Faith, Hope, Love, Living and Laughter

Please see the following picture in reference to the title of this entry. In the picture you will find pods with those words on them. The pods are found down by the river here in town and were a gift from one of my students. I took it upon myself to spruce them up a little bit as they are sort of boring on their own. I love the fact that I was given pods as my first teacher gift...it's sort of amusing.Faith: God called me here to grow in my faith and relationship with Him.

Hope: God is teaching me hope for what is to come and trust him.

Love: I am here to love my students and the other teachers.

Laugh: Well when you have 13 students...life can become pretty comical. For instance our Bible verse quiz this morning. Because we had 2 verses this week I made a written quiz and provided a word bank of the missing words; all the students had to do was fill in the right word in the right blank. No problem...if you had studied. Those who did not study provided me with some interesting renditions of Psalm 95:1-2. Which should go as follows "Come let us sing to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our Salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song."
Here are some of the responses I recieved...
verse 1: Come, Let us shout for joy to the Lord; let us Rock aloud to the Lord.
verse 2: Let us come before him with thanksgiving and Rock him with music and song.
verse 2: Let us come before him with Rock and thank him with music and song.
My Bible verse sounds more like rock concert when you put it that way. Although we should be that excited to praise God.

Live: I am here to live in community with my students and their families...not something so heard of in the states. This week I was invited to go to one of my students homes for dinner. Carla is a twin; her tiwn's name is also Carla. Confusing yes, but not entirely uncommon. Anyways, I went to dinner with Christy one of the first grade teachers who taught Carla Camille in first and second grade. It was so good to see their house and spend time with their family. I met their great grandma, their uncle, and their cousin. They are scholarship students so they literally come from very little. Their house is small but they are some of the happiest students I know. Last night our house "watched" the Jovian eclipse from our rooftop. God parted the clouds for the first half of it, but was more important was the fellowship and laughter that was shared on the roof.

I am so excited that I finally am having fun things to share! Please continue praying for my class. I have one student who hates coming to school because his classmates and it's making him sick. And I also have another student who acts as if he is under the devil's control. Please pray for me and the other teachers who deal with him. We need serious guidance so that we know how to interact with him when is is struggling.