Warning: this is not a “what I did this week” blog entry. This is a “what the Lord is teaching me” blog entry.
I have been challenged this week. Shocking, right? This month at JCS, we are focusing on the character trait--compassion. Yeah, I know that this is mainly geared towards the students, but I know that all these traits that we are teaching our students, we need to be practicing as well…and learning more about…so I’m learning more about compassion.
What the heck is true compassion? As I struggled through that, looked up the definition in the dictionary, and even looked at the index in the back of my Bible to try and gain a better understanding of what compassion is. According to my Bible’s index, compassion is “to have pity and show kindness to another.” As I pondered, had conversations, and just read more about “compassion,” I realized compassion goes SO much deeper than having pity and showing kindness. It’s about doing it always, always, always…even when I don’t feel like it.
In chapel on Thursday, Mr. Peterson talked about compassion. Granted this was geared towards 3-5th graders, but I think a lot of what he had to say helped my students and myself gain an even greater understanding of what true compassion is. He read to us the parable from Luke 10 called The Parable of the Good Samaritan. Basically in this parable, a man who has done nothing wrong is beaten, battered, bruised, almost killed and left for dead. A priest and a Levite (a person who worked in the Temple…a descendent of Levi…also a well-respected, holy man) both walked by this man but did not want to get themselves dirty by touching this “unclean” man. Then a Samaritan man (a people who had turned away from the Jewish body because of their desire to marry outside of what God allowed them, etc.) walked by and took pity on the man. Not only did he clean him and bandage him, but he also put him on his donkey, walked him into town, got him a room at an inn, and paid the innkeeper more than enough to help this poor man get well.
As I wrestled with this passage, this is a glimpse of what I was able to take away from it:
1. The most unlikely character can be the one that God uses the most to help those in need. Who would have thought I would be down in the Dominican Republic teaching at a Christian school? Not I! As I am sure not many of you would have thought that a month ago either…God brought me down here for a reason…although I’ve yet to see what that reason is, I know God is working…
2. Compassion can occur even if you are not “expected” to show compassion. Most of you who know me, know that I am fairly upfront and not sympathetic. Here in the DR, I’ve had to learn a whole lot about learning with people who are different from myself, people who are struggling through different things, and basically learning to live and thrive in a Christian community…again. I’ve had to learn to deal with people who are SO different than myself, people who are uncompassionate, people who are selfish, and still love them with Christ’s love regardless of how I WANT to feel about them.
3. This world had beaten, bruised, and almost killed me. Jesus came and held me and took care of me until I was strong again. What a beautiful picture of redemption. Jesus wants to be the person who will take care of you and love you and heal you of everything if you’ll let him…
Practical application?
Yes, I can stop to help a bleeding man on the side of the road, but I think that the Lord wants this extreme ideal of compassion to be taken into my own heart and my own situation. Basically, I think I’m learning to be compassionate with my students. On Friday, I had an “I think this is not the profession I was meant to do” day. Well, I had many of those this week and had to break down and just ask for help (which is so hard for me! a definite pride issue…yikes.). I am not the best teacher yet, I lose my patience with my students on a daily basis. I do not show them the grace and love they deserve. I don’t give them my best every minute. Why? Cause it’s not easy! It’s hard to constantly be patient, loving, giving, graceful. Oftentimes on Friday, I could not help but think, “would Jesus be so frustrated with _______ right now?” “would the Lord be pleased with how I am handling things right now?” Basically I had a WWJD moment. As cheesy as it sounds, it’s true. I guess it’s good that I recognize that I have a problem. I have little patience…
What am I taking away from it?
learning PATIENCE. learning COMPASSION. learning LOVE.
3 HUGE ideals that obviously I am not going to perfect my year in the DR, but 3 things I can definitely learn more about…grow through…observe wonderful examples of…
so maybe God brought me here to the DR to teach me about these things before I go back to the States and teach…whenever that may be…
I’m going to leave you with this Bible verse that I think encapsulates what I am striving towards:
Micah 6:8
“He has shown you, O man, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
And to walk humbly with your God.”
