October 21, 2008

It seems like forever since I last gave an update. Things are going pretty well. We're getting more and more acclimated, and we're learning how to handle things better. Since I've been in the school for a few weeks now I'm starting to know the kids a little better. I normally spend most of my time with the girls ages 5-12 outside of school, but I have to teach grades 1-6. The way things are here, age does not have any correlation to grade. There are some older kids still in elementary school and some kids who by age are way advanced. Some days it is so difficult to gain or keep control of the class. They scream, move around, fight, etc. all the time. Today we had finals for half of the classes. So many kids were yelling out answers, right or wrong. Other kids refused to take the exam. Anyone who fails gets a retake, so those kids don't really get punished for refusing. Things like that make it frustrating to teach sometimes. It seems like I'm unable to keep things together. It just makes it that more important to rely on God to handle things. Even when I think things are not going smoothly, He shows me that everything is fine. For example, the other volunteer & I didn't think the kids learned much, but many of them did know a lot of the information we taught. Sometimes you could clearly tell they made things up, but other times you could see the effort they put forth. That makes things worthwhile.

Reflectional Day

Today as I was walking to morning circle (devotional) I was thinking about how far in advance did God begin to plan this experience. I thought about when my mother took the family abroad to Italy when I was in ninth grade, that experience made me want to go overseas so much to see different styles of life. I thought about that day during a summer afternoon when God placed in my heart to someday work at an orphanage. At the time I thought it was a random thought but immediately did some research and with HIS hand working through the internet, I found this orphanage in Honduras. Honduras, never being part of my vocabulary nor geography, but was part of God's plan for my life. This story continues but I think the point has been made.

One will never know the entirety of God's plan for their life. We can only trust the flow of the river (Holy Spirit). God's hands performs whatever his mouth speaks (Isaiah 55:11) and we can stand confident that He will be faithful to his word despite the opinions of others (Romans 3:3-4). 

 

I am learning to just take His word for His word, not waiting for the situation to align itself but because He spoke it. I guess I am just having a Jeremiah moment when he said that he ate the word of God and it was his joy (Jeremiah 15:16).

I continue to speak blessing in your life and I urge you to join us in enjoying the word of God.