students, and in Marissa’s case, our elementary students. We appreciate your prayers and any gift you might be able to give to help Marissa serve with us this school year.

In God’s name,

Beth Afanador

Director

El Camino Academy

www.eca.edu.co (feel free to check out our website to learn more about our school)

PS If you have any questions I could help you with, feel free to contact me at bethafanador@eca.edu.co .

~Under the Sea~

Remember last year's theme "In the Rainforest?" Well this year, it was all about being "Under the Sea!" We had a special guest visitor who is a scuba diving instructor and he brought in his equipment and let us try it on and showed us some real pictures of the reefs around Colombia. My students have been completely absorbed by this experience...pun intended =)



Juan Pablo and Samuel were playing and were saying, "Oh No!! We ran out of air! AHHH!"






Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming swimming swimming...



Here it is! We are ready for our presentations!



Liana Moguel helps out a lot in the classroom and she came to do a presentation on pollution. Each bag contains something that can pollute the earth and sea. She also showed us what oil does to water and how it gets on birds feathers. Colombia is currently in the middle of a big push on Reduce Reuse Recycle, and ECA has already received recognition in our area for recycling!



4th Graders...Last year they got to do the rainforest, and this year they were on the other side of it! They loved the Sea. To get into the classroom, they had to hold their breath until they got inside the "bubble." We watched a clip from Finding Nemo that shows the coral reef and all it's color, then they got to see how many sea animals they knew in the power point presentation. After that, 3rd graders read a few reports on the animals they studied, and I sprayed all the visitors with water! Everyone got a little cup of sea water (powerade) with a candy fish to swim inside. While they explored the sea to find all the animals, I played the "Under the Sea" song from the Little Mermaid...it was great!



And, after all their hard work, the 3rd graders finally got to enjoy their own little candy fishies!



And then we were sharks eating them... ;)




And our bulletin board ->

Videos to come...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101206/wl_nm/us_colombia_landslide

At least 50 missing in Colombian landslide

BOGOTA (Reuters) – At least 50 people were missing in Colombia on Sunday after heavy rains caused a landslide in the northwest of the Andean nation, relief organizations said.

Colombia is experiencing torrential downpours due to the La Nina weather phenomenon. The rains and floods have killed around 170 people so far this year, mostly in recent months, and affected 1.5 million more.

"It's believed that there could be between 50 and 60 people trapped, maybe more," said disaster official John Freddy Rendon in the city of Medellin near where the landslide occurred.

Rendon said more than 50 homes were covered in Bello municipality in Antioquia province.

The Colombian Red Cross said in a statement that at least 150 people were "affected" with an unknown number missing.

It said one body had been recovered.

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos said on Sunday the number of homeless from the rains could reach 2 million.

"The tragedy the country is going through has no precedents in our history," Santos said, after flying over the coastal region of Atlantico to see the situation first hand.

The rains have hindered coffee and coal sectors too.

In neighboring Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez blamed "criminal" capitalism for global climate phenomena including the region's rains that have also killed more than 30 and left tens of thousands homeless in his country.