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
the Lord beers me strength.
hi.
i know i wrote a semi-serious blog earlier this morning, so I thought I would follow it up by the laughter in my life.
okay. so I heard about this AWESOME thing that happened last year between a few of the teachers (who THANKFULLY are still around this year to be mischievous with!!) who taught their unsuspecting students AWESOME Office quotes back and forth and had the students go tell the other teacher.
Well obviously I had to start that up again this year and be the n00b who decides to butt into other people's inside jokes.
setting the stage: yesterday.
Karyn and I spend a significant amount of quality time together in the teacher's lounge. Yeah, probably couldn't ask for more hilarious slash awesome conversations. Sure beats teaching! haha just kidding...
she was heading to teach her most dreaded class so ya know, I wrote her this awesome card from "Future Karyn"...
then later my kids were working on their "Don't Let the Pigeon..." stories. So I decided to write Miss Karyn another note and staple it together so my student helper couldn't see it. He delivered it, and by the time he came back to give me a response, I was already in the teacher's lounge for lunch. "What kind of bear is best?" was the response I got back from Melanio (my student mischief coordinator...). I sent--back up to Karyn--Bears eat beets. Well apparently on his way back up, Melanio had picked up one of his triplet brothers, Josue, and when they came back to the teacher's lounge, they both screamed, "BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA." to those of you non-Office fans, it may not be that funny, but HOLY STINK I was laughing so hard I was crying...I later found out that my first note had gone into Karyn's class during prayer time...haha she said it kind of ruined the mood... :) So I was on lunch duty, and I came back into the teacher's lounge and Karyn's bag was sitting on the ground...she had disappeared. As I was heading back up to pick my kids up from recess, I left a note in Karyn's bag that said, "Identity theft is not a joke!"
setting the stage: today.
I felt as though I should spread around the love a little bit. During writing time (man, I seem like a bad teacher, right??) I wrote Christy a note that said, "Dangit! Jim put my stuff in jello again!" That was it. No response. I was kind of disappointed slash kind of freaking out cause maybe I had crossed the line (story of my life...) After school, Christy came up to me, "Did you check your mailbox?" ....no...
so I went and checked my mailbox. there was a letter. attached was this poster:
I died. LITERALLY. well, okay, not literally. but I was LAUGHING so hard. it was silent. and tears were streaming.
I loved my life.
They make me feel happy...
i know i wrote a semi-serious blog earlier this morning, so I thought I would follow it up by the laughter in my life.
okay. so I heard about this AWESOME thing that happened last year between a few of the teachers (who THANKFULLY are still around this year to be mischievous with!!) who taught their unsuspecting students AWESOME Office quotes back and forth and had the students go tell the other teacher.
Well obviously I had to start that up again this year and be the n00b who decides to butt into other people's inside jokes.
setting the stage: yesterday.
Karyn and I spend a significant amount of quality time together in the teacher's lounge. Yeah, probably couldn't ask for more hilarious slash awesome conversations. Sure beats teaching! haha just kidding...
she was heading to teach her most dreaded class so ya know, I wrote her this awesome card from "Future Karyn"...
then later my kids were working on their "Don't Let the Pigeon..." stories. So I decided to write Miss Karyn another note and staple it together so my student helper couldn't see it. He delivered it, and by the time he came back to give me a response, I was already in the teacher's lounge for lunch. "What kind of bear is best?" was the response I got back from Melanio (my student mischief coordinator...). I sent--back up to Karyn--Bears eat beets. Well apparently on his way back up, Melanio had picked up one of his triplet brothers, Josue, and when they came back to the teacher's lounge, they both screamed, "BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA." to those of you non-Office fans, it may not be that funny, but HOLY STINK I was laughing so hard I was crying...I later found out that my first note had gone into Karyn's class during prayer time...haha she said it kind of ruined the mood... :) So I was on lunch duty, and I came back into the teacher's lounge and Karyn's bag was sitting on the ground...she had disappeared. As I was heading back up to pick my kids up from recess, I left a note in Karyn's bag that said, "Identity theft is not a joke!"
setting the stage: today.
