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!) 

My First Asian Wedding

​Today I went to my first wedding here in Southeast Asia. One of our coworkers came back from the holiday and told us she was getting married this Sunday. We were shocked that it was so soon, but that was the date the fortune teller said was a good day to get married.

So today our staff met at school at 7:30am to take a school van to the wedding. It was an hour and a half drive away. On the drive we played truth or dare. I learned that our staff loves to sing, they are ruthless with dares, and they ask some really personal question. It was a hard game to play with them. LOL. I was scared of the questions they would ask for truth and the dares they would choose, but I ended up sticking with truth. My questions all had to deal with my (nonexistent) love life. They are very interested in knowing how many people I have dated and if there is a special someone back home.

The wedding began at 9am with a "party" at the bride's family home. We were fed "lunch" at 9am and had a drink with the family. At 10:30 we went to a Karaoke place down the street to wait till the groom comes to take the bride to his family's house.

I finally got to do Karaoke in Southeast Asia. It's not really like the states where you sing in front of everyone on a stage. Here you rent a room and you just sing with your friends. It was a lot of fun. I only wish there was more English song options :). At 12 we headed back to the bride's house to wait for the groom.

The groom came at 1:30pm. The bride and groom go to the family's alter to pray to the ancestors. Then they go to each guest to thank them for coming. At 2:30 we were supposed to all caravan to the groom's house. This signifies the bride leaving her family and joining the groom's family. Our group however bailed out and decided to head back home.

On the car ride many people fell asleep. My co-homeroom teacher and I practiced some English and she helped me with my language learning. I also braided her hair (which is difficult to do on a moving bus). I really enjoyed spending time with my coworkers. I really love them. I pray God continues to build these relationships and plant a seed to be watered and cultivated into a relationship with Him!

An Unordinary Saturday

The 5th of September is National School Day.  

Our day began at 7am on this Saturday (meaning no sleeping in!). We had to be at school to help set everything up for the festivities that were to begin at 8am. The dress was formal attire and the weather was hot and humid. So I found the nicest dress I brought that was also light because I knew too much fabric would me even more sweat! I thought I would try to wear my hair down as well, but I didn't even make it 30 minutes. It was just too hot!!! 

We walked to school and when we got there it looked completely different than when we left Friday night.  Everyone was in the yard putting covers on chair with red satin bows. We jumped right in to help. My goodness who knew you would work up such a sweat putting on seat covers? All the staff was helping with this in their transitional dress. They all looked so pretty (the staff and the chairs LOL). 

National School Day setup.  

After finishing the chairs I went inside to find some air! I made the mistake of not drinking any water so I got hot super fast and I was just praying I would make it through the program without passing out! At 8am the students lined up to go outside and sit in the yellow lunch chairs according to class. And then the program began.  

David and Ngan were our MCs for the event. They introduced each performance by Sakura Montessori and then by Gateway. The kindergarteners were so cute and I really enjoyed watching my 2nd graders do the YMCA (with a few different moves). The performances ended at 10am and were followed by pictures. After pictures (around 10:30am) we were allowed to go home! 

Performances by all the kids. Top left is 2nd grade and top right is 1st grade!  Sakura had the best costumes!!!

​We made our exit quickly because we wanted to get a rest in before going back to school for a game day with the young adults. At 2pm the HIF young adults were meeting at our school for a game day! I was really excited about having our Christian group at the school being a bright light for Jesus. There is so much heaviness and darkness (lots of oppression) at the school I knew we would be met with some opposition.

The communication was dropped and the security guard was left out of the loop. The Board of Managers (head honchos) gave us permission to use the school for these 2 hours and Valyn let the lady in charge of security know that we had permission to be there and use the facilities. However she didn't tell the guard and he was very upset that we kept coming into the building and using the air conditioner and the fan. He'd keep coming back every 30 minutes to turn off the fan or the air con. And he would yell at some of the young adults. They later came and told me he was being very rude. I'm sad this happened but I know it could have been much worse!

The game time was awesome! We played some ice breaker games and some games that maybe one day we could implement in the classroom. Then we played volleyball with a balloon ball. I don't know any way to describe it other than that and mention that it was a ball that had a balloon inside it. This just made it so it didn't hurt when you got hit by it (I got hit in the face twice!). 

The top is a yoko circle where every other leans back with the other lean forward. Pretty cool! And the bottom is our sit down volleyball game! Such a fun time!!! 

We split into teams and played on game of volleyball sitting down. This is a lot harder than you think! But it was a lot of fun! My team won the sitting down game. Then we decided to expand our court and play standing up. This should be easier except we (I) kept forgetting that we had to hit it at least twice before sending it over. We got close but in the end we lost. :(. But I had so much fun! It makes me miss playing volleyball. Hopefully one day Gateway has the option for a volleyball team! 

Such an awesome group of people! I absolutely love spending time with these young adults! God has bless me with great friends here! 

After the game time I went to the pastor's apartment to talk with his wife and Lydia about the Women's FB page. Lydia and I are in charge of the FB page and we wanted to figure out what all we needed and wanted to have on the page. We walked back to their apartment and on the way I was hit by a motorbike. Yes you read that correctly. However it wasn't bad. The guy's handlebar nicked my side. The guy lost control of his bike and slide on the ground. My fear of walking on the street was realized today. He was staring for too long and not paying attention to how close he was too me. :(. I'm just thankful I only have a bruise!

At the pastor's house I iced my side and talked to the girls about what we wanted to use the FB page for and how we wanted it to look. We spent about 3 hours talking about the FB page and how to keep it effective for the women here. We also squeezed in time to eat pizza :). By 9pm we had a Facebook page and we were heading home.  

Such a long day but a great day! God is providing so many opportunities to get involved. I love meeting people who have a heart for this nation and talking about our plans to reach the people even if it is just teaching English. There is a purpose for why we are here and God is revealing more and more everyday! 

Blessings until next time!