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Well, I know it's been awhile since I posted, but I'm sure you all understand how it is at this time of year!
Let's see what I've done since I last spoke to you......
Thanksgiving was wonderful, as I expected it to be. I had a wonderful time with the field council, and of course, there was a lot of yummy food! The day before, though, we had a Thanksgiving program. A friend and I had written the words to the high school choir's Thanksgiving song...a witty (if I do say so myself) version of 12 Days of Christmas.
For those of you who have Facebook, you can see it posted on my profile by clicking HERE (I hope).
I wrote the words underneath the video so you can be sure to understand everything.
A few days later I spontaneously went to a World Cup Finals game. Although, it was women under 20s soccer, the USA team was in the finals and I was SO excited to go to the game. We were playing versus North Korea, and it seemed as though the Chileans were rooting for the Koreans. Anytime the Americans in the crowd tried to cheer for their team, the Chileans would whistle and boo so loud that we would be drowned out. However, once we WON, I was an instant celebrity, along with the other gringas I was there with. People were asking to take their pictures with us, they were chanting USA, they couldn't get enough of us! Here's a picture of the "Celebrity Gringas." :o)
After that, I was engulfed in a whirlwind of grading and exam writing, but I survived. I had the choir all ready for the Christmas program that I was unable to attend because I was 35,000 feet in the air at the time! I've heard that the choir did VERY well, but I haven't seen proof of that yet! Once I have a video of that, I'll pass it along to you.
Since then, I've been home, running around like crazy, visiting friends and family, enjoying American culture, etc. I only have a few days left at home, and I'm trying to enjoy them to their fullest. Then it's back to Chile to enjoy the summer sun once again! Once I have had a few days to settle in, I'm sure I'll have more to report.
In the meantime, Merry Christmas!!!
Well, in just a few short days I will be celebrating aging. My birthday is just around the corner! And although I'm excited about all the plans I've arranged for myself, I can't help but remember that I'm approaching closer to 30...what an ominous number! :o)
But this is not the purpose of this post. I want to tell you about how God has been growing and maturing me in the last few weeks. It's been a painful process, but I can tell it's working.
There have been two main "fertilizers," if you will:
One has been a recent struggle with finances. Since my roommate moved out as I mentioned in an earlier post, life has been much more expensive. However, that has not been the most difficult part. What has taken a normal stress to the next level is the fact that there are now arguments about how to finalize the finances from when she did live her. There are a few outstanding bills and of course the deposit which is the main source of contention. Both girls are being stubborn and unreasonable in their own way, and I'm in the middle. I'm friends with them both and get along with them both--they do not get along that well. I'm trying to act wisely and find compromises, but it hasn't been easy. I've asked some friends I highly trust for help and advice, so I'm not completely alone, but I honestly feel that I'm in over my head at times. Normally in this situation I would remove myself and let my friends take care of their problem themselves after I realized that my help wasn't effective. However, I'm directly involved in this debacle because I pay too...It involves my money as much as anyone else. I'm praying for wisdom for me and reasonable-ness for them. We'll see where God takes this!
The other "fertilizer" has been a girl (or two) in my class who has severe attitude problems. She's very rebellious right now to pretty much all authority figures. (There are a couple of the young guy teachers she's ok with, but that's because they're more friends than authority.) So I'm forced to compensate and be strict with her. And she does not like it. She complains all the time, and I have to stop her. She has excuses for missing assignments, and I have to know when to punish her anyway. She's unhappy with me and the school in general, thinks we're unfair and unreasonable, and automatically assumes that we're out to make life more difficult for her and teenagers in general.
Basically with this behavior she's begging for me to be exactly what she thinks she hates: uber-strict! :o)
So in a way, it's been good for me. Handing out punishments and trying not to be too lenient has been one of my main weaknesses as a teacher. This girl is single-handedly helping me to fix that problem! God has given me a thorn in my side so I'll have tough skin, I suppose. :o) Pray that I can remain consistent with her and not let my anger and frustration get in the way. Pray that she sees that I love her and am actually acting in her best interest. Pray for her spiritual condition as well, as that's obviously the root of her problem. Ah, teenagers!
So, I suppose it's very fitting to call these growing processes "fertilizer." They're messy and stink everything up, but in the end they also accelerate growth!
Have you ever locked yourself out of your home or your car and had your keys right in your hand? It takes a special kind of talent to be able to do that. Well, apparently I'm special because that's exactly what happened to me today!
Let me explain.
I came home from school and spent about 2 hours cleaning (something that was sorely needed!), and by the time I was done I was starving. I was about to go upstairs to make dinner (well, reheat dinner, really...I cooked pasta yesterday and I have enough leftovers to last until the rapture), but first I had to take out the trash from my cleaning frenzy. Our trash receptacle is a little closet halfway down our hall, so usually I don't even bother closing my door all the way. Well, my roommate was gone, so I felt it was safer to take a set of keys with me, just to be safe.....