I felt as though I should spread around the love a little bit. During writing time (man, I seem like a bad teacher, right??) I wrote Christy a note that said, "Dangit! Jim put my stuff in jello again!" That was it. No response. I was kind of disappointed slash kind of freaking out cause maybe I had crossed the line (story of my life...) After school, Christy came up to me, "Did you check your mailbox?" ....no...
so I went and checked my mailbox. there was a letter. attached was this poster:
I died. LITERALLY. well, okay, not literally. but I was LAUGHING so hard. it was silent. and tears were streaming.
I loved my life.
They make me feel happy...
Bible, frustration, and love.
good morning :)
yes. i know that it is 6:30am, and I am blogging, but I was up really early this morning due to my inability to breathe at this moment and the constant coughing that rattles my entire body every time I start...
this week has been good. i've been really frustrated recently because i feel like i'm not being developed as a teacher like i had wished/hoped, but then I just had to come to the realization that if I'm not going to reach out for help, then it's not going to come find me...
if you would have told me 5 years ago that I would be going to the DR to a Christian school to teach, I would have laughed at you. but now I'm here. and wholly inadequate as a teacher, Christian, and person. I have so much growing up to do before I honestly feel like I would be effective in all the aforementioned stations in life. We have to teach Bible class. Holy cow. intimidation. I had been avoiding it (yes. i had not been teaching Bible. shameful.) because I didn't know how. Yikes. It took me two weeks to summon the courage to admit that, yes I suck, and I don't know how to even approach teaching Bible...I feel like the most horrible person ever for not being able to teach my kids about the Bible. We do prayer every morning and our weekly memory verse, but that's about it. Yikes. yes. this is substandard. This past weekend I had a nice long chat with myself...yes...about how I cannot be lazy here. I want my students to get the best possible education. As low as they value education, I value it, and want to instill that value to them. Therefore, I need to start giving MY best in hopes that they will begin giving me their best.
Anyways, so Bible...my supervising teacher has been super sick basically since I got here so I feel super bad asking her for help...and I just don't want to be a burden to anyone else because they're having to pick up my "slack." Guess that's a pride issue. Shocking. Anyways, I finally just asked. One of the other teachers who has been at JCS for 2 years already agreed to sit and help me plan out my Bible lesson. As I just sat there and listened to ideas on how to teach Bible, I realized that this is what it's about...asking for help. Giving help. Being a servant but also being able to accept grace from others. Not saying that I'll be going to Christy for every little problem or expect her to continually plan my lessons for me, but it's a good jump-start. It's so humbling to know someone cares enough to take time out of THEIR already filled and stressful day to help me become a better teacher...
I'm thankful. and I'm learning.
yes. i know that it is 6:30am, and I am blogging, but I was up really early this morning due to my inability to breathe at this moment and the constant coughing that rattles my entire body every time I start...
this week has been good. i've been really frustrated recently because i feel like i'm not being developed as a teacher like i had wished/hoped, but then I just had to come to the realization that if I'm not going to reach out for help, then it's not going to come find me...
if you would have told me 5 years ago that I would be going to the DR to a Christian school to teach, I would have laughed at you. but now I'm here. and wholly inadequate as a teacher, Christian, and person. I have so much growing up to do before I honestly feel like I would be effective in all the aforementioned stations in life. We have to teach Bible class. Holy cow. intimidation. I had been avoiding it (yes. i had not been teaching Bible. shameful.) because I didn't know how. Yikes. It took me two weeks to summon the courage to admit that, yes I suck, and I don't know how to even approach teaching Bible...I feel like the most horrible person ever for not being able to teach my kids about the Bible. We do prayer every morning and our weekly memory verse, but that's about it. Yikes. yes. this is substandard. This past weekend I had a nice long chat with myself...yes...about how I cannot be lazy here. I want my students to get the best possible education. As low as they value education, I value it, and want to instill that value to them. Therefore, I need to start giving MY best in hopes that they will begin giving me their best.
