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!) 

New Opportunities for Growth

This has definitely been a school year of growth. The school has more than doubled (again), the English team is almost 3 times the size of last year, and God is growing me in my abilities. This has been a crazy start of the school year, but no where near as crazy as last year, Thank the Lord!

This year I began as Lead Teacher of the Middle School. I was nervous about the position all summer, as I didn't really know what to expect or if I would be able to do it well. But as the year started, I am so thankful for the leadership team that God has assembled at school. I am blessed everyday to work alongside these amazing people. 

As I embarked on this new journey in administration and teaching, I learned to trust God. I am so thankful, Aimee, made me watch The Shack this summer. God constantly reminds me of things and references the movie. Right now, I constantly think about the scene in the garden. All the plants and weeds look like a mess and it is hard to see the beauty, but the camera zooms out to the aerial view and its a beautiful creation. I am constantly reminded that I don't have God's view of the situation and that I have to trust him. Although what I see is a mess, God works everything out and it is more beautiful that I could ever imagine!

So one thing that God is working out is my role at school. As lead teacher I am involved in helping the teachers of middle school get acclimated and used to our school. But as I have gotten involved in administration I have ended up doing more work with the day to day running of the school. So recently I was offered the opportunity to help fill a void in the administration. I will be working with the owner of the school, making daily operation decisions to help make the school environment better for our teachers and students. It is a big role! And I am definitely nervous. But I am so thankful for the Lord, who is with me every step of the way. And shows me that it is not by my strength, but by His. I would not be able to do the things I am doing without Him. He is the one that gave me the eye for detail and the voice to speak with authority. 

I am anxious about this new journey God has me on. But I am excited at the same time! This will open many doors, and one of the doors is the opportunity to pursue my MASTERS! I am currently applying to 2 graduate programs and will prayfully start classes in January. 

Please pray for me as I begin this new role at school and as I pursue my Masters Degree. I am planning on getting my Masters in educational administration. 

*If you feel led to support me financially in this journey please click the button below.

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.