just to share...

Here is a song my friend shared with me and I thought I would pass along the favor. It's by Shane and Shane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eun34_2EmaQ

Say a little prayer!

In chapel at the start of the semester, we were working on how to grow spiritually. The things we really emphasized were reading our Bibles and praying everyday (We even have a little song we sang EVERY week to go along with that theme!). I was really convicted in my planning and teaching of chapel. I had let school overtake my daily conversations with God. Instead of waking up and talking to Him and reading from His Word, I would be making copies, or answering emails, or getting materials and supplies together before school. God really got a hold of me and showed me that I wasn't living what I was teaching to these kids. If I am a Christian and I don't make spending time with God a priority, how can I expect my little Buddhist students to do that very practice? SO I decided to wake up a half hour earlier everyday and go to my classroom and bathe my day, my students, my family, my friends, and myself in prayer everyday before school. I have been pretty faithful and consistent in doing so and I have seen God answer so many prayers and requests in that little half hour. For example, this might seem so small but it was so HUGE to me! We are making volcanoes in Grade three right now. And today was paper mache' day! I was SO stressed about how it was going to go. My students are not the neatest and we had a little incident with paint first semester that has made me a little gun-shy! I have been so worried about letting my students do this project. I decided instead of worrying though I would let God have His way in it. Can I just tell you, my students were phenomenal! I thought they got taken over by some strange clean creatures or something! They even asked if they could help other groups clean up! It was WONDERFUL! God is faithful to answer even in the small matters. I never would have thought to ask him to help our paper mache craft go smoothly last year, or even last semester, but I am learning that God's love reaches so deep and vast that he cares about even these little bumps and hiccups that cause us to stress and worry.

I have been talking to many family and friends right now who are scared, nervous, or unsure about the future or even the present situations. Where there is a God, there is a way! Give your worry a break and give it to Him to carry! :)

little heart to hearts!

So in the spirit of Valentines Day I thought I would share some heart to hearts that I have had with my students lately. To be honest I haven't really had chances to skype with anyone back home in a while and I don't always like to talk to the teachers here about school because we live and breathe it all day. So I have been treasuring these things up in my heart for a while and I feel the need to write them down and share them to encourage myself in a way and to help others know what is going on so they can remind, look how God is working! To share a little of MY heart first I am starting to get discouraged and my focus is getting divided. I just experienced a really hard issue with a friend at home that I don't think I handled correctly and she didn't take the time to understand my feelings either. To top that off I think I am running myself ragged, I'm so tired and there is just no break in sight and my students and I are getting in that very comfortable place where it is easy but I also get very very very easily annoyed with them. I like change and I am looking forward to next year. God has to keep reminding me to keep my focus in the present...one day at a time. Anyways, all this to say that even in all this attack my heart has been experiencing, God has allowed me to have truly precious times with my students that I just want to share.
***Fuji*** This student makes me smile. He is SO smart and So intelligent. The way he thinks and acts, he is every teacher's dream. I went through a stage where I struggled with him as my teacher's pet but I truly love him so much and his heart is so big. The other day in tutoring all of a sudden he began to cry because he doesn't have any friends. The other boys in the class like football (soccer for you Americans! :)) and Yugi cards and legos and Fuji likes to read. He doesn't fit in because they don't enjoy the same things. He just said he was so sad that no one wanted to be his friend. I told him about how I went through a similar thing in school and he asked me what helped me and at that time in my life was when Jesus became real and became my best friend and it was so neat to see how a time of such loneliness for me as a child could be used to minister to a little hurting boy on the other side of the world years later. He told me that he was going to start praying to Jesus whenever he felt alone to see if it made him feel better.
***Winnie***If I had to have a favorite it would be Winnie. This girl is so so precious to me. I almost want to hold her back just so I can have her again. She is so shy and quiet but when it is just the two of us in the room its unbelievable how she transforms. This week I spoke in chapel about how we have to clean up our hearts. If we put garbage into our hearts, that is what comes out of them. After school, Winnie came into my room and said that sometimes she says bad words because she knows she puts that garbage into her heart with the movies and music she listens to. She said that she wanted to try to clean up her heart so bad words wouldn't come out. Its a start! She is listening in chapel and trying to apply the things to her life!
***Folk*** Oh this child! He has been the concern from the start! He is the boy who brought in all those weapons to school, he is the child who I was contemplating over holding back or not, he is the lowest in everything and gives the least effort, AND has the scary guardian to boot! But I don't know what happened---these past 2 weeks I LOVE him. He has started to finally feel comfortable around me and he is so funny and he tries to talk to me. Yes our conversations are short and it is mostly me trying to speak Thai to him and him trying to speak English back but I LOVE him! This week we have been learning a verse that talks about how good words need to come out of our mouths. He has an enemy in the class and I always have to make sure I seat them on opposite sides of the room, never put them in partners or even groups that are next to each other on the mats. We spent the one morning brainstorming nice things he could say to this "friend" in our class and he said one of them today! I know that that does not seem like a big step but it was just a milestone for Folk!
   Even in writing this blog post I feel blessed to work with these students. I am looking forward to next year and all the personality that class with bring, but this class is a blessing and I feel grateful for the opportunity to work with and teach them. Just if you think about pray that I would focus more on Thailand and my work here and not get distracted by things at home. The devil dividing my focus now is one of the best tools that he has against me!

decisions decisions...