Anyways, so Bible...my supervising teacher has been super sick basically since I got here so I feel super bad asking her for help...and I just don't want to be a burden to anyone else because they're having to pick up my "slack." Guess that's a pride issue. Shocking. Anyways, I finally just asked. One of the other teachers who has been at JCS for 2 years already agreed to sit and help me plan out my Bible lesson. As I just sat there and listened to ideas on how to teach Bible, I realized that this is what it's about...asking for help. Giving help. Being a servant but also being able to accept grace from others. Not saying that I'll be going to Christy for every little problem or expect her to continually plan my lessons for me, but it's a good jump-start. It's so humbling to know someone cares enough to take time out of THEIR already filled and stressful day to help me become a better teacher...
I'm thankful. and I'm learning.
Monday, September 8, 2008
skype is my bff.
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031162&l=47ee9&id=179200097
hi.
i just thought you may want to see how amazing my life is down here in the DR. these are my wonderful, wonderful friends who have all gotten SKYPE and who I've talked to.
check it out.
hi.
i just thought you may want to see how amazing my life is down here in the DR. these are my wonderful, wonderful friends who have all gotten SKYPE and who I've talked to.
check it out.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
dear tony dungy, i need your help.
To all the fans of my blog,you must all know that I am a HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE Colts fan. and by HUGE, I do indeed mean I love the Colts.
I'm desperate. I cannot go an entire season without watching my favorite man, Peyton Manning, lead my Colts to countless victories.
I even wrote into Bill Polian's Saturday night show. Asking him to help me out.
(here's a picture of what I wrote...)
so. if you happen to know Tony Dungy, Bill Polian, Peyton Manning, Jeff Saturday, Hunter the Punter, anyone...help me. Ask them if they can tell me how to stream the games without paying hundreds of dollars.
thanks. :)
Saturday, September 6, 2008
technological frustrations!
welllll...here's the deal. my ipod is biting the dust. it's like a painful death that keeps stringing me along...maybe it will be fixed. but no. it's not.
the bad news: a new ipod...the one that I really want, would cost me MORE THAN an ENTIRE month's salary. and I'm not exaggerating. We, as professional teachers, with a 4 year college degree, are making $15 US a day.
more bad news: i'm losing 2,774 songs. yes. i love music. i have so much music. and it's all adios. since my computer crashed again at the beginning of the summer, i didn't put any music back on it. BIG mistake. BIG BIG mistake. I'm losing 8 movies. I'm losing seasons 3 and 4 of the Office.
everytime I plug in my ipod to my computer it says, Firewire connections are not supported. To transfer songs, connect the USB cable provided. what does that even mean!? I don't have a Firewire cord. weird ipod things going on...and i'm not doing anything differently...
moral of the story tonight: i'm frustrated. and really, honestly sad to lose it all.
one of my new DR friends said, "maybe you're just leaning too heavily on technology." maybe she's right...but seriously. I love music. I can worship the Lord, have a dance party, laugh while watching the Office, all of it.
pray that I not be so frustrated...i'm really sad tonight.
the bad news: a new ipod...the one that I really want, would cost me MORE THAN an ENTIRE month's salary. and I'm not exaggerating. We, as professional teachers, with a 4 year college degree, are making $15 US a day.
more bad news: i'm losing 2,774 songs. yes. i love music. i have so much music. and it's all adios. since my computer crashed again at the beginning of the summer, i didn't put any music back on it. BIG mistake. BIG BIG mistake. I'm losing 8 movies. I'm losing seasons 3 and 4 of the Office.
everytime I plug in my ipod to my computer it says, Firewire connections are not supported. To transfer songs, connect the USB cable provided. what does that even mean!? I don't have a Firewire cord. weird ipod things going on...and i'm not doing anything differently...
moral of the story tonight: i'm frustrated. and really, honestly sad to lose it all.
one of my new DR friends said, "maybe you're just leaning too heavily on technology." maybe she's right...but seriously. I love music. I can worship the Lord, have a dance party, laugh while watching the Office, all of it.
pray that I not be so frustrated...i'm really sad tonight.