(I suppose I should take a break here to explain my door. There are three deadbolt locks on it, each one with its own key. There is no real door knob--I have to use a key to get in, even if they're not deadbolted. Then from the inside there's a chain and one of those slidey lock things that are most commonly found in bathroom stalls...You know the ones I'm talking about.)
So, I pulled out the slidey lock thing all the way so it would keep the door from shutting all the way. Good thing, too, because as I pulled my door mostly closed a gust of wind from inside slammed the door against its frame. But upon seeing that my plan worked and the door didn't completely close, I congratulated myself on my ingenuity as I walked down the hall with an armful of trash.
Thirty seconds later I was back at my door, and as I pushed it open, to my horror, I found that it wouldn't budge. I guess the gust of wind and semi-slam had jiggled the slidey lock partially into place! I was locked out! And my keys were cheerfully jingling in my hand! So I tried pushing several times at varying levels of strength. I tried shaking the door to move the slidey lock back out. Nothing worked!
What was I going to do! I had no cell phone, money, or metro pass. My roommate wouldn't be home for another 4 hours. Well, I walked outside looking for the caretaker. I found a custodian, and she told me the guy had left and wondered what I was looking for. So I tried to explain my situation. I found this very difficult, particularly in translating "slidey lock" especially seeing as how I couldn't even remember the word for lock. :o)
I eventually gave up and walked back to my apartment, praying hard and swallowing hard to press down the tears that were threatening to make me look even more stranded than I already did. I decided to try the door one more time. So I walked up, pushed and jiggled a couple of times, and then slammed my shoulder against the door with as much strength as I figured wouldn't break the door. And it popped open!! Yay!
Upon entering I laughed, talked to myself since there was no one else to say anything to, and fervently thanked God for getting me back inside. Then I made dinner, and it was yummy.
So the moral of this story is: Don't try to cheat the system. Just take the keys with you, shut the door like a normal person, and endure the hassle of having to unlock it a mere 30 seconds later. Otherwise you may end up looking like an idiot to some stranger in a strange land.
I think I need more sleep! Perhaps...
It's getting to be that point in the semester where a weekend just isn't enough time to rest and recuperate from the week. I was talking with some of my teacher friends about it today. I said that very same sentence to them, and they both groaned in agreement. One told me she wakes up as tired as when she went to bed. I groaned in agreement. The other told me about the emotional breakdown she had in class with one of her students who had tried her patience to the enth degree. I groaned in sympathy.
I always feel this way about a month before the semester ends. Just ready for a nice long break. And unfortunately, the last month of the semester is always the busiest! Here's a quick list of all the things to do before the semester is out: prepare the choir for the Thanksgiving program, then prepare the choir for the Christmas program, write finals and review sheets for all of my classes, help the students write and then grade research papers ranging from 4 to 12 pages in length, throw myself a birthday party (first time hosting Chileans all on my own. Yikes!), prepare food for the Thanksgiving Program, prepare food for Thanksgiving, go to a ladies' retreat at church, figure out the quarter grades, grade the finals, figure out the semester grades, and finish my Christmas shopping...Not to mention all the normal weekly work that goes in to teaching. Whew, I'm tired just writing about it!
So please pray for me and the other teachers. Pray we'll have the stamina to get through, the time to do everything well, and the patience to handle the rambunctiousness of the kids. Not only is it nearing the end of the semester, and nearing Christmas, but it's also getting to be summer time! The kids are crazier than usual! I mean, how do you solve a problem like teenagers? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? ...Many a thing you know you'd like to tell them. Many a thing they ought to understand. But how do you make them stay and listen to all you say? How do you keep a wave upon the sand? Oh, how do you solve a problem like teenagers? How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?....
For those of you not familiar with musicals, I'm sorry about that. For the rest of you....I'm still sorry. :o)
I told you I need more sleep!
I would seriously question the sanity of this person. :o)
Let me explain.
I've been happily living with my two Chilean roommates for several months. One I hardly ever see because she works many evenings, goes away for weekends, and spends time with her boyfriend on her few free nights. The other I see a lot around the apartment and we hang out together here. And we've become good friends in the process, obviously. Well, she told us Wednesday that she's going to be moving out. And through the course of conversation, as we discussed details, they decided that today would be a good day. Just 4 days later! That gave me no time to adjust emotionally!
Wednesday night she told us, and I went to bed shortly thereafter. Thursday I was busy teaching all day, then I went out with a friend for most of the afternoon/early evening. So I only had time to vaguely think about it throughout the day. But as I went home Thursday night, I had time to digest what was going on, and literally the second I walked inside my apartment I started crying! This is only the second time (that I can remember) that I have cried since I got here---not counting touching movies and sappy songs, of course!
