Praises to God

I would like to take this opportunity to praise God for a few things!

Thing #1:
I bought gas today at 1.33€ per liter. That translates into about $6.82 per gallon and I am pretty sure that is the LOWEST price gas has been since I came here last year!

Thing #2:
One of the reasons that the above is possible is because the Dollar is doing better against the Euro. As of right now it is 1.35 dollars to 1 euro and that is the best the exchange rate has been since I came here last year!

Thing #3:
As most of you know, I was in a car accident here in June. God spared me in a big way. He also allowed me to continue to drive the next day (in a different car!) and go on with my life with almost no emotional effects. Well (delayed reaction) a couple of weeks ago I had a rough week where I had my first dreams about the accident and then continually dreamed (nightmares) for about a week. I asked a couple people to pray for me and praise God those went away. Thank the Lord that He answers prayer and that He is in control, even of our dreams.

Thing #4:
You have been praying for my classes, I can tell! Even though I have had to add an extra session with one of my students during the day, I have switched some things around and things are going a little more smoothly. Praise God for His wisdom daily in the classroom. Please please continue to pray for me there. I am realizing more and more that there are all sorts of pitfalls to teaching multiple grades that I don't even know about and that I need to avoid. Only God's guidance can help me there. With that being said, I am so happy to teach these 4 children and we are having a blast! I couldn't have asked for something better. :)

That's all for now. I hope this messages finds all of you happy in your lovely autumn weather, with your hayrides, pumpkin picking, apple cider and that great smell when you walk outside of leaves and fireplaces being used for the first time of the season. Oh, how I miss autumn! :)

I Need God's Smarts

So, teaching all those lessons is getting harder and I could use some of God's smarts. Please pray that I will somehow be able to teach these kids what they need to know without them hating school at the end, and without unnecessarily burdening their parents. Most of all, please pray that the Holy Spirit would be more prevelant in my life and attitude than ever.

A little something to chew on...

We talked about jealousy in my Bible lesson with the kids last week in the context of Cain and Abel. Okay, no big deal, but when I was looking ahead at our Bible test and trying to prepare the students for it, I saw that there is a question that says, "What is jealousy?" Well I thought that was funny cause in the curriculum, it never actually has you go over the definition of the word with the students. However, they do have a glossary in the back of their books, so I looked it up there and found a definition that surprised me, mainly because of the way I usually use the word.
It said-
"being afraid that you will be replaced by another, or that you will lose something"
To which of course I said... huh?
At first I thought that maybe this was just a definition skewed by the publisher of the curriculum in order to get it's own point across (quite skeptical of me, huh?) So I looked jealous up in Merriam Webster and this is their definition-
1 a: intolerant of rivalry or unfaithfulness b: disposed to suspect rivalry or unfaithfulness2: hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an advantage3: vigilant in guarding a possession

So... roughly paraphrased into the Tammy-Webster dictionary, this means-
Definition 1. I hold (or think I hold) a special friendship with Person X and then new Person Y comes along. X spends more time with Y than I think is necessary and I begin to become jealous of Y and angry at X. (Does this only happen with girls?) I used this example with the students last week, so at least I was right about THAT aspect of jealousy!

Definition 2. Emmanuel Pahud is the most amazing flutist I have ever heard and because he is so good I move from admiring his ability to wanting to hurt him. Or remove him from the picture entirely so that he can't be better than me... (Cain and Abel....) Fyi... I do not want to kill anyone......

Definition 3. I am vigilant in guarding my flute. I don't normally let other people handle it and I carry it with me on the plane as much as possible. I jealously guard it.

So as you can see, jealousy doesn't always have the connotation that we give to it. Such as the Phillies are in the post-season and I don't get to watch the games I AM SO JEALOUS RIGHT NOW of the people at home!!!

Nor does it mean that a certain person has an iPhone and another certain person is jealous of him. It does mean however, that certain person 1 may be jealous (vigilantly guard) with his own iPhone haha.

I'm sure by now you've started to apply this to those sometimes-confusing verses in Exodus and 2 Corinthians.

It seems maybe (as we always suspected but could never really figure out) that jealousy is not always a bad characteristic. In 2 Corinthians, Paul uses it to describe his feeling that he wants the Corinthians to "save themselves" for the true Christ. He is jealous for them when they give over their minds to a preaching of a Christ that is not true. That is certainly a godly form of jealousy? And of course the passage in Exodus, which comes up in Bible studies everywhere (God is a jealous God), really just means what it says- that God does not tolerate unfaithfulness. That is not wrong and there is in fact, nothing confusing about it. If indeed this is the correct definition of jealousy then of course God is a jealous God.

Jealousy can certainly be a bad thing, but this is an interesting example to me of how sin twists something that can be good into something bad.

Finally, it puts a smile on my face to think of God within the third definition- He vigilantly guards us.

Anyways, just something to think about!