...bear with me...
Hello All!
***NOTE: this blog is being written at 5:30am on Saturday September 6. We have no power, therefore I cannot post it until we do…***
This week has been craaaaazy, and I apologize for not updating sooner!!
Let’s fast forward until Wednesday. We get to school, and some parents are saying, “We have no school today. We saw it on the news and in La Vega (next town over) there is a huge storm that is producing tornadoes.” Holy snap. So Mr. Peterson jumps on the horn to see what is going on. Thankfully only a mere 15 min. later he discovers that we are indeed not supposed to have school. Therefore we have to call all the parents, and have them come get their children. I only had maybe 6 students. (3 of them being triplets…)
We went outside with Miss Karyn Staats (MS/HS English teacher) and Miss Christie Collver (MS/HS Science teacher) to play this AWESOME Viking game that Miss Staats taught us. ((side note: now every time my students see Miss Staats, they always ask her if she is busy teaching because they want her to take them outside to play the Viking game…hahahahaha)) We were playing with the 7th and 8th graders that were left, and then Miss Collver taught us how to play a game called Swat. Basically you run around and beat each other with a towel or a sweater in our case. Yeah, that definitely wouldn’t fly in the States. Then I taught them Elbow Tag. Productivity at its finest.
In the DR, there is one man The Director of Education (sounds kind of like Harry Potter to me…) makes the decision for the whole country as to whether or not we will have school (aka if it is raining in Evansville, people in Ft. Wayne won’t have school)………… or at least that was the case until Thursday night when the Director gave each school (or the board of the school…) the authority to close school. Gracias a Dios.
Well this supposed storm never hit us. So we got a day off school (kinda…we had to stay until noon…which was good since ACSI (Association of Christian Schools International) was coming on Thursday to inspect our school to see if we could begin the accreditation process so that our Seniors could graduate and get diplomas and take the National Exams.
Thursday: we get to school. I’m missing 4 students. Excellent. Brings the grand total down to 8. ACSI is here. Splendid. We’re not supposed to be having school, again, for reasons unbeknownst to us, but hey, ACSI is here, so we gotta look like we have a running school. Therefore we dismiss at noon. Sweet. Let me paint you a picture of what my Thursday looked like. 8-9 Chapel. A pastor told all my kids they were going to Hell unless they accepted Christ. Sweet. Scare them into salvation. Works every time. 9-9:45 Spanish. (not taught by me…obviously.) 9:45-10 Break. 10-10:35 Sociales (not taught by me.)
Fantastic. I have less than an hour and a half. I can proudly say that we played Sparkle with our spelling words for probably 30 minutes. (I let the a student be the teacher and I played with them. I pwned them every time! YES.) Then we played Sparkle with our memory verse (Psalm 100:3 Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us and we are His. We are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Beautiful verse, eh?) for probably 15 minutes. YES. 45 minutes left. “Okay, this week we have been talking about compassion. You need to either illustrate what compassion is or illustrate your memory verse” … aka coloring time. Sweet. I’m an awesome teacher. So productive. I busted out my phone (which can play music) and we listened to some High School Musical, Jonas Brothers, and Hannah Montana while we colored about Jesus. Could life get any better? I submit that it cannot! Sweet. Around 11:45 we packed up and went outside to play another rousing game of Elbow Tag. I was SUPER sweaty after that. hahaha
Friday: soooooo…good news? We may be moving houses next week. Our landlady is not super helpful when we have problems (like our septic system is messed up and so is our water pump…and hasn’t been fixed for a week…) so Maribel (our financial administrator) said we’re not in contract with her, so we can look for new houses. We have found a new house that is UBER close to the school and although it is smaller and costs 500 more pesos a month, I think we’re gonna do it. It’s a lot safer, our landlord lives on the property (rumor has it, he even has a gun…) and the proximity to the other teachers is great too…we have to accept/deny by noon today. I am fairly certain we are going to accept. PRAY for us, please, as we are transitioning to a new, smaller house and we are deciding what things to keep and what things to get rid of. There may be some tense moments, I’m not gonna lie.