I was able to squeeze some quality time in with her in the few days before she left, and I dropped her off at her new house today. It was sad to see her go. I felt like an overly attached mom leaving her only child at college! :o) I'm nervous that I'm going to be lonely now since my other roommate is rarely home. And as of now, we don't have anyone lined up to move in, so life will be more expensive for awhile. That's adding stress to sadness!
So, there are several obvious prayer requests that come from this post (and one hidden one)...
1. That I won't be lonely in my own home!
2. That we will be able to find someone (that we get along with) to move in soon!
3. That until then, we will be able to afford to live in our own home!
And now for the last and hidden prayer request....
I've been having a cockroach problem in my classroom (I told you it was hidden). Seriously, it's gross. They're about two inches long and look like they have a personal vendetta against me. The first one or two that I found, I thought, "Well, I'm serving God in a country where I can't just exterminate things at a whim--we don't have money growing on trees here. So I'll just grin and bear it and chalk it up to missionary work...." Well, when cockroach number four started scuttling towards me from the book I had just opened, I thought, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
And then I thought, "Something must be done. I can't work in these conditions!!"
So, that's my prayer request. That the cockroaches go away or DIE!
Ok, I know it's a little late in coming (a month late, to be exact!), but here's an little synopsis and some pics of the Independence Day celebrations from September.
First there was a shindig at church one Sunday. It involved food, traditional music, and the traditional dance, the Cueca. I had learned the basics of the dance, but when it came to actually doing, I chickened out!! Maybe next year. :o) We spent most of the day there, enjoying the shows, the food, and talking with each other.
That week was a full one at school (even though it only involved 2 1/2 days of classes!). We had room decorating on Monday to make the school look festive. Each class did it and it was a school wide competition. Then Tuesday they had a "Dress in Chile Colors" day, also involving a competition. They also rehearsed for the program they would be performing in the next day. Tuesday night we got our food ready for the next day. I'm "in charge" of the Junior class for right now, helping them raise money for the banquet next semester. We baked some Chilean food to sell. Then Wednesday was the program, a game time, and then lunch of all traditional Chilean foods....All yummy foods too!! Then school was out until Monday! After school that day, a few of us went to a Chilean fair that they have during September. There's a ton of food, craft stands, shows, music...all sorts of fun stuff!!
To see pictures of all these events (and a little more detail than what I just mentioned...even a couple of videos at the end), click HERE.
After that, I went on a trip for a couple of days with some friends of mine. We went about 5 hours north to a town called La Serena. We walked around, did some shopping at the artisan shops, walked along the beach, went to a HUGE fair, visited some Japanese gardens, and had a fun yet relaxing time. My favorite part, though, was the evening that us girls took a tour to the observatory. There are a few sections of Chile that are famous worldwide for their clear skies and star gazing potential. And there are several observatories scattered around this area. We went to one that was about an hour away from where we were staying and took a tour that was almost 2 hours long. It was SO AMAZING! I saw Saturn and the rings around it. I saw some shooting starts. I saw a star cluster. I saw several of the constellations. I saw the Milky Way and its two satellite galaxies. It was a gorgeous night and the sky was crowded with stars. It was so incredible, and I was glad for this, because this was the main reason I wanted to visit this town. And after so much waiting and effort, I was afraid of being disappointed. But I definitely wasn't!!
To see pics from the trip to La Serena (although none from the observatory, since it was nighttime), click HERE.
I hope you enjoy everything! I just took a trip back to Argentina to help a friend renew her passport. It was a pretty mellow weekend, and Amy and I were both sick with a cold (I even stayed home from school today), so I don't have too many pictures to show you. But maybe I can come up with some. I'll see what I can do. :o)
Until then....
Wow, the last several weeks have been packed full of things to tell you about! The only problem with doing lots of things to share about is that there's less time to actually write about it!!
We had our Independence Day celebration, and then I went on a short trip with some friends, and I have a lot to share about those events (including plenty of pictures!), but that'll be a project for another day. For now, I want to share with you how God has been stretching me lately.
It has been a very difficult couple of weeks for me...mainly because I have made myself very unpopular with certain groups of people. Let me break this down into three main events for you (I'll just give you the brief version).
1. Many of us teachers felt that the young guy teachers needed some help learning to be teachers and not students. We saw some things that worried us. One event even provoked me to speak with them directly. They pretty much blew me off, so I talked to the administration about it, knowing they had tried to talk with them too. So stories were passed around, details changed in the process, and things got a little ugly. The younger people involved didn't seem to understand the problem that the rest of us saw. They were upset with me (since they viewed me as the principle cause of the hullabaloo), and basically said they couldn't trust me anymore. This was very hurtful to me (although not unexpected) since I felt that I had done what was best for the students and for the other teachers. I assessed what I had done, and still didn't feel I had done anything incorrectly. Knowing that the other teachers felt the same way helps, even if I am the one to take the fall for it. Luckily, things seemed to have blown over. Unpopular event number one (the second followed hard on its heels).