Well, being a teacher is wonderful and grand but it also has some tough decisions that come along with the job! I have a student who has been on my radar all year long. He is lacking in motivation, a low level English speaker, and lacking in focus. His grades are rock bottom and he tries on nothing and turns in nothing. I had a parent teacher conference with his mom and his guardian where I had to tell them that he might be retained next year. It was a MESSY conference with much yelling in Thai (not at me, don't worry, at each other!) Since then, my student has begun to apply himself and show that he is capable of doing the work, its a little too late though because we have 2 months left of school. I am frustrated because I have been trying to get a meeting set up with them since last semester and they kept refusing. We could have solved the problem back in September instead of trying to patch things up now. I honestly don't know what to do. I don't think it is in his best interest to be held back but I also cannot pass him onto grade 4 with the work or lack there of that he has done so far. Please pray for wisdom and guidance as I seek to find the best solution to this problem. I have a couple of solutions to present to the administration this week and we will see what develops from there. Besides that also pray for my little heart. Today I am feeling homesick. I always get like this when I feel like being home again is so close and so far! AND I am feeling overworked and not fully rested so I think that is playing on my emotional state as well. I know that this wave of homesickness will probably be past before most of you even read this but I just wanted to share it now. I have to say though some amazing things have been happening in my heart lately! God has shown me a lot of hard things about myself this year and its been challenging finally truly confronting the person that I am and try to hide from people--even from myself at times. God has shown me lately that even through all the muck that I see in me He loves me more than I know and more than I deserve! He truly is all I need! I am so thankful that even though there were some rough parts that I wouldn't want to have to go back to, HE sustained me through it and I am glad I am on the other side! :) All the time God is good!

Is Grace Enough?

This section from Max Lucado's book, Grace for the Moment was read in staff meeting on Tuesday and it has stuck with me all week long. There are things that I desire for my life and things that I wish I had. But in the end, grace is truly all I require. This is what Max Lucado says:

I have learned to be satisfied
with the things I have and with
everything that happens.
Philippians 4:11

"What if God’s only gift to you were his grace to save you? Would you be content? You beg him to save the life of your child. You plead with him to keep your business afloat. You implore him to remove the cancer from your body. What if his answer is, “My grace is enough.” Would you be content?

From heaven’s perspective, grace is enough. If God did nothing more than save us from hell, could anyone complain?

Having been given eternal life, dare we grumble at an aching body? Having been given heavenly riches, dare we moan about what we don’t have?"

I want to say that I believe that God's Grace is always enough. I know that it is the right thing to say and I know that it makes utter and complete sense. Sometimes though I get so bogged down in the world's expectations of what my life needs to look like that I find it lacking. How dare I moan about what I don't have when what I have been given is more than I ever deserve!

It's all about rice

On Friday, I was doing a science experiment with my students. They were broken up into 6 groups and each group had a "mystery" substance. Using their 5 senses they had to identify the contents of what was in the cup. Some groups definitely had easier substances to identify than others. The group that I thought clearly had the easiest substance to identify was the group that had the rice as their mystery substance. At the end of the experiment, I told each group to write down their guess as to what was in their cup and then to raise their hands so I knew they were done. All the groups had their hands raised EXCEPT the group with the rice. I was so confused as to why they could not figure out that it was rice---they see it 3 times a day at least! I went over to their group to see what the hold up was. As I listened to their discussion I heard them disagreeing. Their debacle was over whether it was plain rice or sticky rice---they were all listing out their various reasons for each and it just made me smile. I am definitely a teacher in Asia!

SuRPriSe!!! :)

As many of you know, I was able to go home this Christmas and surprise my family! It was a very full 12 days but I really enjoyed it. I got to meet my little nephew Isaac, see almost all of my immediate and extended family, see my brother play basketball for probably the last time ever (I probably won't be going home next year, his senior year), be a part of a surprise party for my mom, and eat Panera and Chick-fil-a! :) It was a good time at home. It was also an interesting time at home---it was a lot different than I expected, and my feelings about being home were different than I expected them to be. Not bad---just different! There are just some things that I have to work through and pray about. I have gotten the strong sense lately that Thailand is not my home---I love it here and I love the people and experiences I have had, but I know that I am not suppose to be here forever. I am signing my letter of intent for next year, but beyond that I do not know. I guess I have a whole other year and more experiences to be had before I can come to any conclusions about the future. I hope you all had a great holiday. 2012 is here! I rang in the new year on an airplane watching fireworks out the window. It was really beautiful! Now it is time to get back into the swing of school. Time to take down all the winter and Christmas decorations and get ready for the last 3 months of school. We have a lot of things to learn in that short period of time. Good thing all our vacations days got taken away because of the flood! Plenty of time to focus! :)