.:nighttime:.
In rolls the clouds. What beauty. I’m not even gonna lie, I got some sweet pics. I’ll post them on my picture site. Get excited. It starts thundering and the wind starts blowing. You know what that means…yes. No power. Greaaaaaat. It was kinda good, gave us an opportunity to talk about money and financial stuff and all that good stuff as a house. We made dinner by kerosene lamp (after I effectively broke a second chimney to another kerosene lamp…awesome. now we’re down to one.)
DOUBLE awesome…….Brooke and my door slammed shut. And it’s locked. because there is (well...was...) no way to unlock it. because there was no door handle on the inside to UNlock it... oly schamolly. I try busting down the door. What a laugh! It’s solid wood. All that ended up happening was me getting a HUGE, HUGE swollen bruise on my hip. ((but worth it. What a great story.)) There’s also a video of me running down the hallway of our house and slamming into the door. and collapsing with laughter. OH MY GOSH. It was seriously one of the funniest things that has happened since I’ve been down here. I was crying so hard because I was laughing so hard. Then we attempted to watch The Notebook on my whacked-out DVD player on my computer…then it messed up and we got frustrated. End result? Bedtime at 9:15. COUNT IT. (Jessie Buske response, please, “counting it.”)
Funny story of the week:
In the DR, it is perfectly acceptable…nay…encouraged to love on your students. Totally different from the States where if you touch them you will get sued. haha Well, one of my boys kept saying, “Girls are stupid. Girls are boring. Girls are dumb.” I plucked that little sucker out of his seat and carried him outside my classroom (all the while he and the rest of the class was hysterically laughing) and made him say, “Girls are so awesome.” before he was allowed to come back in the classroom. What a hoot. Good thing this was during math time and we were having some subtraction review fun, not during a serious time. No worries, I pick my timing well.
Dr. Quinn, you would be so proud. I have been reading the Pigeon books to my students. They think that they are SO hilarious. They seriously run around now at recess or at break time imitating my pigeon voice and saying, “your mom would let me…LET ME DRIVE THE BUS…etc. etc.” SO funny. And they all want to read them as read alouds to the class, so if we ever have any extra time at the end of the day, I let them read out loud. I have short video clips of them reading that I’ll try and post on here too.
Funny story from last Sunday:
We’re sitting in church. For the second time that day. I’m awesomely wedged in between Tim and Karyn. I’m sitting there…oblivious to what is going on because the pastor is speaking so quickly and people are raising their hands. Sweet. No idea why. Karyn turns to me and says, “The pastor just asked who has ever killed anyone before.” My response, coughing to try and cover my laughter. Yes, folks, I had tears streaming down my face because it was sooooo funny. It’s good for me to be with people who make me laugh. I love it.
PRAISES of the week:
1. One of the other teachers let us borrow his Wireless router. So until we get ours (in 2 weeks when we get mail again) we will have internet. (if we have power…)
2. I’m getting to know the other teachers, and they are graciously accepting us into their houses and loving us and helping us get through some tough stuff going on.
3. Internet. I’m not even going to lie. I love that we’ve been able to have internet all week. It has been such a blessing because I have been kinda homesick…well, friendsick too…and being able to talk to my friends from home has been so fantastic. Encouraging emails are huge blessings to me.
4. Dr. Tyner… ((one of my fave professors who has really helped nurture me as a pre-service teacher and who never gave up on me even when things appeared that they were hopeless…)) Happy Birthday!!!! :)
PRAYER REQUESTS of the week:
1. my roommate Kelsey has a really bad form of Pink Eye. It’s highly contagious, and since I’m always with her, it kind of makes me nervous to get it. She went down to Santiago yesterday to go to the eye doctor and he confirmed that it was highly contagious. Sweet.
2. our moving transition because it is hard to move to a new place and get readjusted.
3. PATIENCE. As always.
4. For my teaching…I feel like I’m not being challenged or nurtured in my teaching, which is the whole reason I came…I don’t know how to be better than I am because of the little resources available. Pray that I will be able to challenge myself in my teaching…
***NOTE: this blog is being written at 5:30am on Saturday September 6. We have no power, therefore I cannot post it until we do…***
This week has been craaaaazy, and I apologize for not updating sooner!!