2. A former student has returned to the school under some difficult circumstances. She was always talkative, but now it seems to be worse because she's grown very rebellious. Now that she's back, the whole class feels that they can talk, and I feel that I'm spending every 3 minutes reigning them back in. This is how my first semester of teaching was, and I didn't remember how miserable that was for me until the day this girl returned. It's nearly impossible to teach them now, and I've found myself feeling like I'm wasting my time and breath and that I'm not enjoying teaching at times. So I'm having to learn new things. I have to learn how to deal with this new attitude, how to be strict and firm with her even if that makes me her enemy. I tried to be kind and loving, but I gave her an inch and she took a light-year. So I can't take that route. Tough love it is, and this is not my forte. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on the view point), her attitude often makes tough love easy to hand out!
3. I caught some cheating on a homework assignment (involving the new girl, unfortunately), and unpopular event number two entered my life. I had to call the moms of the copier and copiee, and then I had to talk to each girl, give each 3 demerits and a zero on the homework assignment. Neither of them were happy, and my conversation with the new girl did not go well. It was heart breaking to see her so cold and defiant. She tried to excuse it, she complained at the way I was treating her, she tried to get me to see she was already in enough trouble. And in the end she told me she just doesn't care. I've taken enough psychology classes to see the defense mechanisms as the words flowed out of her lips, so I didn't take it personally. But it was difficult to do the tough love thing. I much prefer being the fun teacher! But sadly that is not what she needs from me.
So, all of this loveliness leads me to some prayer requests.
~ Pray for this girl. Pray that her heart would be softened and she would grow up some more. Pray that her defiance would melt away and she can be restored to healthy relationships with God and her parents.
~Pray that I would best know how to teach in the light of these new events....keeping the class under control, handling the new girl's attitude, keeping my patience and acting wisely.
~Pray that I would remain strong and not take the easy route. The verse "be not weary in well-doing..." has run through my head a lot this week. Pray that I learn what God is teaching me through this time.
~Pray that I still have the trust of my students and coworkers and that relationships I have built will not be destroyed.
~Most of all pray that God will be glorified in my life and the lives of all the students, because most of them are effected in some way by this new dynamic in school.
Thank you all for your prayers and support. I know God has me here for a reason, and I hope that each day I'm fulfilling His calling in my life. I feel very deeply for these kids that I teach, and I yearn to see God's fruit in each of them. I know that God can do abundantly more than I could ever hope or imagine!!
So, here's something new to share. This semester I've joined some of my coworkers at school in a ministry teaching English as a Second Language at their church. They've been asking me to do it every semester since I've been here, and I finally gave in. ;o) I didn't want to be over committed before, and honestly, I feel a bit over committed now that I have taken it on. It's every Wednesday evening, and after spending a full day teaching, the last thing I really want to do is spend another two hours teaching. It can be very draining. So the jury's still out on how long this ministry will last for me. I probably won't do it next semester, but for now, I'm warming up to it some more. (Plus, I'd like to be involved in a ministry in my own church, but I don't feel like I can take on another thing and still maintain my sanity!) :o)
Anyways....
The main reason why I'm stickng with it is because there is TREMENDOUS potential for evangelism in these classes. Only about half of our students are believers. None of mine are. I teach the advanced class, and I usually range between 1-3 students per class. My most faithful student, Cristina, has been coming every week, and quite often she is my only student. This is an excellent situation, because she's incredibly curious about the Bible. Each Wednesday there are 2 one-hour classes, and the pastor gives a devotional in between. She eats it up, but she says she doesn't understand it. So she asks me questions, and I try my best to answer in a way she'll understand. There have been plenty of opportunities to share the faith with her. The book we use to teach English is a Christian book that goes through the book of Mark, so each week we're actually studying the Bible. I've given her a tract in English to study at home and then we translated it together. Then I gave her the same one in Spanish to be able to read and understand more quickly. I've witnessed to her several times. However, despite all of that, there is still a gap of understanding. I'm not sure how much of it is a language barrier (I have to simplify my English for her to understand, and if I switched to Spanish, it would be just as simple) or how much of it is her still being in the dark, spiritually speaking.
If you could pray for Cristina, that would be great. I won't see her for class this week or next week (this week is national protests, so it's unsafe to be out much, and next week is Independence Day)., so pray that God will keep her curious and receptive during this time.
Ok, well, that's it for me for now. I'm looking forward to the festivities of the month, and I'm sure I'll have a lot to tell you in the next couple of weeks!
