Teachers’ Day 2017

This is my 3rd year celebrating Teachers Day. This is a day full of thanksgiving for teachers. Parents give lots and lots of flowers and students give some of the cutest cards. You definitely leave school feeling appreciated and loving your job. Students write cards asking you to be their teacher again next year and students from previous years expressing their love for you and how much they miss you as their teachers. Basically you feel LOVED!

This year, I am part of the event planning team. I am also the leader of events. So I was in charge of Teachers Day, which we combined with Thanksgiving. So we started the day with an assembly. At the assembly our principal shared about Teachers Day and Thanksgiving. And then we watched a video made by one of our talented teachers : https://youtu.be/e2LJ9RsgjPc. We ended the assembly with parents giving teachers flowers and students giving teachers more flowers. Basically you can never have enough flowers on Teachers Day :).

In the afternoon, we had a staff vs students volleyball game! I had brought back fabric balloon covers and we played balloon volleyball. It was chaos! But controlled chaos! Our students and teachers had so much fun! I love this part of the event, when students and teachers have fun playing together! It was so much fun to referee the games. The students had so much fun, they were asking to play again and again. I kept score but in the end the points didn’t matter, just the fun that was had!

By the end of the day I was exhausted. I was tired after the assembly in the morning, but after the games I was exhausted. Barely able to stay awake for the staff meeting after school. LOL. I am so thankful for such a great school, full of extraordinary students and outstanding teachers. Thank you Lord for this blessing in life!

The students’ cheering section (well part of it!) 

Back to School

Tomorrow is the first day of school! These past two weeks have been crazy busy! I think I got off the plane and was at work within 36 hours! I guess it's a good thing to hit the ground running, but sometimes you don't know which way is up.

It has been so amazing to meet the whole team. It is amazing to see how much God has grown the team in 2 years. We are starting this year with 19 foreign teachers! Can you believe we had 3 to start our first year! We have grown so much! We have some amazing people that have joined the team. I am so excited to see what God has in store for us this year.

We spent the past two weeks doing some team building and school orientation. Which is basically like a fire hose of information hoping that something sticks. But it also means a lot of questions! I am so glad I get to help everyone learn the DNA of our school and see them begin to  start relationships with the local staff.

One major praise report... one of our staff members received Jesus into her heart this week! Praise the Lord! She is the first fruit of the school and I am so excited to be a part of what God has for this year and all the souls that will know Him!

School starts in less than 12 hours... please be praying for the first day: that students will feel welcomed, staff and students will have a great day, and that the light of Jesus shines through the foreign staff. Jesus is the reason we are here! Pray for the nation!

Happy 1st day of school!

photo scavenger hunt. Using our bodies to spell.  

the whole team out to lunch to celebrate a birthday.  

Stomach bug... or worms

So the most of the team has been sick these past couple of months. It has sent a lot of teachers home early for stomach pains and or vomiting (sorry if too much). We are all confused as to why.  

My friend's husband got really sick with an amoeba and then found out that he also had worms and a bacteria. He has been sick for two months. We are all praying we don't have what he had. Everyday we would compare symptoms. Are the pains like needles? Just uncomfortable? Someone squeezing your insides? Everyday it was a different kind of pain. None of us has the same pain at the same time. 

We talked to a couple of friends that are nurses and they mentioned taking the deworming pills just to be safe. We all have symptoms of worms. Great! So we took one pill and nothing happened. Stomachs still hurt nothing new, just exhaustion. Then my roommate decided to go to the doctor. 

The doctor did some tests. He found that she didn't have an amoeba or a parasite. So what could it possibly be? Then we talked to our other friend who's family had worms. She said you have to take the medicine 3 times (on days 1, 2, and 10). Oh! Ok! That is where we messed up. Supposedly if you only take one you are taking precautions again worms but it does nothing if you already have worms.  

So we took the worm medicine on day 1 and 2. Wow! Such a difference. Still a little bit of discomfort every now and then but nothing like before. So I think we figured it out and of course our prayers are being answered. I am feeling better and I am continuing to pray that the whole team gets back to 100%.  

Day 10 is April 5. So we will take another pill then, and pray that we will be worm free and my stomach problems will be gone! :).  

What an experience! Life in Asia!