Let’s fast forward until Wednesday. We get to school, and some parents are saying, “We have no school today. We saw it on the news and in La Vega (next town over) there is a huge storm that is producing tornadoes.” Holy snap. So Mr. Peterson jumps on the horn to see what is going on. Thankfully only a mere 15 min. later he discovers that we are indeed not supposed to have school. Therefore we have to call all the parents, and have them come get their children. I only had maybe 6 students. (3 of them being triplets…)
We went outside with Miss Karyn Staats (MS/HS English teacher) and Miss Christie Collver (MS/HS Science teacher) to play this AWESOME Viking game that Miss Staats taught us. ((side note: now every time my students see Miss Staats, they always ask her if she is busy teaching because they want her to take them outside to play the Viking game…hahahahaha)) We were playing with the 7th and 8th graders that were left, and then Miss Collver taught us how to play a game called Swat. Basically you run around and beat each other with a towel or a sweater in our case. Yeah, that definitely wouldn’t fly in the States. Then I taught them Elbow Tag. Productivity at its finest.
In the DR, there is one man The Director of Education (sounds kind of like Harry Potter to me…) makes the decision for the whole country as to whether or not we will have school (aka if it is raining in Evansville, people in Ft. Wayne won’t have school)………… or at least that was the case until Thursday night when the Director gave each school (or the board of the school…) the authority to close school. Gracias a Dios.
Well this supposed storm never hit us. So we got a day off school (kinda…we had to stay until noon…which was good since ACSI (Association of Christian Schools International) was coming on Thursday to inspect our school to see if we could begin the accreditation process so that our Seniors could graduate and get diplomas and take the National Exams.
Thursday: we get to school. I’m missing 4 students. Excellent. Brings the grand total down to 8. ACSI is here. Splendid. We’re not supposed to be having school, again, for reasons unbeknownst to us, but hey, ACSI is here, so we gotta look like we have a running school. Therefore we dismiss at noon. Sweet. Let me paint you a picture of what my Thursday looked like. 8-9 Chapel. A pastor told all my kids they were going to Hell unless they accepted Christ. Sweet. Scare them into salvation. Works every time. 9-9:45 Spanish. (not taught by me…obviously.) 9:45-10 Break. 10-10:35 Sociales (not taught by me.)
Fantastic. I have less than an hour and a half. I can proudly say that we played Sparkle with our spelling words for probably 30 minutes. (I let the a student be the teacher and I played with them. I pwned them every time! YES.) Then we played Sparkle with our memory verse (Psalm 100:3 Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us and we are His. We are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Beautiful verse, eh?) for probably 15 minutes. YES. 45 minutes left. “Okay, this week we have been talking about compassion. You need to either illustrate what compassion is or illustrate your memory verse” … aka coloring time. Sweet. I’m an awesome teacher. So productive. I busted out my phone (which can play music) and we listened to some High School Musical, Jonas Brothers, and Hannah Montana while we colored about Jesus. Could life get any better? I submit that it cannot! Sweet. Around 11:45 we packed up and went outside to play another rousing game of Elbow Tag. I was SUPER sweaty after that. hahaha
Friday: soooooo…good news? We may be moving houses next week. Our landlady is not super helpful when we have problems (like our septic system is messed up and so is our water pump…and hasn’t been fixed for a week…) so Maribel (our financial administrator) said we’re not in contract with her, so we can look for new houses. We have found a new house that is UBER close to the school and although it is smaller and costs 500 more pesos a month, I think we’re gonna do it. It’s a lot safer, our landlord lives on the property (rumor has it, he even has a gun…) and the proximity to the other teachers is great too…we have to accept/deny by noon today. I am fairly certain we are going to accept. PRAY for us, please, as we are transitioning to a new, smaller house and we are deciding what things to keep and what things to get rid of. There may be some tense moments, I’m not gonna lie.