A Gift

Ever been to Epcot Center and walked around all the different nations around the lake? I was there tonight... but I was at the real thing. I had a concert tonight with the band. I was told to be there at 9:00 p.m. Of course, this is late for a school night. Also, the concert was in Moita... a town I've never been to... and no one was giving me directions. They basically just told me it was at the town hall and they fully expected me to find it with only that information. If you don't know me very well, I will tell you, this is just the kind of situation that I love. Finding a place I've never been to, no one I know is there, people all around me speaking a different language... it was just the kind of adventure I am looking for. :) So, that being said, I did make it to Moita (thank you, Wikipedia) and I am just comfortable enough with Portuguese that I could ask someone where the Câmara Municipal is and understand what they tell me. Well, once I get there, I find that the town is crammed full of people and cars because this is the town's annual holiday celebration. It was a quaint town and it was decked out with lights and there was Portuguese music coming from speakers that seemed to be everywhere. It truly felt like Disney World but it a much more authentic way. :) I finally walk my way around enough to find the town square with a full blown stage set up with no one that I know in sight. There are, however, hundreds of other merry-makers at cafes, sitting on benches, carrying baloons, dancing to the music. All I know is that I'm in Moita, there's a town hall, a stage, and it's 9:00. I felt the odds of being right were in my favor, so I texted the director who told me the band was still at dinner. This I partially expected. So, I sat down and waited. Because I was in a band uniform, I was a magnet for questions. In Portuguese. That's right, at least 10 people walked up to me and asked me all manner of questions, including children. And the amazing thing? I understood every one of them and answered them! Woo hoo praise God!! It was so fun just to sit in that environment and watch people and try to talk to some of them for awhile. Eventually around 9:50 the band shows up (we are supposed to go on at 10) and I join them and meet some more people that I have always seen but never officially spoken with. Much of this was in English. :) Finally we start playing. It's a perfect night, a light and cool breeze, a full moon, and I'm on stage playing my flute. It was during that heavenly 45 minutes that it was confirmed in my heart for what seems like the millionth time that there is not an earthly pleasure that I love more than playing music for other people. The crowd was so entertained, they clapped and gave us thumbs up and it was impossible to wipe the smile off my face as I walked the long walk back to my car. God has so blessed me in the gift of being able to play flute here. He brought me to the town and enabled me to speak with people, all with such joy. I don't expect everything in life to be so carefree and happy, but tonight sure was great. Thanks God. :)
The only downside? I forgot my camera.... sorry folks. ;)

First Week Is Over

Well, the first week is over! I am absolutely exhausted and have a LOT of work to do tomorrow afternoon, and also a concert to play in, and of course church in the morning. So tomorrow will be a busy day. God has been so good to me this week. I am so blessed and so happy. And yes, I am tired, but I am so happy to be so tired. :)

I'll leave you with a picture of me with one of my 4th graders, Victoria. Tori for short. She has only been in Portugal for one year, but is adjusting well!

First Day!

The first day of school is complete!! I took some pictures before and after school so that you can see some of what I saw today. :) Praise God for His enabling me to get through a full day of subjects for all three grades! It was an exciting day for all and it's so good to be back teaching again!






This is my classroom!












This is Guimel, our new 11th grade librarian.








The high school hallway is decorated with flags representing the nationalities of all our students.













...and some educational quotes...













These are our two high school teachers, Nick and Craig.

Our Elementary students! Except Joao...

Sophomore, Thais.

Senior, Alison.










My class: Noah, Larissa, Sunny, Tori













This is Larissa, my 5th grader, with her parents after school.











These are the new Hamal cousins. Don't ask me to spell their names, I'd butcher them! They're from Nepal.










This is Maddie and Emma, future students! We figured it out today... they are the class of 2022. Yikes!



Well that wraps it up for the first day. Can't wait to go back tomorrow!! :)

Zero Hour and the Schwa

Well, I guess it's not quite zero hour yet, but close enough for me. I'm in bed, trying to get my last minute stuff done on my computer, thinking that I should post something to my blog in order to stall getting my other work done. However I don't know that you can call it stalling when the thing you're doing in procrastination is actually something else that's productive. So anyways, the Parent-Teacher Tea went very well, excepting that we had no tea, but that was planned. :) At one point in the evening I heard lots of noise coming from upstairs, where the elementary portion of the school is located, to find the elementary students sitting in Miss Flietstra's classroom "playing school." I thought that was somewhat funny.
I've been frying my brain out for the past 4 days trying to figure out how to teach 3 grades at once. I planned on it taking about 2.5 hours to do my lesson plans and it took me about 6 hours. I am learning new things that I didn't know before like there is such a vowel sound as "the schwa" and what in the world does biogeochemical mean?? 5th grade stuff is harder than 2nd grade stuff!! Please pray for me. I am hoping and praying that God will give me a more clear knowledge of how to do this in less time. That was just the lesson plans, on top of that each week, there is the gathering of materials, photocopying, and other such things that come with being a teacher. The reward for this past week's work, however, will come tomorrow when I get to teach them. I can't wait. :)
Here is a way that you can pray for me in my personal life this school year. I have set one solid personal goal for myself, and that is to be more disciplined. I had one thing in particular in mind when I set that goal, but then started to realize just how much else in my life needs to be more disciplined. I have listed 13 things that I think should be a regular daily or weekly part of my life that I am really quite bad at doing consistently. I am so much a happier and healthier person when I stick to habits and routines. I will still be random though- don't worry. :)
Well, I have the privilege of conducting our 8 a.m. Staff Devotions this week and I need to gather my thoughts for tomorrow morning before I can drift off to dreamland tonight.
I'm getting up at 6 a.m... that's right... discipline.