.:nighttime:.
In rolls the clouds. What beauty. I’m not even gonna lie, I got some sweet pics. I’ll post them on my picture site. Get excited. It starts thundering and the wind starts blowing. You know what that means…yes. No power. Greaaaaaat. It was kinda good, gave us an opportunity to talk about money and financial stuff and all that good stuff as a house. We made dinner by kerosene lamp (after I effectively broke a second chimney to another kerosene lamp…awesome. now we’re down to one.)
DOUBLE awesome…….Brooke and my door slammed shut. And it’s locked. because there is (well...was...) no way to unlock it. because there was no door handle on the inside to UNlock it... oly schamolly. I try busting down the door. What a laugh! It’s solid wood. All that ended up happening was me getting a HUGE, HUGE swollen bruise on my hip. ((but worth it. What a great story.)) There’s also a video of me running down the hallway of our house and slamming into the door. and collapsing with laughter. OH MY GOSH. It was seriously one of the funniest things that has happened since I’ve been down here. I was crying so hard because I was laughing so hard. Then we attempted to watch The Notebook on my whacked-out DVD player on my computer…then it messed up and we got frustrated. End result? Bedtime at 9:15. COUNT IT. (Jessie Buske response, please, “counting it.”)
Funny story of the week:
In the DR, it is perfectly acceptable…nay…encouraged to love on your students. Totally different from the States where if you touch them you will get sued. haha Well, one of my boys kept saying, “Girls are stupid. Girls are boring. Girls are dumb.” I plucked that little sucker out of his seat and carried him outside my classroom (all the while he and the rest of the class was hysterically laughing) and made him say, “Girls are so awesome.” before he was allowed to come back in the classroom. What a hoot. Good thing this was during math time and we were having some subtraction review fun, not during a serious time. No worries, I pick my timing well.
Dr. Quinn, you would be so proud. I have been reading the Pigeon books to my students. They think that they are SO hilarious. They seriously run around now at recess or at break time imitating my pigeon voice and saying, “your mom would let me…LET ME DRIVE THE BUS…etc. etc.” SO funny. And they all want to read them as read alouds to the class, so if we ever have any extra time at the end of the day, I let them read out loud. I have short video clips of them reading that I’ll try and post on here too.
Funny story from last Sunday:
We’re sitting in church. For the second time that day. I’m awesomely wedged in between Tim and Karyn. I’m sitting there…oblivious to what is going on because the pastor is speaking so quickly and people are raising their hands. Sweet. No idea why. Karyn turns to me and says, “The pastor just asked who has ever killed anyone before.” My response, coughing to try and cover my laughter. Yes, folks, I had tears streaming down my face because it was sooooo funny. It’s good for me to be with people who make me laugh. I love it.
PRAISES of the week:
1. One of the other teachers let us borrow his Wireless router. So until we get ours (in 2 weeks when we get mail again) we will have internet. (if we have power…)
2. I’m getting to know the other teachers, and they are graciously accepting us into their houses and loving us and helping us get through some tough stuff going on.
3. Internet. I’m not even going to lie. I love that we’ve been able to have internet all week. It has been such a blessing because I have been kinda homesick…well, friendsick too…and being able to talk to my friends from home has been so fantastic. Encouraging emails are huge blessings to me.
4. Dr. Tyner… ((one of my fave professors who has really helped nurture me as a pre-service teacher and who never gave up on me even when things appeared that they were hopeless…)) Happy Birthday!!!! :)
PRAYER REQUESTS of the week:
1. my roommate Kelsey has a really bad form of Pink Eye. It’s highly contagious, and since I’m always with her, it kind of makes me nervous to get it. She went down to Santiago yesterday to go to the eye doctor and he confirmed that it was highly contagious. Sweet.
2. our moving transition because it is hard to move to a new place and get readjusted.
3. PATIENCE. As always.
4. For my teaching…I feel like I’m not being challenged or nurtured in my teaching, which is the whole reason I came…I don’t know how to be better than I am because of the little resources available. Pray that I will be able to challenge myself in my teaching…
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